American Cinematographer - December 1995 - 39

He
the last

offers, "For instance,
in The

what's

going on in front of the cam¬

Relating these influences
on
GoldenEye, he con¬

to his work

Long Voyage
Home, which Gregg Toland [ASC]
basically lit with one brute arc
lamp, is a moment of great cin¬
ematic artistry - a cloud passes
over the
ship our main character is
standing on, first casting him in sil¬

era.

and the
camera should be static. It doesn't
have to be wobbling or moving left
and right for some effect. The im¬

old Bond films

houette and then in darkness. He
has just discovered that all of his
friends have died, and the lighting
reveals all of his feelings. John
Alton is another inspiration for me.

portant thing is that you're telling
a
story, and the way you are going

But at the same time, we utilized
modern camera movement and -

about it should be hidden and not
visible. So I really feel the best film¬

I'm almost ashamed to say - more

ing work was done 30 or 40 years
ago in pictures like The Third Man,
Brief Encounter and Gone with the
Wind
they were masterpieces.
And there are very, very few mas¬
terpieces being made today.

for

scene

Working

low-budget
films, like T-Men, he developed a
tremendous ability to light a set
with one lamp, which I find very
exciting."
on so many

Meheux also recalls
mous

a

a

though
dialogue is terrific
performance great, the

-

fa¬

from The Killers, in
pair of hit-men, seen in sil¬

sequence

which

"That worries me,
I also think if the

"In

fact, GoldenEye very

much resembles The Third Man the¬

matically in that the story is also

houette, mow down Burt Lancaster

about

with bursts of

machine-gun fire;

posed to exist, but who does exist.

the muzzle flashes illuminated
their faces,

courtesy of Woody
Bredell, ASC. He holds equal admi¬

There is a scene in our film that
takes place in a sort of cemetery for
statues of the old Soviet regime in

ration for Alton's

Russia, and I tried to give it a

technique in a
similar shot in The Big Combo,
which cuts directly to a limp hand
dropping a cigarette to the floor.
Meheux adds, "It's much more
evocative than blood bags bursting
out

of

people's shirts in slow-mo-

someone

who is not sup¬

sort of Third Man look

Krasker is

a

- Robert
hero of mine. But I sup¬

that film has been influential
work, in terms of the
simplicity of the lighting. I'm con¬
stantly remembering lighting ef¬
pose

on

all of my

fects from black-and-white films. I

tion."

Specifically, Meheux says,
"Most films

seem

to have

a

very

natural look

today, which I find
quite disappointing. There always
seems to be soft
light coming from

mean,

Citizen Kane has probably

influenced every filmmaker on the
planet, and I can vividly re¬
member every single inch of some

cludes, "We tried to retain the
darkness and glamour aspect of the
-

the

women

al¬

looking good, the men hand¬
and the rich opulent set¬
tings Bond always finds himself in.

ways

some

-

setups to create more excitement

today's audiences."
Regarding the transfor¬
mation of action editing and pac¬
ing in light of such pictures as
True Lies, Campbell says, "Well,
James Cameron is about the best at
action, no argument; he's tremen¬
dous. What you

learn from him
though - besides noticing that the
action is hopelessly slow in the
early Bond films and also the later
ones with
Roger Moore - is that
you really need a terrific stunt co¬
ordinator to create scenes that can
bear the scrutiny of so many cuts
and setups. We had Simon Crane,
who also did Braveheart. But you

also need

something different. How
chases have you seen?
how many do you really re¬

many car
And

member aside from The Trench Con¬
nection and Bullitt? Both of those
chases had terrific focus, making
them superb action as opposed to

sequences."

chaotic destruction. Cameron got
his difference with the Harrier jets,
but we have a sequence that is dif-

December 1995

American

Soviet soldiers
are
one

toppled in
particularly

kinetic escape
sequence

designed by
stunt coordina¬
tor Simon

Crane.

direction or another, with no
definite artistic overlay on the film.
But it's only of late that this began
one

happen. A film as recent as Star
Wars, for instance, still had good

to

lighting, but it just doesn't seem
required anymore. With our sched¬
uling today, we're in the age of the
setup. The more setups you get a
day, the better, no matter how they
look

-

which leads to this soft,

overall

lighting that doesn't really
any kind of statement. It

make

doesn't add to the nature of the

film, which reduces the importance
of the

cinematographer's role in the
filmmaking process.
"But good photography is
no
good without a good director,"
he adds. "It

seems as

if certain di¬

coming out of be¬
ing writers, and they have a lot
rectors

more

now are

interest in the dramatic

con¬

tent than the visual look of their

films. It's

as

if

we are

just recording

Cinematographer

37
American Cinematographer - December 1995

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