I’m very, very happy with American Gigolo because it was the first piece I did where I felt I had enough freedom to do almost arbitrary things. Things that would not be distracting but would flow into the whole feeling of the film. I’m very happy with Honky Tonk Freeway. Structurally, it was the most complex film I’ve ever worked on. It was really like fitting together the parts of a puzzle. Every day it was fascinating to me to watch how Schlesinger was going to pull it off. It was a very ambitious undertaking. I am amazed, given the density and complexity of the film logisticially and character wise, just how much of it did come together.
Honky Tonk Freeway looked like it had an incredible amount of logistics involved.
Just moving the equipment from one place in the country to another was difficult. There were a tremendous number of car mount scenes and they are infuriating because it’s so hard to get the camera exactly where you want it. It’s hard to shoot from one vehicle to another and to coordinate the movement of the vehicles. It’s very difficult to shoot moving cars at night and not make the lighting look artificial. We had a couple of involved rain sequences at night which were difficult. It’s hard to create the illusion of rain and depth with moving cars on the freeway. After you have the lighting roughed in then you have to light the rain as a separate element. It’s the first complex rain sequence I’ve ever done. Schlesinger was totally uncompromising. He’s used to creating depth in his pictures; usually as far back as you can see in the frame, there’s something happening. That’s the way he wants it and rightly so. It was a real challenge for me to work in depth the way he wanted.
On Honky Tonk Freeway was there a lot of second-unit work? I’ve always wondered on a logistical film like that how much work you do and how much does the second unit pick up?
There was more second unit work on that film than anything I’ve ever done.
In your experience, what kind of work is relegated to the second unit?
Almost anything that does not involve dialogue and principal actors could be considered second-unit work. Certainly stunts could be considered second-unit although the crash that ends the film was all done as first-unit. Also explosions, inserts and basically non-people kind of things are second-unit. Any time you’re dealing with one of the principal characters, even if they’re not speaking, I consider to be first-unit work.
Do you have any control over how the second unit turns out its footage?
Absolutely. I try to have the second-unit people see dailies with me as much as possible so that they understand where their footage fits in and what style I’m going with. I have a close dialogue with them regarding lenses, filtration and angles. If it involves lighting, a lot of times I will send the best boy or one of the prinicipal electricians from the first unit to supervise the lighting of the second unit.
Harsh sunlight dominates the scenes in Honky Tonk Freeway. You were really going for that look.
That was the whole point. There was a sequence where all the vehicles crossed the bridge into Florida; it was a series of helicopter shots where they all come together. We wanted a very sharp-edged light, almost etched. The bridge that we picked was essentially an unfinished bridge. There were no side railings, no lines painted, no detailing of it at all. It was just this band of concrete over the water. It was the white concrete, the dark water and this tremendous pure blue sky; it was a very primary look that we were going for. It contrasted with the other locations.
You probably shot most of the scenes during the heat of the day, between ten and two?
We sure did. A lot of times, cameramen will want early morning and late afternoon light. I wanted midday light. I wanted it straight down, hard and hot.
Did you have any problem with harsh shadows? That kind of light tends to look ugly if you don’t know how to deal with it.
We had tremendous problems. I used a tremendous amount of fill light. I used arcs like I’ve never used arcs before. I like to go very soft with arcs, like through tracing paper. But there were times that I had to put them right behind the camera, pump them in and burn the actors up. I hated to do it.
But there’s no other way.
There’s no other way. If the background isn’t important, you can open up and expose for the highlight a little bit and burn out the background. But John and I wanted a very clean, dense background. John understood what it took to accomplish that. A lesser director would have given me a lot of problems with that. But John knew how it had to be. I’m always very apologetic to the actors when I do that because some of them have very sensitive eyes. It’s not like the old days when if you wanted to be an actor, you learned to put up with it or otherwise your career was shelved. Today, actors tend to be very intolerant of the technical problems sometimes. But I find that if you explain the problem to them in advance, most of them are more cooperative.
How do you choose your projects now? You’re in between films and you’re reading a lot of scripts. What are the determinants?
First of all, it’s the script. The more experience I get the more I see that a problematic or mediocre script in the hands of a brilliant director is still going to have problems. A brilliant script in the hands of an okay director can still be a very good film. I’m coming to have more and more respect for what that script is and whether it can be successfully wrought or not. And if it isn’t, what chances it has of being pulled together before you start shooting. Sometimes I’ll read a script that I’m very attracted to but it seems to have problems so I have to take a calculated guess whether those problems will be straightened out before we start shooting. Because the other thing I’m absolutely convinced of is that a script that is not whipped into shape by the time you start shooting is never going to be right. The problems of shooting are so overwhelming and so all-consuming that script problems never get worked out while you’re making the movie. So ideally, I try to find a script that is already all there; a script that works. Then if the director is somebody that I feel also understands the material and is someone who I can respect and get along with, it’s a very easy decision to make. It’s also very easy to dismiss bad scripts that are going to be done by bad directors or directors that I consider to be problematic.
What makes a cameraman worth what he’s paid?
Well, a cameraman takes a lot of heat. The cameraman is really the focus of most of what happens when you’re on the set shooting. The director can insulate himself with the actors; in fact a lot of times, the director is expected to be above it all and somewhat aloof. There are a lot of directors who insulate themselves from the technical problems of filmmaking. But the cameraman is there on the set. He’s got to keep his crew happy. He’s got to effectively coordinate all the shot-to-shot elements of getting the work done with every department. He’s got to be in touch with the production elements—the assistant director, the production manager—in terms of what’s happening tomorrow and the day after. He’s got a tremendous responsibility to the producer and the studio to make the film consistent on a day-to-day basis and deliver it with the kind of professional gloss that’s expected. Today there’re so many first-time directors coming from all different areas and they really don’t understand the elements of filmmaking. Finally, it’s the director of photography who is expected to carry the ball.
So what you’re saying is that the director of photography really has an incredible responsibility all the way around.
Absolutely. I think it’s important to detail why the cameramen get the kind of money they do. If things are not working, he’s the first guy to get axed. In other words, if the picture is in trouble, they’re going to fire the cameraman before they fire the director. You know, the way to scare the shit out of a director is to fire the cameraman. It serves as a warning to the director. That
