The Hollywood Reporter's Patrick Brzeski sat down with Director of Photography Ed Lachman to discuss 'Maria' in a THR Q&A powered by Vision Media.
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00:00Welcome to The Hollywood Reporter Presents.
00:08I'm here with Ed Lachman, the truly legendary cinematographer behind Pablo Lorraine's Maria,
00:15which stars Angelina Jolie as the great 20th century opera diva Maria Callas.
00:20Thank you for being with us, Ed.
00:24To start, could you take us back to the beginning of the project?
00:27You and Pablo had collaborated previously on the beautiful and devious film El Conde,
00:33which earned you an Oscar nomination last year.
00:38What were your first creative conversations with Pablo like for this film?
00:42How did you get started together?
00:44Well, creative.
00:47He called me and said he got financing to do the Maria Callas, which has been his pet
00:56project for years, that he wanted to do this, because he's a great affectionato about opera
01:03and music, and he always said that if he wasn't a filmmaker, he would have been a musician,
01:09but he wasn't a successful musician, so he ended up being a filmmaker.
01:16So originally, I didn't think actually I was going to work on it.
01:21I knew he was going to shoot it in Europe, and there are so many fine cinematographers
01:28in Europe, and he's worked with many wonderful cinematographers, and generally on different
01:36projects, but he called me and said that he really wanted to work with me on this.
01:43I greatly welcomed the opportunity to work with Pablo again, but I had to immerse myself
01:50in the project very quickly, so I knew we were going to shoot primarily in Budapest
01:57for Paris, and we did shoot a week in Paris, and then also on Onassis' yacht in Greece.
02:06So when I got to Budapest, I had about a month of prep, but he had already been laying everything
02:15out with a production designer guy, and so I just immersed myself in all the visual references
02:27that they have already accumulated.
02:31The interesting thing about Maria Callas is there was a wealth of documentation.
02:39She had been photographed in documentaries, her personal help Ferruccio that you see in
02:51the film, her butler, and even Onassis shot home movies or Super 8.
03:00So that was an element in the film, and that element was where she was less controlled
03:07of what her image was, and she was photographed by the great fashion photographers and portrait
03:15photographers of the time, Cecil Beaton, Richard Avedon, and Irving Penn.
03:21So that was an element, and then the element of her past was shot in 35mm black and white,
03:30which again referenced the time period that she lived in, and so why not photograph it
03:38in the way you would have seen images that time.
03:42So it would have been black and white.
03:45And then the 60s and the 70s was in color, 35mm color, and then the projection of her
03:53mind is shot in Super 16, well, no, 16.
03:58The projection of her mind where you see the documentary film crew is shot in 16mm,
04:06and I just happened to have ATON, LTR, I had two of them because that's where I started
04:12out in the 70s shooting with my 16mm cameras, and I still had them.
04:20So those were all the different elements that created the tapestry, the texture for her
04:25world.
04:27I always say the hardest thing about film, in literature and writing, you can enter the
04:34interior world of the character in a sentence, but it's more complicated to show where you
04:42are, more description about where you are.
04:45In film, in images, it's just the opposite.
04:50In film, you can show place, where you are, but it's harder to show what the interior
04:56world is, unless you do voiceover.
05:00And so I felt these different textures would allow us to enter how she was thinking by
05:07what you're seeing that expresses her being, in a way.
05:14And the other aspect that was integral to thinking about how the film would be portrayed
05:21about her as this foremost opera singer was how it was a heightened reality.
05:29She lived in a heightened reality, on the stage and off the stage, and she even said
05:34herself, the stage is my mind and the opera is my soul.
05:40So she lived in opera.
05:42So it was a way I thought about, with Pablo, how we could put the audience in the auditorium,
05:54the theater, of how you would see an opera.
05:59And so there were two factors in how you would express for a viewer in a film to feel like
06:10you were partaking in an opera.
06:14And the two aspects of that was, for me, the way the camera saw her.
