Storaro's serious conceptualizing and his lifetime of preparation for the job are the flesh and bones of his approach. In the 1960s and '70s he began to think about the symbolism of light and shadow in terms of conflicting energies—male and female, conscious and unconscious, natural and artificial. Ultimately, after Apocalypse Now, he stopped shooting for a year "in order to study and go deeper into the light—dividing the elements and discovering the world of color." The point is that his work has always been deliberate, based more upon thought and design than just the availability of ambient light, windows or practicals.
Vittorio speaks and writes of quasi-medieval "journeys" and "tasks," of baroque "dialogues of forces." His belief in the actual physiological power of color evokes Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's 1810 Theory of Colors which, though based on thoroughly discredited physics, has recently attracted attention because of new interest in the effects of color on behavior.
Vittorio's "ideation" continues, following Bulworth into a series of encounters that seem politically suicidal —
...illuminated by a series of colors: RED—color of emotion, of the beginning of life, of the birth of man; ORANGE — color of familial warmth, color of the passion for well-being; YELLOW — color of consciousness, of Day, of the Sun, of Light...across the spectrum from shadow to light, to the equilibrium of WHITE.....
Storaro has acquired an encyclopedic knowledge of classical painting and sculpture, as well as a huge collection of art books. He prepares laser-printed books of scanned images—pictures and lithographs germinal to the visual scheme for each picture—but like his written manifestos, they are mostly for his own purposes. "It gives me from the beginning a very strong will, a very strong idea how I can do the movie. And not only how, but why it becomes my own journey not only visually, but personally it becomes my joy and my suffering at the same time I'm married to one major structure and once [the director and I] agree, it becomes my task. From that moment on, I'm ready to pay any price on any given day to achieve it."
Warren said, "I appreciate the fact that he sets himself a skeletal goal It gives a unity to his work, and he is never repetitious. I think it's good that people believe in things, and when they believe strongly in things I don't share, I don't scoff—any more than I'd scoff at my sister [actress Shirley MacLaine] and the things that she believes in." He told Vittorio, "Why not?—If you love it let's do it. I believe in you!"
"Everyone has his own language," says Vittorio. "This is mine. Warren needs different elements. Maybe we say the same thing."
Technique
Storaro's technique is comprehensive and quite different from the usual practices in the U.S. He uses what he calls "puntiform" or point-source lights and "multiform" broad sources, but seldom anything in between. He describes the former as "so tiny, or so far away, that it makes a strong separation between light and shadow, so no area is in penumbra." His broad-source lights consist of the same fixtures, but placed closer, and usually fronted with diffusion. "I was searching for a dialogue between two specific forces—one gives me very specific shadows and the other doesn't give any shadows at all." For what he calls "sculpting" with light, he rides these separate sources on the dimmer board.
On Bulworth, Storaro used so-called "Jumbos"—large multi-globe frames with sixteen 28-volt landing lights each—and a whole range of "Mini-Jumbos" in diminishing sizes, as well as a series of "Tornado" lights using 120-volt Fay globes. They all run on 220 volts and are always pre-rigged to be dimmable with his small state-of-the-art digital panels.
"Jumbos" provide incredible punch outdoors. At great distances they become "puntiform" sources, except that, unlike conventional Fresnels, the arrays can be spread out horizontally. Vittorio's gaffer, Gary Tandrow, says, "They are only 10K each, but put out as much [light] as two or three Xenons. The bang for the buck is unbelievable."
All of his lighting instruments on the film were made by Filippo Cafolla, at Iride SRL in Rome, as were the original versions Vittorio ordered many years ago.
Vittorio doesn't use HMIs and tries to avoid fluorescents— he doesn't like the color spectrum of either, and they aren't dimmable. He never erects forests of flags and nets and teasers. Tandrow says, "He will cut, and he likes large blacks and large silks, but if the light comes through the window, then he plays the whole scene around where that light comes from. He'll add a little fill, a little silver board to pick up the eyes. It's amazing—as if the world stood still when that perfect light came. And that's how he does the close-up, without relighting, unlike a lot of other cameramen who would turn off and start over."
Storaro is a wizard with dimmers. He is one of the modern pioneers of the technique, beginning years ago with relayed instructions to his genny operator. Later he used individual electricians with radios and variacs, and on One From the Heart, a big analog dimmer board to control the lighting for my perambulating camera. The hardware has continued to improve and Vittorio's mastery of it is impressive, particularly his placement of lights to accommodate successive close and wide shots, or actors moving within the set, or even the impromptu Steadicam reverse angle.
[ continued on page 3 ]