American Cinematographer - April 2001 - 89

Left: Wife and
mother

Margaret Hall
(Tilda Swinton)
takes drastic

steps to save her
son

from

an

unsavory

relationship in
The Deep End,
which earned
the Best

Cinematography
prize for
dramatic films at
Sundance.
Below: Pictured
from the left are
co-director
David Siegel,

cinematographer
Giles Nuttgens
and co-director
Scott McGehee.

the tale of

Margaret (Swinton), a

key," Siegel explains. "So
reflective surfaces at
We see the separations

involved with the wrong sort

between her and the characters. We

-

her

a

lot.

namely, an older man who runs a
glossy Reno bar called The Deep
End. After warning the man away

tried to put a solid visual reference
between her and the camera, such as

from her

the

son,

she wakes up one

ular Tetons, the melodrama was

filmed

mostly inside a single lakeside
house. "That house is like a character
in the

movie, and the way it is both a

shelter and
very

The

for Margaret was a
important thing," says Siegel.
structure was a practical loca¬
a

cage

tion, with small

Phot s

are

look through

comfortably middle-class wife who
senses
that her teenage son is

morning to discover the seducer's
dead body on the family's dock.
There begins a tale of blackmail,
personal sacrifice and family loyalty.
Though set amid the spectac¬

F1ilocm5usrft.esy

her life,
we

rooms

and lots of

large, plate-glass windows overlook¬
ing the sparkling lake and pine
forests. Water and glass play a major
part in the film's visual design.
"Reflection and transparency, and
the idea of separation between
Margaret and the other characters in

all of the windows,

or a

fish tank in

foreground. There's always some¬
thing pushing her away from her
normal life."

tions. There

Working with those reflections
just one of Nuttgens's challenges
on the film. ("I spent quite a lot of
time behind a black bag," he notes
wryly.) There was also the highly

the

was

reflective lake outside, which read six

stops

above the house interior. Then

there

were

the small

rooms,

which

posed "a bit of a technical night¬
mare," according to Nuttgens. It was
particularly difficult to pull off a 270degree camera move in a bedroom
that had windows

on

two

sides and

paintings framed with glass on the
opposite two walls; the room was
barely big enough to squeeze in a
dolly, two actors and the crew - let
alone keep them out of the reflec¬

was

also the matter of

rapidly changing mountain
weather, which proved more unpre¬
dictable than that of Nuttgens's
native England. The cinematogra¬
pher also confronted the challenge of
shooting anamorphic and trying to
focus a close-up with a 400mm lens
while the operator sat in one bobbing
boat and the

actress

in another.

One

thing that wasn't a chal¬
lenge, however, was working with
two directors. McGehee and Siegel
were
longtime collaborators who had
already co-directed a feature and co¬
produced several others (including
another 2001 Sundance entry, The
Business ofStrangers). The duo called
Nuttgens after renting a video of
American

Cinematographer 87
American Cinematographer - April 2001

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