American Cinematographer - December 1999 - 80

The Devil Made Flesh
Top: Fiore on
location in New
York. He offers,
"Lost Souls was

strong visuals. Because of that, he
immediately able to do the kind
of work I think he always wanted to
do. He could take chances, and I

was

challenging
because I

was

certainly encouraged him to do that."
Lost Souls follows Maya Larkin
(Winona Ryder), a Catholic school¬

working with

a
director who
is also a

cinematographer.

teacher

There wasn't as
much explaining
of what I planned
to do visually. It

who

survives

demonic

was more a

possession at an early age, and grows
up to work with Father Lareaux
(John Hurt), the priest who helped

matter of

her survive the ordeal. When she

showing Janusz
what I was doing
and finding new
techniques that

helps Lareaux perform the exorcism
of

(standing in
center) aligns

discovers that Peter Kelson (Ben

of the film's

Chaplin), a man with little faith in
religion, is destined to play host to

many car interior
shots on the
streets of New
York. Dual Kino
Flo banks (on the

the devil himself.
In designing a look for this
horrific tale, Fiore and Kaminski

right) add to the
soft ambient

discussed

skylight.
"Although we
were a

done
The

says

Kaminski, "I
wanted to create
a sense of reality.
I didn't want any
hard light - I
wanted to have
soft overcast

light. There is
little direct
sunlight in the

very

movie."

so

to

genre,
avoid what had been

effectively in such films as
(shot by Owen

Exorcist

Roizman, ASC), The Omen (Gil

Taylor, BSC), Jacob's Ladder (Jeffery
Kimball, ASC) and Angel Heart
nights discussing movies and filmmaking techniques. When Kaminski
became a director of photography,
Fiore stepped into the gaffer's role,
and their teamwork culminated in
the

people for years. He and my key
grip, Jim Kwiatkowski, are friends
from Chicago, and he's known my
crew

first assistant, Steve Meizler, for more
than 10 years. When Mauro stopped

gaffing to become a cinemato¬
grapher, he was either operating for
me
[on
The Adventures of
Huckleberry Finn] or doing second

triumph of Schindlers List.
Born in Italy, Fiore immi¬
grated with his family to the United
States in the early '70s. He developed
an interest in still photography at an
early age. Soon after graduating high

Amistad.

school, Fiore enrolled in the film

several

Columbia College, where
collabo¬
rating with his new friend on school
projects. After the duo had worked
together for five years, Fiore decided
to quit gaffing and focus full-time on
becoming a cinematographer.

Lost

program at

he

met

Kaminski and began

"I couldn't

76 December 1999

prior films of the

and elected

little bit

stylized,"

institutionalized murderer, she

given somewhat veiled informa¬
tion about Satan's plot to possess a
man on his 33rd
birthday. Decipher¬
ing the murderer's message, Larkin

he hasn't seen
before."
Bottom: Kaminski

one

an

is

imagine doing this

unit

on

films like The Lost World and
Mauro

had also

done

independent films prior to

Souk,

so

it

was not

his first

the sole cinematographer.
Of course, he's my best friend, but I
also felt that his style as a cinematog¬
rapher was right for the story.

picture

as

"I think Lost Souls was a very
comfortable environment for Mauro
to

work in because he didn't have

to

film without Mauro and my crew,"
Kaminski
attests.
"Fortunately,

worry

Mauro has worked with my

also knew that I wasn't afraid of

other

crew

about the competence of the

members," Kaminski adds. "He

(Michael

Seresin,

BSC).

Fiore

explains, "After I'd read the script,
Janusz told me that he wanted the
film to be much more of a gritty, real¬
istic drama than

stylized Gothic
script again and
tried to figure out how I could partic¬
ipate in that regard. Janusz has a very
different way of working than a lot of
people do. It's not so much based on
preconceived ideas, and he doesn't
do a lot of theorizing. There's a
certain quality that happens instinctually on films that he's able to
capture. He follows his instincts at a
given moment, rather than precon¬
ceiving what the experience should
be. He's more improvisational in his
approach. Obviously, that's a difficult
thing to do in filmmaking."
a

thriller. I read the

"I wanted

kind of reality

to create a

certain

in terms of telling the
story," Kaminski submits. "That
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