Page 8 - Fujifilm Exposure_30 Archangel_ok

ERIC GAUTIER AFC
“The way I photograph a film - working with the direction of the light and the way it falls on the subject - is like playing a piece of music, with its rhythm and tempo, its shades and tones.”
continued from previous page
“I am always looking for something original or trying to invent something new in the film” he adds.
Born in 1961, Gautier grew up in Paris loving music more than anything. He played (and plays) the piano and organ, and later joined a jazz trio. He loved to draw and take photos, and was interested in many subjects including literature, philosophy, and even mathematics.
Deciding that musicians were too self-absorbed and their lives a little too introverted, he attended Paris’s prestigious Louis Lumière film school and then joined the film world. He worked as a trainee on an Alain Resnais film and not long after that, in 1991, photographed La Vie des Morts for Arnaud Desplechin.
Gautier remembers being greatly affected by One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest when he was young. The cameramen who would later influence him most were Sven Nykvist, Nestor Almendros, and Gordon Willis.
He quotes Nykvist’s remarks that his (Nykvist’s) best lighting was on his early films in Sweden where he only had very little or nothing to work with ... and when he worked on bigger budget films and had lots of lighting equipment, the end result wasn’t nec- essarily that good.
He says he has been greatly influ- enced and inspired by Raoul Coutard because his way of working was so effortless, so free from restraints and so inventive. During shoots, Gautier explains, Coutard would create solutions as he went along, all the time adapting to changing locations and conditions.
“Using his great imagination, Coutard found quick solutions, always original and somehow spontaneous. That’s why those films are so rich and fresh, full of vitality and energy ... and not just the ones with Godard.”
“For me, even though it’s far more challenging, to use only a small amount
of light or to work with only one source means the result is always far superior. I like to work fast: that’s the way I am.
I could never work for hours and hours, meticulously pulling apart every detail. I like to keep up the energy to keep things moving. I find time restraints are a blessing in disguise
because they force me to work quickly. The pressure of having to stop at some point is good – otherwise I’d ruin it.”
Gautier is presently grading Gabrielle, a film that he shot last sum- mer for Patrice Chéreau, with whom, like Assayas and Desplechin, he has worked four times.
6 • Exposure • Fuji Motion Picture And Professional Video