American Cinematographer - June 1998 - 92

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it

bungee cord. It made for

light with reflectors, unless
just too gloomy or dull."
Menges extended his less-ismore, documentary-style approach
was

to

even

such

somewhat dark interiors,

the warm, inviting pub where

as

of the story's tight-knit West
community residents go to
unwind. "I used almost all practical
lights in the pub, because the main
goal was the freedom of the camera,"
Menges says. "[Production designer]
Brian Morris gave us the atmosphere
of a real pub designed in the 1950s,
many

Belfast

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and

added the

we

set onto

the flats

shooting in. The practical
lampshades on a wall and
tungsten lights above the bar. If there
was trouble on a
particular shot, I
would sneak lights into a corner, but
they would be nothing fierce -
maybe 500-watt tungsten quartz
bulbs going off reflectors or
[through] tracing paper."

we were

were

camera

The narrative of The Boxer is
framed around three

key boxing

matches, which are all given a distinct

on

the bottom of this

fabric,

we

placed

a

woven

rubber

flat bar

upon

which we mounted the camera. Then
we ran

all of the camera's controls

-

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cable that

small

video

adjusted the tilt of the
monitor

mounted beside the
these cables

that

camera.

was

All of

ran up to the ceiling and
balcony, where the focus
puller had his control, an assistant
adjusting the iris was on another and
a person tilting the television moni¬
tor manned a third. Operator Mike
across

the
free

that could float all the way

ring without restrictions.
- and it
made Jim laugh."
Menges again favored the cool,
bluish end of the color spectrum for
the film's first boxing match, set
inside an old, fluorescent-lit boxing
gym that Flynn has renovated after
being released from prison. Before
It

was

great sensation

a

"The Boxer was shot
from the perspective of

standing back and
catching the story in a
documentary style. The
look of the film

developed organically,
but the two words Jim

[Sheridan] did stress
before we started were
'freedom' and 'reality.'"
-

visual look by Menges.

The filmmak¬
ers
dedicated much thought to
methods of freeing the camera
within the claustrophobic confines of
the boxing ring. "In preparing for the
boxing scenes, we certainly watched
many fine films, such as Martin
Scorsese's Raging Bull, which I stud¬
ied hard and diligently," Menges says.
"In the end, we suspended a woven
rubber bungee cord about 26' above
the boxing ring. Imagine a pendu¬
lum in the middle of the boxing ring:

a very

around the

little

CA 91602

I would operate

or

Chris Menges, BSC

the match, however, parents of chil¬
dren killed in "the troubles" are

acknowledged from the ring, and
Menges decided to create an appro¬
priate contrast by accenting the
parents with warmer, more amber
tones.
to

"We did

a

lot of research

to

try
get the look of Belfast as accurate

possible, so we visited several gyms
at lots of pictures," he
says. "We lit the boxing ring with
eight 6'-long, flicker-free fluorescent
tubes suspended on wires from the
ceiling. Those tubes were quite cold
as

and looked

in color. For the audience
we

members,

used 500-watt Pars in black steel

industrial

lampshades, which shone
straight tungsten light on them -
probably at 2800° Kelvin."
The

to a

emotional

stakes

are

raised

higher for Flynn's second
boxing match, which takes place in
the center of a teeming, capacity
West Belfast audience. "We shot in

a
American Cinematographer - June 1998

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