American Cinematographer - March 1984 - 43

Director

Tony

Richardson, Lighting
Cameraman David

Watkin, and Camera

Operator John
Palmer

on

the set of

The Hotel New

Hampshire.

make it possible as never before to
shoot at extremely small apertures.
It is, however, the nature of optics
that, on stopping down, a lens will

improve until

an

optimum point is

reached (about 4 stops down from
full aperture) and after that it de¬
clines and gets worse. What is
therefore required is two separate

the first, Superspeeds, to be
used from 1.4 until around 8, and
a set second with a full aperture of
around 4.5, which can be used
sets,

8 down to 22 and 32.
eventually used on the
picture (with an Arri BLIII) were
manufactured by Zeiss, and their
clarity and sharp outlines provided
in themselves an effective style and
one that suited the subject." It was
also a style that won Richardson's
approval.

from,
Both

neutral

density grad resulted in

a

strange 'no-man's-land' (which
could be varied according to the
focal length of the lens and the
softness of the grads)."
On The Hotel New

Hampshire, Watkin

once more

settled on a photographic concept
that was closely linked to the tech¬

nology that could implement it.
Going for sharp, clear images and
depth of field - what Tony Rich¬

had written from

John Irving's
bestselling novel, his first thought
was "that the thing was certainly
1960s." The action spans ten
years, which roughly correspond
that decade whose films tended,
almost until the end, toward crisp,
to

bright photography. "And it
seemed to me to be a fairly vivid
sort of subject." Indeed, the story
consists of

a

series of semi-hi¬

larious, semi-horrendous events

ardson later called "a Norman
Rockwell look"
Watkin once

that befall an average-eccentric
American family, particularly its

degrees against the
currently prevailing style of
cinematography.

younger

-

more went

180

As for how his ideas
come to

is

"not

him, Watkin says that he
a
great devourer of

scripts," reading them only to
form general impressions and as¬
certain unusual equipment needs.
"It
to

never

get an

works

push too hard
idea," he says. "Ideas will
to

they'll arrive.
."
After reading the Hotel
screenplay that Tony Richardson
come,

.

.

members as they move
through the sexual awakening of
adolescence into maturity. Jodie
Foster, Rob Lowe, Beau Bridges
are among the family, and they are
joined in the cast by Nastassia
Kinski, Wallace Shawn, Amanda
Plummer, and Matthew Modine.
From these preliminary
conclusions, Watkin reasoned:
"The

recent

arrival of the

say,

sets

"All that remained

to

do," Watkin goes on, "was to
carry it out consistently through¬
out

the whole of the

you are

compelled

to

shooting. If
abandon it

because of other considerations,
it's weakened, and if this happens
too often the style gets lost al¬

together and is replaced by a
hodgepodge - i.e., no style at all.
"There is usually an Achilles heel
that threatens the style, and in this
it took the form of the zoom
lens. No zoom, by its very nature,
can ever approach the quality of a
Zeiss prime lens - there are too
case

many

bits of glass. However, it

sometimes provides the only way
of getting what the director needs

for

timing or pacing of a shot es¬
pecially when, because of budget
other reasons, a crane cannot
be used."

or

splendid new Kodak 5293 and
5294 stocks, both of which can
quite safely be rated at 400ASA,

But, despite the very oc¬
casional, no-other-alternative use

March 1984

American

Cinematographer

43
American Cinematographer - March 1984

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