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Photo main: DP Denis Rouden AFC;
left and above: on location in Paris with Burma Conspiracy
“I’M A BIG FAN OF FILM. WHETHER FOR SHARPNESS, SKIN TEXTURE OR CONTRAST, I THINK FILM
IS UNRIVALLED.”
them at once. Years ago, I wondered how you could get more flexibility into a production. I fought with companies to obtain, among other things, two cameras to shoot with. I’m a real fan of this method now. Some would say it’s more difficult for lighting but I work at providing an overall lighting ‘look’; the light in one particular moment doesn’t worry me too much. And the second camera can sometimes bring some great surprises too.
How did your relationship with director Olivier Marchal on the 2008 thriller MR 73 combine to create such a striking and unusual movie?
Olivier and I have a lot of common references in cinema. We talked about Michael Mann’s Heat for example, as Olivier wanted to make a movie with that kind of atmosphere. Our first work together was 36 quai des orfèvres, but MR 73 was a far more personal movie for him. He really knew the central character well, and he was not looking for a classical narrative with this film. I suggested to Olivier we do a bleach bypass in the lab, to give a downbeat tone to the film. It creates a mood you don’t get in post-production today. I suggested we use this method for a key moment in the story, but he liked it so much he wanted to use it for the whole movie, even the outside daylight shots. I could not have done MR 73 in a vacuum, because I need the director to back me up in getting such radical choices accepted by the producers.
Where do you stand on the choice between film and digital?
I’m a big fan of film. Whether for sharpness, skin texture or contrast, I think film is unrivalled. I like anamorphic, and I prefer Cinemascope. I love this format.
I love its texture, its depth of field, this big negative, which is great when it’s blown up for the big screen. Stock manufacturers have made huge efforts to keep up, which has resulted in film having a tremendous amount of flexibility. And digital post-production offers even more possibilities to the modern cinematographer.
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