I watched the 2002 clip of Chris Nolan interviewing Al Pacino and it was really fascinating getting a picture of (oof I am typing this accidentally in my Romanian keyboard and everything is red), okay, fixed it… anyway, a picture of a noob kid interviewing a master. (Oh and this time, early period, Nolan just sounds like a regular briish lad HAHA cause the first time I heard him his accent was a little weird – from 2014 – and maybe that’s the influence of living in America.) And Al was talking about how he’s had to adjust from working in theatre to being in front of the camera, which was really fascinating, and I got the vibe that Chris was just really curious about it, which was cool.
For example, in his early film career he was communicating something so important about his character by gesturing with his hands, but he found out that he was only shot chest-up or something, so his hands weren’t visible at all! And they also talked about his scene in “Insomnia” where he’s making a call to his partner’s wife – the camera was so close to his face and he felt it, and I think Chris talked about how the audience also feels that closeness to his character in that moment. Well, with Al Pacino talking about theatre vs film – I guess I’m so interested in that too, because it’s communication – I was studying that for four years.
And when they started talking about the themes of the characters, like putting two people like Dormer and Walter Finch in the same room, and they were getting into the minds of both of them, I stepped back and looked at my ongoing experience of listening to their interview while washing the dishes and I was like, “Wow! I haven’t felt this alive in a long while!”
Like, I felt I was really enjoying it and somehow being pointed to what I was supposed to do. I think my other thought was an answer to the first one; I put it much more succinctly then, but right now the way I can say it is, “What, knowing people is what I’m into?”
It was coming from the fact that these two guys knew how to tell a story about people, to observe people and represent how they acted and how they thought in an artful way. And I’ve always been fascinated with that – I think in the moment I had those two thoughts it was also implied to me the memories of my years of observing people and people-watching back in Kathmandu and Manila and writing pages and pages about them – just loving the human race and what makes us human… aaaagh if only I wrote down exactly what that second thought was..
Though yeah, I’m thinking that elation was biased by me having submitted my cinematography project the same afternoon. I was supposed to pick a film and analyse its cinematography, and after a long long time – several months – of weighing different movies in my hand (Inception, 12 Angry Men, Midnight Special, Interstellar, Me & Earl & the Dying Girl), this week before the deadline I picked Insomnia (2002) directed by Nolan and starring Al Pacino and Robin Williams. I forgot what pushed me besides my insomnia over this week (I had three big presentation-exams a day after the other, and our cinematography prof on Monday told us abruptly to have our projects in by Friday so he could look through them before the next class – though I submitted it Saturday), and also to pay a homage to Nolan this semester somehow.
So yeah, I guess my happiness with having the “I haven’t felt this alive in a long while!” thought was connected to my achievement in cinematography class. I agonised over it after I finished the 3 presentations and had a beautiful PDF done on it, which I sent that afternoon… anyways, I’m rambling, but still, there’s that unmistakable mark, that reminder that I love telling stories about people, I really, I have a passion for it….
I also got to pitch this week (my third presentation) and when I got my final idea which is related to a protagonist with synesthesia (it was my third idea; I didn’t feel so confident with the first two – lol the first one was Iain Armitage in a teen flick with Mark Rober-style pranks). I felt that I had something good, something unique, something with potential. And it was coupled with the achievement that I had put my soul into it, which was missing from the first and was too much in the second (hah, Goldilocks).
Then, this idea was validated by my prof, who’s a film sales agent outside of teaching film students, with decades of experience in Poland and Europe, iirc. After giving feedback on how I could improve my pitch (it was my first and I was quite nervous, despite having pitched twice and competed for Start-Up Culture class), she said that I should develop my film – meaning I should make it.
And wow, it felt like high praise and a big encouragement to take it further. I guess it shuts down my doubts that I can’t make it in the film industry.
I guess there will be more doubts in the future, but I have to seek God and listen to his direction whether I should continue. He did tell me it’s my destiny to study in this course, and it often feels like a dream because I get to talk about film every week and connect with people who are also film geeks like I am, and learn from professionals in the field, and feel understood. So I’m just really thankful.
I think the Insomnia one was to crown the workweek – it ended with spontaneously just chilling in a friend’s cafe with Dad and reading interviews of Pacino and Nolan on the film (I referenced interviews with Wally Pfister, the director of photography – who later on went to direct “Transcendence” with Johnny Depp, and Robin Williams for my project). Let me share some excerpts from those interviews:
There’s another benefit from The Dark Knight ’s IMAX experiment: It’s proven that film is far from dead and the selling of digital as a superior format is still a bunch of market hype.
“I’m pretty militant on that,” Pfister said. “I think the digital technology is coming and it’s getting better and better, but it’s far inferior to 35 millimeter negative right now and I think it’s really a shame to see people forcing — and the market trying to force us — to use the digital medium when 35 millimeter film is still so much advanced. This is a technology we’ve been using for 100 years and to replace it with digital technology that’s four or five years old is ludicrous because it’s not capable of capturing the images in the same way.[…]
“Frankly, I see it as organic versus synthetic — and I’m always going to wear cotton. You know what I mean? I think there’s a reason that this is still hanging in there. When you get filmmakers saying ‘film is dead and we love shooting digital ‘cause you can roll and roll and roll and you never have to reload, ’ well maybe there’s something to being able to take a pause after several takes and take a breather before you go back shooting more takes, before you move on to the next thing. Maybe there’s something about that that sort of has worked in our system.”
“One day there was an avalanche. We were shooting at a glacier lake, and we looked over and thought, ‘Oh, wow, that’s beautiful.’ And then all of a sudden all the local Alaskans were going, ‘Get away from the lake!’ Because these people understand that by the laws of physics the water will be displaced by a large amount of ice falling into it. And sure enough they were right. The water level rose by four feet. And everyone was like, ‘Woooah!‘ Except Chris who was like, ‘That’s great, thank you, everyone move away, thank you, stay calm, thank you.’ He was like an English army officer.”
~ it reminded me of our guests in Intro to Filmmaking class at my uni, AUA, the composer Cynthia Zaven spoke about director Vatche Boulghourian’s quietness on set – but also about his control. He didn’t let people From the Nolan story, I got that as a director – you set the temperature. You’re the thermostat. You influence – you rein people in and don’t let them go crazy. Reminded me of European coldness vs. American emotionality (my professor on pitching today).
How different was it working with Robin Williams?
Al and Robin’s way of behaving and concentrating were completely different. Between shoots, Robin would be talking, laughing, telling jokes, and generally keeping the crew’s spirits raised, which was actually very nice for everyone. Then when the camera rolls he immediately focuses. Al prefers to keep himself to one side, looking inside himself a little more and already focussing on what he has to do. What they both like is to have a very specific and strong framework in which to work. They also both like to do a lot of takes, which I do too, so we all ended up having a lot of fun while shooting.
Later in the day we watched part of “In the Line of Fire” and I remembered how Jeff Nichols (one of my favourite directors) first saw Clint Eastwood while having lunch with a person interviewing him from WIRED.
I was also happy cause earlier my friend agreed with me after I was talking about how I was watching a BTS video with Wally Pfister’s commentary and getting surprised every time Nolan pops up because I’d be like
“omg who’s this blond-haired model behind the camera” 🙈:
picture on the right: why did i remember the singer from Swing Out Sister (I just checked and she’s not even blonde XD)
and my friend said, “He’s insanely good-looking for such a nerd-weirdo-director” 😆 man I feel like the old me from my first blog more than a decade ago 🤣
Well, that’s it for my film nerdery today. YAY