American Cinematographer - January 2001 - 97
the differ¬
the matte
box and looking directly at the lens,
there is enough of a difference. If the
movie is a comedy, [that technique]
While you can barely tell
ence between looking at
makes it
even
funnier, and if it's
a
drama, it makes it even more intense.
Barry Markowitz said you
would shoot
close-ups with every¬
thing from a 180mm lens situated
10 feet away to a 40mm lens maybe
three feet away.
Thornton: Yes,
extremes a
way
like
we went
lot. We shoot
with
more
the
they did in the 1940s and '50s. I
to shoot a lot of things in a
master
[shot].
I also like things to be
really dark
night scenes. Cinematographers, of
course, always want things to be seen a
little bit. [Laughs.] One of my
running things with Barry is that
he'll light something forever, and
when I get to the set I have to turn off
all the lamps. There is one scene in
the movie that takes place at night in
in
field, and I wanted to show the
house and the darkness and then
a
pick
crew
up our two guys talking. The
lit for five hours, and I got out
there and told them to shut off all of
the
lights.
All of the
no
lights? There
were
movie lights at all?
Thornton: There
in the house and
a
were
lights
little bit of light on
manufactured light. If it
up to me, you wouldn't see their
faces at all, but you can't do that. The
way I shot it may not make it into the
the guys
-
were
final
cut.
There's
a
lot of stuff that
make the final cut. For
example, there's one scene in which
Matt [Damon's] character sees his
may not
father for the last time, and I let the
father walk away down the sidewalk
for about two minutes. If that shot
were
in
a
movie from the 1940s,
people would
You shoot
say
a scene
was astounding.
like that now, and
it
they look at you like you're crazy.
Barry says you don't shoot in
a
traditional
master, a
manner
of
doing
a
close-up of one actor, and
looking-right-into-the-lens
then a close-up
on,
that you
close-ups. John's character says, 'You
seem like a deep thinker.' And I say, 'I
was just thinking about wanting
of the other. He says
prefer to create a sponta¬
neous feeling.
Thornton: When I got into
this business, I thought that the idea
was to try and capture real life and
move people - or to do pure
fantasy. The Coen brothers shoot [in
a style that's] the opposite of mine:
everything is planned out and edited
in their heads. I see the picture, too,
but in more of a spiritual sense. I see
it as this sort of long story.
Oprah Winfrey saw All the
Pretty Horses and said, 'It's not a
movie that you watch; it's a movie
that you feel.' And that's pretty much
the way I do things - it's what I feel.
We don't do storyboards; we don't
have
a
shot list;
we
don't have
some more
of these french fries.'
That
makes
it
funnier. When he asks
that
means
from
me.
much
so
questions,
me
he needs information
In that instance, I want to
my character from John's POV, so
I cut to a close-up of myself. I wanted
see
show exactly what he sees when I
deliver this absurd line. Then I cut
to
back to his reaction.
Barry said that you asked him
High Noon and The
Searchers before starting work on
All the Pretty Horses.
Thornton: High Noon is my
to
watch
favorite
movie
-
for
more
rehearsals. I just make sure that Barry
emotional and
gives the actors enough freedom to
go wherever they want, and then I
cover the scene based upon that.
humanistic reasons, than for film-
I like two-shots with actors
-
three-shots, or however many
shots, depending on how many
people are in the scene. I like to stay
or
with that
[approach]
as long as
esting thing is the person who is
listening; the words may hit you
differently when you see that person.
In real life, when I am looking
at you, I am looking you in the eye,
and that's why I have actors look into
the lens. They say it's breaking the
fourth wall. I thought you kind of
to
do that. You want the
audience to feel
the
actor on
they
are the person
the screen is talking to.
For example, there's a scene in
Sling Blade when John Ritter and I
are sitting in a diner. A lot of that
sequence was done as a two-shot so
that the audience
can see
the whole
picture; you can see how the charac¬
ters are reacting to one another. The
real humor in that
scene
is the fact
that John is going on about this very
serious thing and I'm just kind of
sitting there, eating french fries. The
pay-off comes when you cut to closeups of each of us. They are square-
reasons.
reasons,
The Searchers is
a
great story and it has a great look.
Also, the movie goes on for awhile; it
takes you over a period of time. If I
came to a studio with The Searchers
today, they'd tell me I was insane.
Those two movies
I can,
because sometimes the most inter¬
wanted
making
spiritual
ful. I wanted
are
beauti¬
High Noon
mainly for the mood, and The
Barry to
see
Searchers for both the mood and the
look.
Is there a sequence in All the
Pretty Horses that you're particu¬
larly proud of?
Thornton: The opening of the
movie. The book describes horses
running, and I wanted them to be
ghost horses. I told Barry I
wanted them to sort of appear out of
the earth as if they were ghosts rising
from the dead. We got a great shot.
A couple of our buddies came
to town to help out on that shot. Jack
Green [ASC] came down for one
night, just to shoot that opening
sequence, and Fred Murphy [ASC]
with whom Barry had started his
kind of
-
career
do
in the business -
came
down
second-unit
photogra¬
phy. We had a great night of shooting
horses. That sequence sets the mood
to
some
for the whole film.
■
American
Cinematographer 95
American Cinematographer - January 2001
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