American Cinematographer - April 1989 - 64

Right: Marissa
Berenson and

Stacy Keach are
dwarfed by the
Alps in a shot from
Hemingway. Far
right: Hemingway
director of photog¬
raphy Wolfgang
Treu, FZK.

The story covers a 46 year
period beginning with World War I
(1919) and ending with the death of
Hemingway in 1962. For Treu the
daily challenge to was to maintain
continuity through the time period
and to help Stacy Keach to first,
grow younger, and then older,
gracefully. The problem was exacer¬
bated by the fact that Treu shot in
six different locations on three dif¬
ferent continents. He shot for 89

days and travelled some 60,000
by air.
Through all of this, one

kilometers

moment sticks out in Treu's

memo¬

ry. He recalled lugging his camera
up inside the bell tower of an old
church in Tocello, Italy to film a love
w

3

which he
lent of

Pedestrian

the German equiva¬
Academy Award), The
directed by Maxmillian

won

an

sources.

The whole idea is to make

Schell, Little Drummer Girl directed

the

by George Roy Hill, and Forbidden
directed by Anthony Page.

believable, it is easier for the audi¬

"I would describe my

lighting style as realism with a
touch of poetry," began Treu's dis¬
cussion of Hemingway. "1 light real¬
istically up to the point where it
might hurt the actor. At that point, I
skip the realism and adjust the
lighting to support the psychology
of the scene. Lighting is very much
like music. It should support the
scene
and make the impact
stronger.

"Technically, I like to use
HMIs coming through the win¬
dows, if possible, and I use bounce
62

light for fill. For night shooting, I
try to enhance the available

American

Cinematographer

photography believable. If it is

ences

to

accept that what is being

"Stacy and the girl were
playing a very moving scene in a
space about three feet wide he¬
scene.

's tween the church bell and the win£ dow opening in the thick wall of the
tower. The sun was rapidly
going

down. There
the

camera.

was no

way to move

We had space

for two
and
the
Treu got

actors, myself and the director
he had to help by holding

lights." Needless to

say,

the shot.

shown is real."
his

of

By way of illustration of
theory, Treu described a series
scenes near

hour when

the end of the last

Hemingway is thinking

about suicide. Treu chose to shoot
with a handheld camera with a gy¬

Gore Vidal's Lincoln
William Wages
William Wages

Georgia,

was

roscope underneath. The idea was
to make it feel "like it was flowing -

cellent work

not quite as flowing as a Steadicam.
The audience should feel a certain

whose

bit of irritation with the way the
camera moves.
You know that

something very special is going to
happen," he explained.
April 1989

of Atlanta,
nominated for his ex¬
on

the NBC minis¬

eries, Gore Vidal's Lincoln. Wages,

big break in television came
only four years ago, wanted to be a
cinematographer from the time he
twelve years old. He started
making films in high school and
happily continues to pursue his

was
American Cinematographer - April 1989

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of American Cinematographer - April 1989
