American Cinematographer - October 1996 - 83

the

period from 1916 to 1922,
starting with The Easter Uprising,
when British troops overpowered
Irish Republican rebels and ex¬
ers

ecuted their leaders. Collins

(played by Liam Neeson) became
commander-in-chief of the IRA
and helped formulate the guer¬
rilla tactics which characterized
Ireland's war of independence.
He also helped broker the AngloIrish treaty of 1921, which parti¬
tioned Ireland. The accord

sharply

divided the Irish, and civil war
broke out. The following year,
Collins was assassinated by oppo¬
nents of the treaty.

Menges' naturalistic light¬
ing aesthetic derives in part from
his days as a documentary film¬
maker. The cinematographer has
always been interested in real-life
subjects, and has an intuitive feel
for light and images. He is sensitive
to the interplay between light and
shadow, and constantly aware of

other. The

rooms

had such

a

great

The light fell as it has for
centuries, and the 16th-century
books glowed without being ex¬
posed to lamp heat."
Says focus puller Alan
power.

Butler, "Chris tends to use sources
lot
windows, practicals. It

a

-

makes for

a
very dramatic look."
"It's also a question of

freeing the camera," explains
Menges. "If you have light coming
through a window, you're never
going to worry about seeing fix¬
tures, which liberates the

camera.

If

you light with practicals, it means
that if you see the practical, it isn't
a

where the actors
those

are

in relation to

patterns.

Says Jordan of his collabo¬
rator, "His commitment to light
and to the image is extraordinary.
He comes from a documentary tra¬
dition, [which is all about] realism
and natural

light, but he has more
dramatic imagination than that."
An example in this latest
work is a scene set in a library, dur¬
ing which Collins converses with
Broy (Stephen Rea), a government
man

hired to tail the IRA leader.

Menges went completely with
natural light cascading through the
windows. "It's the most amazing
library, with these big, tall, beauti¬
ful windows," recalls Menges. "It
was

built in 1701. We covered the

windows on one side and just let
the daylight pour through on the

problem. You can put the light on

an

axis to the actor's face and not

worry about hiding where it comes
from. And practicals can be close to
the actor."

Having spent more than a
decade developing his script, Jor¬
dan had a very specific look in
mind for Michael Collins. The direc¬
tor wanted to convey the epic trag¬

edy of the drama while main¬
taining a strong sense of
realism. Equally important was
Jordan's desire to accurately cap¬
ture the time period. That meant
re-creating the grimy, sooty look of
turn-of-the-century Dublin, with
its carbon-arc street lighting and
smoke from coal-burning fires pol¬
luting the air.
Architecturally, Dublin
today remains much as it did in the

ings dominating the cityscape and
lamps, erected
in 1892, still lining the principal
streets. But the buildings have been

beautiful swan-neck

scrubbed and cleaned in the inter¬

years. Notes Menges, "we
needed to find a way to turn it back
into the gray city it was."
Three methods were used

vening

help simulate the bluish pall
which once hung over Dublin:
smoke, cyan filters, and the ENR
printing process, both individually
to

and in combination. Technicolor's
ENR process

Storaro, ASC, AIC), is

a

variation of

the standard color

oping

process

positive devel¬
in which a small

amount of silver is

by

left in the film

of skipping the final fix
(bleach) bath and then running the
negative through a black-andwhite developer. (Similar tech¬
niques were recently used on
Seven, Stealing Beauty and Kansas
City.) "It takes the bite off some of
the more obvious primary colors
and slightly increases the contrast,"
says Jordan, who always felt that
way

pickup

truck outfitted

with

a camera

rig is used to
capture a

dialogue

scene

between
Michael Collins
and his friend

Harry Boland
(co-stars Liam
Neeson and
Aidan Quinn) on

bicycles.
According to
myth, Collins
often relied

his
bicycle, which
helped him stay
upon

in contact with
various IRA

outposts. Left:

(Left to right)
Cameraman
Chris

Menges,

director Neil
Jordan and

operator Mike
Roberts

plot a

shot in the
streets of

Dublin.

Michael Collins should feature the
colors of olive green, khaki and

verdigris. "It also enhances the sil¬
ver,

which made the bluish tint

kind of

pearly." Adds Menges,
helped us to cre¬
ate a nearly monochrome image.
The fine lab work was by John
Enbsy and John Stanborough at
"The ENR process

Technicolor London."
For

early 1900s, with Georgian build¬

October 1996

(pioneered by Vittorio

Above: A

American

night

scenes,

Cinematographer

Menges

81

>
American Cinematographer - October 1996

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