06:19So the camera has this observational and reflective part, where it's kind of a moving camera,
06:26generally in wider lenses, in everything from a 24 to a 28, which is like a moving proscenium.
06:35It's a moving stage, in a way, which in a performance, and the audience would see an
06:43opera, they're seeing a wide shot.
06:46They're seeing the proscenium and the stage in a wide shot.
06:50And the other aspect is that it's not representational.
06:57Operas aren't seen as representational imagery, it's seen as a heightened reality, I like
07:04to think of it, expressionistic, mannered.
07:10And so then the color palette of the world that we see her in, in her apartment, in the
07:21streets, I wanted to heighten that reality.
07:26So we feel that there's an artifice to the world that she's living in, because that's
07:32the way she sees herself in that world.
07:38You're famously known as a quite subtle master of color, the way you use color to sort of
07:45nudge psychological states of the viewer.
07:47Could you talk a bit about that?
07:49There's some-
07:50Yeah, my background is, I studied art history and painting.
07:53I was going to be a painter one time, then I realized it was easier to pick up a camera
07:58and create images, tell a story, than be in an isolated room.
08:04And the other thing is, I love the aspect of, the collective aspect of making images
08:09with a group of people.
08:13So I've always thought of color as a psychological element, rather than just a decorative element.
08:23And painters have always known this.
08:26Back from Goethe, in 1810, wrote a book called Interpretation of Color.
08:37And up to the 60s, Joseph Albers wrote a book, Interaction of Color.
08:43So painters have always understood how color affects the viewer.
08:50And so I always like to play with a two-palette color, which one's receding and one's advancing.
09:00So warm colors would advance, and cool colors would recede.
09:05And they can give you contrast, in the way in black and white shadows and highlights
09:12can give you contrast.
09:14So let's say, in her apartment, for me that was a refuge, her nest, and there's a kind
09:25of a warmth in her apartment.
09:29But it's invaded by the exterior light, by cooler light, and I also used green, because
09:38I imagined when I was living in Paris in the 70s, I remembered how green affected me, because
09:48I was near a neon sign where I was staying, and I would see green invade the light.
09:57And generally people think green is not a complementary color for the flesh tone.
10:04And so I thought that would be a nice way to show some conflict in her feelings.
10:14And so I played green and cool color against the warm colors.
10:20That's fascinating.
10:21I already want to watch the film again.
10:25The film also features some really stunning locations, theaters and historical buildings
10:31in Budapest, and of course, La Scala, the great opera house in Milan.
10:36Can you tell us about what it was like to work in those spaces?
10:40Well we were very lucky, Budapest has a wealth of wonderful theaters that could replace theaters
10:52in Paris, and the architecture is 19th century.
10:59But it was very important for Pablo to shoot in La Scala, because it was so essential for
11:07her at different points in her life, and that's the mecca for opera is La Scala.
11:18But it was very difficult to get permission, and it was very costly to shoot there.
11:25So we were able to work out four hours, and that four hours meant coming in with a crew.
11:34It wasn't four hours of shooting.
11:36So I implemented a way of doing it where I worked with the lighting crew and the lighting
11:43director of La Scala for the stage, because I knew they knew their setup better than anybody.
11:52And then I used my film crew to light the rest of the area, where the seats were, and
11:59the balcony, and the auditorium, and it worked out.
12:04I could go in and they'd run through before what they could do, and I picked and choose
12:11what we needed, and I brought in the one element I did do, is I brought in a bigger spot, HMI
12:21because of the long throw in that theater.
12:24I was afraid theirs wouldn't be strong enough.
12:30And you've talked a lot before about how some directors are very visual and others really
12:35just aren't, and the cinematographer has to adapt to each scenario.
12:40What's Pablo like, and how would you describe your process together?
12:44Pablo's highly visual.
12:48I often question, was he a photographer before, because he really understood.
12:57He understands photography not just from an aesthetic point of view, but he understands
13:02it from a technical viewpoint.
13:05So I like that.
13:10I like to work off of somebody that already has visual ideas, because then they get more
13:17realized in the editing room.
