American Cinematographer - July 1997 - 71

had to
I

keep that image in my mind.
thought that this movie should

look like the kind of American

postcard
lunch at

you can
a diner

buy after
on a

a bad
two-lane

blacktop road in the midsection of
the country. Every now and then, I
would start to make things look
pretty and Tom would come up
behind me and whisper, 'Cheesy...
cheesy... '"
Box ofMoonlight is DiCillo's
first film since Living in Oblivion,
his acclaimed satire

on

the humor¬

and occasionally surreal tribu¬
lations of an independent film pro¬
duction (see AC Sept. 1995). The
ous

New York

University film school
graduate was well-versed in that
frantic environment, having served
as a
cinematographer on eight in¬
dependent films before writing
and directing his own first feature,
the quirky Johnny Suede. DiCillo,
however, downplays his sojourn as
a director of
photography. "I fell into
cinematography
completely by acci¬

tually landing a job as a staff pho¬
tographer at a ski area.
Fueled by the revolution¬
ary changes occurring in film dur¬
ing the late Sixties, Ryan went on to
enroll in the graduate film school
program at San Francisco State
University. The young filmmaker
was
subsequently given a rare op¬
portunity to combine his twin pas¬
sions when he
to make

was

commissioned

documentary about the
European ski racing circuit. "The
first plastic ski boots were invented
by a company called Lange," he
recalls. "They were so far ahead in
their industry that literally 80 per¬
a

cent of the ski

racers

in the world

their boots.

go and do it.' So I basically had a
blank check to go to Europe and
follow the racing circuit for six
weeks! Nowadays, no one would
a green kid just out of
school that kind of freedom."

give

film

Ryan used the opportu¬
nity to break away from the previ¬
ously staid conventions of sports
filmmaking and experiment with
the gonzo visual ideas that were
invigorating the greater film world
at the time. He cites the cinema

verite

styles pioneered by Jean-Luc
Maysles brothers,
replete with jump cuts and other
non-traditional film language, as
inspirations. The result of Ryan's

Godard and the

They had more
than they knew what to do
with. I already knew a lot of the
guys in ski racing, so the Lange
people said to me, 'Why don't you

efforts, Ski Racer, went

make us a film about it? Show the
boots every now and then, but just

the Hell's Angels in San Francisco
to artist Salvador Dali at his home

wore

money

come a

on to be¬
classic of the nascent ski

documentary
cess

genre. Ryan's suc¬
led to further documentary

work, with subjects ranging from

in

Spain.
After

landing

a job shoot¬
on George
Lucas' classic American Graffiti,

ing production stills

Left: Al and The
Kid

enjoy a

flirtatious
Fourth of July
with the impish
Dupre sisters,
Purlene (Lisa

Blount) and
Floatie

Ryan's appetite

tor] Jim Jarmusch

was whetted for
feature-film work. He got his op¬

(Catherine
Keener). Below:

and

portunity when director Terence

of The Kid's

friends," he stresses.

Malick asked him to handle

digs - located

"He asked me, as a

ond-unit direction and

dent when [direc¬
I

became

sec¬

The

cheesy feel

well "off the

lark, if I would
shoot his first film,

cinematog¬
raphy on the film Days of Heaven
(shot by Nestor Almendros, ASC,

Permanent Vacation.

and Haskell

I had

earned

and eccentric

Best

ornamentation.

never

shot

anything before

or

Wexler, ASC), which

an
Academy Award for
Cinematography.

grid" of society
-

was

enhanced

Christmas

by
lights

intended to shoot anything.
But we were both so pleased by the
results that we proceeded to work
even

on his film Stranger
Than Paradise. I put all of my en¬

together again

into cinematography when I
doing it, of course, but I never
actively sought work as a cinema¬
tographer and always thought of it
ergy
was

as a

detour."

Paul Ryan's route into cin¬
ematography was considerably
circuitous. A Newton, Massa¬
chusetts, native, Ryan studied
more

aeronautical and mechanical

engi¬
neering at Rensselaer Polytechnic
Institute in Troy, New York. Upon
graduation, he put his engineering
plans on hold to pursue one of his
lifelong dreams, competing on the
national ski racing circuit out of
Aspen, Colorado. During his year
on the circuit,
Ryan developed an
interest in still photography, even¬

July 1997

American

Cinematographer

67
American Cinematographer - July 1997

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