American Cinematographer - January 1999 - 74

Tracing a Filmmakers Footsteps
Scorsese and

director Michael
H. Wilson confer
as the

documentary
crew

lines up a
shot in
Morocco.

Mao

Tse-tung. After Scorsese sent
his shooting script, the

hastily hired Moroccan crew arrived,

Wilson

the shoot had moved outdoors, to

documentarian broke it down into

courtyard at the farmhouse setting
early scenes take
place. Wilson reports that everyone
on Scorsese's team was in good
spirits. "Marty had been nervous
about how non-professional actors
would handle the shoot, but by the

three

periods, later adding a fourth (a
re-creation of a Tibetan opera) when
Scorsese urged Wilson to cover it.
"The opera was easy to miss, because
it was only one-third of a page on the
script," explains Wilson. "But Marty
had

seen

the Tibetan Institute of

we

arrived, he and and his

remembers.

spectacular, and
important it was in

wonderful

collaborators," he

"Marty

was

major role in his creative
It was amazing to see how
open he was to their feelings and
their input. After that first week, I

played

having

a

a

process.

realized that there
drama I could

not

was

a

Tibetan

ignore. It couldn't

be just a portrait of the artist at work.
The Tibetan stories needed to be
heard."
Wilson

crew

had realized that the Tibetans would

he knew it would be

began focusing on that

part of the documentary during the
second shoot, which took place three

weeks

after the first, when the
crew was
scheduled to

Kundun

script was shot
chronologically, since the film's

time."
By the end of the first shoot,
something else had occurred that
would
completely change the

"actors"

in fact, Tibetans with

direction of the film. "At first, I

professional acting experience. To
help ease them into the filmmaking
process, Scorsese told Wilson not to
shoot the opening scene. He didn't
want the inexperienced actors to be
overwhelmed by two cameras, and

thought we would mainly be
documenting Marty's personal
experiences," observes Wilson. "But
four or five days into our shoot,
Marty and I had a discussion. He

he wanted them to learn to relate to

you

photograph the Tibetan opera.
Stieber says that he and his team had
anticipated a Western, prosceniumstyle performance, and were
surprised by the nature of a Tibetan
opera - wild dancing and satirical
clowning over a large, outdoor space
surrounded by spectators. For the
300 Tibetans who were part of the
film, the minutely detailed re¬
creation of the opera was a poignant

his

that.'

reminder of their lost homeland and

The Kundun

were,

no

crew

and

camera.

By the time Wilson and his
January 1999

time

be

Tibetan culture."

72

where much of the

Performing Arts perform some [of
the opera] in Dharamsala [India], so

he knew how

a

great

said, 'Go and ask the Tibetans to tell

their stories. We need to capture
Marty himself was extremely
touched by the Tibetans, and it

a

deeply emotional event.
American Cinematographer - January 1999

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