13:20Because if you do it on your own, which is great, if they don't realize, there's a rhythm
13:27to images like there's rhythms in music, and do you complement that in the editing or not?
13:36Sometimes you can improve it, and sometimes you can destroy the aesthetics of how you're
13:43shooting something.
13:46That makes a lot of sense, yeah.
13:47And he had a lot of moving shots.
13:54The lens is more like an element of discovery for the audience about Maria, and so it was
14:04important that he could follow through with that.
14:09There's moments in the film where I felt like the camera was slightly voyeuristic, and there's
14:15other moments where it's like you're seeing her as she sees herself, which is almost the
14:20opposite of voyeuristic.
14:21Well, like I was saying, the camera is observational on one level, and there's a subjective viewpoint
14:31too.
14:32And also, I thought it was important to put the viewer in her shoes in a way.
14:41So the camera does have an aspect where you feel like you're in her space, because you're
14:48moving behind her or with her.
14:53And then there's other times where we discover where she is, like in the bedroom.
14:58We're outside in the hallway, and we come through a room, and then we pierce into her
15:04room.
15:05So there's a feeling of observation that way.
15:11Interesting.
15:12So, of course, we have to also talk about your collaboration here with Angelina Jolie.
15:18She's a one in a billion screen presence, but also an accomplished filmmaker herself.
15:25What was it like to both collaborate with her and shoot her?
15:29Yeah, she had opinions, but it was welcome because she had the grammar, the visual grammar,
15:39to understand what we were doing.
15:42So there were more discussions than conflicts about that.
15:48But the other aspect, if I could bring up, about the observational part of the camera
15:56was that it allows the audience to have a sense of discovery about the image of what
16:03you're viewing.
16:05But also, I think it's important that there's a mystery.
16:13We can't really know who Maria Callas was.
16:18And Pablo has said this, too, that it's important that she doesn't give everything away because
16:30we could never really know who Maria Callas...
16:32We can't be presumptuous to think we knew who Maria Callas was, but we can observe her
16:40and we can take opinions of who we think she is, of how she reacted in such situations.
16:50But we don't have to come away and think we know how she thinks.
16:59So I think it was twofold.
17:02One, that the way Angelique portrayed her, that keeps a mystery of who she is, and also
17:10the way the camera observes her.
17:13Like what you were saying, where the camera's not always telling you what you should see
17:21about her.
17:22Right.
17:23You just see her in the space.
17:25You see her in the situation.
17:29Creating some enigma.
17:31Great.
17:32And how about the experience on your end of filming the actual opera singing sequences
17:38that Angelina did?
17:40What was that like?
17:41And what did it require of you?
17:42That was somewhat inspirational, but you have to understand, she had an ear...
17:48It's called an ear wick.
17:49She had a hearing aid in her ear listening to Maria Callas sing.
17:57So we didn't necessarily hear what she was hearing.
18:02Oh, wow.
18:03You know, later I knew the arias that we were going to hear.
18:09I knew the music that we were going to hear.
18:12Sometimes we did it to playback, so we would all be in the same rhythm of the image.
18:17I see.
18:18I can imagine there's a lot of trust building there and vulnerability, an actress singing
18:24Maria Callas.
18:25Yeah, well, you know, Pablo's discussed this, how they implement, you know, maybe sometimes
18:33it's 1% of her voice or 5% of her voice.
18:38There's Maria Callas, and then there was another singer that could merge the two when she wasn't
18:45singing up to what she wanted to sing.
18:49I see.
18:52Do you have a personal favorite shot in the film?
18:55You think of projects that way?
18:57Shots stick with you in that way?
19:00Well, situation, like obviously to shoot in La Scala was because we had to do it so quickly.
19:13That has a special part.
19:14There's a part in the film where you're trying to show something about her psychology and
19:24her emotions that are breaking down.
19:28I built a rig with a diopter lens that moves, you know, where you see her in the image and
19:37then it breaks, the image breaks.
