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COPYRIGHT 2003 All rights reserved. Reproduced by permission of The Condé Nast Publications Inc.
Movies intently depict the play of emotion on the human face. "Unless you're simply destroying things, eighty per cent of what we do is closeups or medium shots of the human face," a cameraman told me. Movie cameras customarily record their subjects at an angle. An object filmed from straight in front appears to be flat. A cube from straight on is a square. A movement to the left or right reveals a second side. A shift up or down shows another. No angle can include more than three sides. Absent the effect of light, the vantage that shows the greatest complexity is typically the most flattering.
Light is to movies what perspective is to paintings--the device that persuades the eye that a flat and vertical surface is also deep. A face filmed from directly in front will also seem to be flat, especially if the light falls on it evenly. This circumstance is usually favorable for an older actress, because it obscures imperfections; the cheeks become smooth. To be filmed indoors sympathetically, a face needs to be lit by more than one light. A cameraman will often place a small light called a catch light close to the camera's lens. The catch light will be reflected in the actress's eyes. A face with no light in the eyes will seem remote, abstracted, the face of someone it is difficult to feel a connection with.
Cameramen provide tension by means of the angle at which they light a character. We absorb images from left to right, the same way we read. Looking at a face that is lit from the left side is "restful," another cameraman told me. Lighting against the grain--from the right, that is--introduces a discordance. Light from below distorts a face: unnatural shadows appear; horror films and monster movies often have bottom lighting. Light from the top makes a face appear gaunt. The eyes go dark. The actor will look like a figure in a mental institution or maybe as if he were dangerous. To make Marlon Brando appear threatening and enigmatic in "The Godfather," the cameraman lit him from above. Among the other specialty lights specific to the face are kick lights and hair lights. Kick lights are used from behind an actor to show the grain and shape of the face. They are commonly used in he-man movies, to illuminate sweat on an actor's cheeks; Sylvester Stallone uses kick lights a lot. A cameraman who is filming an actor with dark hair against a dark background and who doesn't want to see only the actor's face can use a hair light to make his hair stand out. In the studio days, cameramen used to light the faces of stars with more intensity than anyone else's. If there was a hundred-watt bulb on one actor, there would be a hundred-and-ten-watt bulb on the star.
To observe the effect of light on an actress's face, one might note in "The End of the Affair" the difference between Julianne Moore's appearance in the grip of sexual excitement and as a pallid figure on her deathbed. The cameraman was a British cinematographer named Roger Pratt. Pratt is admired for his perhaps unexampled ability to light the faces of women and photograph them to their best advantage.
"A large part of cinema is photographing women," David Hare told me, "and yet there are plenty of cameramen who can't do it." Hare and Pratt worked together, in 1987, on Hare's film "Paris by Night." "In 'Paris by Night,' we had Charlotte Rampling, about whom it is said that it is impossible to take an unflattering picture," Hare went on. "Well, it is possible to take an unflattering picture of her. Roger playing with the light on her face was like a child completely engaged."
Chuck Finch, the gaffer whom Pratt works with most often, says, "When Roger lights a woman, he looks to see if she has any imperfections, and he corrects them by using lights. We've lit some really top-looking women, and he always does a really good job."
Pratt was at work last summer--in Malta, England, and Mexico--on "Troy," which stars Brad Pitt and is based mostly on the Iliad. It is being directed by Wolfgang Petersen. When I asked Petersen about Pratt's ability to light faces, he said, "So much goes through the eyes. Roger takes care of that, especially with Diane Kruger, who plays Helen. To light her in a way so that she comes across not only as beautiful but also as soulful is essential for this picture. You can take fifty thousand soldiers and hundreds of ships, but if you're not really moved by what the actors do...
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