American Cinematographer - October 1995 - 56

would you like to work on my
get out of the
Army?' The film was The Plot
Against Harry, directed by Michael
Roemer. One day while I was still
in the service, we were having cof¬
eye;

next film when you

fee at Bickford's

on

55th Street and

Broadway. Bob said, 'What do you
work with me?'

want to do if you

and I answered, 'Well, I'd like to
work with a camera." He said, 'I'll
tell you what, you can learn that in
a
very short period of time. I want
you to become an electrician be¬
cause I think you should learn

They work!"

Bode stresses. "We've been

television, and it works.

definitely is not
close-up movie. It's all

electri¬

gaffer and lighting director

before director John Avildsen gave
him the chance to serve as director
of

photography on The Stoolie, star¬
ring Jackie Mason. Bode later re¬
joined with Avildsen to photo¬
graph the gritty Philadelphia exte¬
rior sequences for Rocky. Since
then, the cinematographer has
gone on to work with many
other prominent directors, in¬
cluding Michael Apted, Brian
DePalma, Jonathan Kaplan and
John Badham.
The road to Bode's work
Streetcar began

during his acting
days in New York, when he first
on

saw

Elia Kazan's film version at the

Thalia,

a

ater. "I

legendary repertory the¬
blown away by it,"

54

"it's television" switch which has

plagued and belittled the medium
in the past. "The only switch in my
head is to try to get it done on a
schedule that's slightly more lim¬
ited than

a

movie

schedule," he

maintains. "To me, that is the dif¬
ference between film and televi¬

Streetcar dissects the mental col¬

60

that

sweltering New Orleans to
mar¬

days. We did this in 30 days, so
means we did five
pages a day
on
average. It clearly can be done
and done well. You just have to
have a director who really knows

ried to Stanley Kowalski, a brute
whose sexual terrorism domi¬

what he wants, and Glenn Jordan is
such a director. He comes well pre¬

nates the household and

pared.

catapults

Blanche into madness.
Bode's primary

challenge
was to interpret Streetcar in color.
"The production designer, Fred
Harpman, did a magnificent job
designing the set," Bode remarks.
"We built a courtyard in 1:1 scale
with

a

wall around it and

a

street

"I was involved in re¬
hearsals for three weeks prior to

production. I shot the rehearsals
with

a

used

a

Canon A1 Camcorder and
Steadicam Jr. as a camera

platform. I used the screen as a
monitor; that way, Glenn and I
were

both able to

see

what I

was

[reproduction

putting

of] a small section of the French
Quarter of New Orleans called

camera

Elysian Fields. We also built a twostory house in 1:1 scale. The house
stands next to a railroad yard,
and it's gone to seed. Basically,
we made everything in warm

We sketched it out and Glenn took

beyond it. It's

a

earth tones to contrast with the

tried

the video
pad. We
tried moves.

on tape. I use
like a sketch

angles,

we

copious notes on post-its and incor¬
porated them into the script. By the
time we were ready to shoot, we
knew where the camera was going
to be. There was always room for

green

refinement, but there weren't huge

We

changes.

outside, the palm trees.
spraying the leaves so
they were always green and
glistening. You always get a feel
were

and a sense of hot and heat. The
Hudson Sprayer was going fulltilt

during the entire 30-day
production.
"We used
well. There's a jazz

a

lot of

neon as

greens

and

a

and magentas. You became

of the color and of the life
around it."

levy, and the water is shimmer¬
ing." The film's range of light and

aware

American

October 1995

Cinematographer

ductions, Bode ignores the mental

program. For a two-hour feature
we take
anywhere between 50 and

self to Mitch up on a cove on

the

artistic intentions as he does
theatrical feature. When moving
from theatrical to television pro¬

a

searing psychodrama,

film, when Blanche talks about her¬

Bode recalls. "The scene I remem¬
ber the best is the climax of the

the television medium with the
same

lapse of the damaged southern
a

an

sion: you just simply have less
time. This is a two-and-a-half-hour

club, a bordello
pawn shop in the Quarter so
there are a lot of different colors of
neon. We had reds, blues, yellows,

was

Bode, who earned

Emmy nomination for his cinema¬
tography on last year's acclaimed
television production of Gypsy,
starring Bette Midler, approaches

Stradling understood

be dark, and
that."

to

lighting - that's really im¬
portant. Photography is all about
looking and seeing.' I replied,
'Okay, whatever you say.' I was so
excited talking to Bob that I poured
the milk in the sugar bowl instead
of in my coffee."
cian,

light off. Towards
play, Mitch says to
her, 'I've never seen you with the
lights on.' He then rips off the lamp
the end of the

visit her sister Stella. Stella is

about

as an

her to turn the

belle Blanche DuBois, who travels

a

movement."

Bode worked

When she first meets Stella she asks

A

seeing old movies on
Streetcar

in black-andphotography
Harry Stradling, ASC, effectively
translated the psychological state
of the fragile Blanche Dubois to the
screen. "I
thought Stradling's pho¬
tography was absolutely wonder¬
ful," Bode proclaims. "People
thought [the film] was dark, but in
the play Blanche talks about not
wanting to be seen in the light.

shade and turns on a bare bulb
which is absolutely blinding. So
there is this notion that it needs to

"Wide shots work in
television.

dark tones, captured
white by director of

"Preproduction and re¬
save an
extraordinary
amount of production time. Plan¬
ning the shots with the director is
really important because that saves
everybody's time. I must have
eight hours of rehearsal tapes of
Streetcar. During production I
would refer to the tape. I had a little
setup next to the dimmer board in
the back of the stage. I would go
hearsals

over

the

tapes with my gaffer, Jay

Fortune, and my operator, Peter
Gulla.
American Cinematographer - October 1995

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