19:41It was near far focus.
19:45That was interesting because I had built that rig for El Conde and we used it, but we never
19:52used it in the film.
19:54We were going to use it in the flying sequences.
19:57And so I wanted to use it somewhere in this film and it worked out where she's kind of
20:04having a mental breakdown and the image is broken.
20:10I'm trying to think if there's any other place that the images were...
20:17I think just the private moments.
20:19I think the moments where she's looking in the mirror at herself and there's a slow move
20:26in, I think those are very effective.
20:32When she's able to interact with the camera, that's... with herself, I should say.
20:38When she's able to interact with herself and the camera's observing her, I always find
20:43that the most compelling.
20:44Yeah.
20:45That is sort of the essence of the film in a way.
20:50And this is also the final film in Pablo's trilogy of movies about female icons of the
20:5620th century.
20:59And you came on board as, I think, the third cinematographer in that broader project.
21:03Was maintaining any sense of continuity within the trilogy?
21:09I think each one is its own language.
21:11I think what he said about the three women, I mean, the difference is she's an artist
21:21and we're seeing something about her process.
21:25But in the sense that the women are not, let's say, feminists in the context of contemporary
21:35times.
21:36They were strong women and women that had to deal with a crucial time in their life
21:46that was critical and demanding of them.
21:54And so that aspect is that there's a sign of a sisterhood between them about what they
22:03were able to express about themselves.
22:07The thing that I found so interesting in the research about Maria Callas is she had this
22:14debilitating disease the last 15, 20 years of her life.
22:19It was an autoimmune disease that affected her muscles and her larynx.
22:26And I think part of the reason they considered her a diva, because she would make demands
22:33about when she could sing or not sing, I think was because of her physical problem that she
22:41couldn't sing to the level that she wanted to.
22:46Her strength, she was abused and exploited from the age of five on by the relationship
22:53she had with her mother.
22:56And then the male relationship she had, she never achieved the adoration and love that
23:04she had from her fans, so to speak, her people that embraced her.
23:14In her male relationship, she had a husband that was her manager and exploited her.
23:23And she was with for nine years.
23:26And then she's involved in a relationship with Aristotle Onassis.
23:30And he leaves her in another nine years for Jackie Bouvier Onassis.
23:38So she never had in her life what she desired.
23:43It was like the tragedy, she's really the sum of the tragedies of her own operas.
23:49But she never achieved what she desired, and that's the real tragedy in her life,
23:58what she desired in her personal life, the love and admiration from the people who would
24:05be closest to us.
24:07And I think when she lost her voice, she lost the strength to survive.
24:17And the stage and the music and what was her armor, in a way, that she had that to
24:26fall back on or live through.
24:30And when she lost that strength, she lost the real reason to live.
24:37Wow.
24:38That's a fascinating summation of the whole story.
24:43And a lot of that is communicated implicitly in the film, which is really interesting.
24:48I'd love to hear a little bit about how you shot the finale, when I think Maria's by the
24:53window and she kind of has that last private moment, I guess you could say.
24:58Well, I felt like she's always on the stage.
25:02And so we always shot in these, especially her apartment, in wider shots.
25:10So I couldn't really hide lights.
25:14So it was naturalistic that the lighting was from the windows.
25:19Even though we were on the sixth floor, I had a crane for each window with a 18K, a
25:26large light coming through the window.
25:29So in a sense, those windows were like the spotlight in a stage.
25:36She knew that.
25:37And she even said to me, this is the light for me, because she was near the spotlight.
25:46So I felt like that final moment, it was that she was on the stage again, that she was able
25:55to perform up until her demise.
26:01And then the color changes in that too.
26:04It's interesting because it's late day, I made it late day.
26:08You cut outside, but then when you cut back in, when they run up the steps, Ferruccio
26:14and Bruna, I now made it late day, cool blue.
26:19So it's not really a continuum of the same day, but no one worries about that.
26:26Again, I used the color as a psychological effect of how the situation that she's-
26:36How she'd feel.
26:37Yeah.
26:38How you would feel in that situation.
26:41So it's cool when they come in and he goes over to the phone and talks to the doctor
26:46and says she's died.
26:48And then when you cut back when the medics or the ambulance comes, it's warm again.
26:57But no one thinks about that.
26:59I got to watch it again.
27:01Again.
27:02Well, you shouldn't.
27:03I mean, all those things that you do photographically should affect the audience emotionally, but
27:10not necessarily you have to deal with it as a logical level.
27:15She even says that there isn't logic in opera, what the logic is, is your emotions.
27:25And that's the logic, how you communicate a feeling in your audience about what you're
27:34expressing.
27:36Wonderful.
27:39So the film was shot on film and you're known to be a big proponent of film preservation
27:45and classic formats.
27:47It occurred to me that along with Maria, two of the other big kind of award season films
27:53this year, The Brutalist and Sean Baker's Nora were also shot in film.
27:59And all three of these movies are made by relatively young directors.
28:03It's not like Scorsese champion film.
28:06It's a new generation.
28:07So I was just curious what you make of that, if you find it encouraging or how you see
28:11the state of these classic films.
28:13I think young people, even my 18 year old daughter, want to have the experience of film.
28:22And I think it makes people better cinematographers or image makers, because if you understand
28:30the principles of how you create a negative through film, you'll make you a better digital
28:40interpreter of how you control the negative.
28:44And the two factors that I like to...
28:48When people ask me, why film over digital?
28:51And it's not to say you can't tell stories digitally.
28:55You certainly can.
28:56But the elements of film that have a difference than digital is, is there are three layers
29:07in film, RGB, and those are microscopic in their layers, but they're like an etching.
29:14When you expose the film and how the colors react in the negative, you're projecting light
29:24through this piece of celluloid.
29:27It gives depth to the image.
29:29In digital, it's all pixel fixated on one plane.
29:36Light, dark, and colors.
29:38Also, colors don't represent themselves the same way digitally as in film.
29:46I call it kind of a contamination that film mixes colors differently than digital does.
29:55And that's because of the layers of the film, how they interact with each other.
30:03And so I like to think of film more like oil paint and digital more like watercolors.
30:11So what happens is, if you have a cool color from the window and you have warm colors inside,
30:19the mixture, you get green somewhere in the middle.
30:23In digital, you don't.
30:25In digital, you get cool and you get warm, but you don't get the mixture or the crossover
30:31between the different color temperatures.
30:34The other aspect is, in film, if you have exposure and highlights, it's fine grain.
30:43They're small.
30:45In the underexposed areas, it's larger grain.
30:50And those things are moving around in the image where you're moving the frame over what light is there.
30:59For me, it's chemical.
31:02It's more the way we live.
31:04It's more, I call it anthropomorphic, how it represents us.
31:09In digital, it's electronic.
31:12It doesn't live the same way we live.
31:18Fascinating.
31:19Well, I would certainly urge everyone to see Maria because it's just a beautiful illustration
31:24of everything you just talked about.
31:26I was picturing some of the colors and sequences as you were saying that.
31:32In the film, I tried to give the experience as if you were viewing an opera.
31:37In opera, the images aren't necessarily representational.
31:43They're a heightened reality.
31:46And so that's what I felt we should do as a film, is create a heightened reality
31:54because she really lived her life like she was living in the operas that she sang and partaked in.
32:03Got it.
32:04So like the film is an opera itself more than a biopic.
32:08Yeah.
32:09I always felt like the film was an opera in itself.
32:15And that Pablo interwove operas about her without specifically giving you subtitles what the operas were saying,
32:28but giving you the texture and the emotion of the music and the voice in itself.
32:36And so I tried to implement that by creating this heightened reality the way images are represented in an opera
32:46other than what you would experience in life if we were making a film about her life
32:52and trying to represent it in a representational context.
32:59Well, thank you so much for joining us today, Ed.
33:02We've covered a lot of ground and it was a true pleasure.