American Cinematographer - January 2003 - 28

that

Right: Max does

they are happening concurrently."
McGarvey tested a variety of film
stocks during preproduction, and he was
particularly pleased with Fuji's Super F-

realize that
his life will be

not

impacted by
Hitler's antiSemitism. Below:
In The Hours,
three women are
linked to the
novel Mrs.

400 8582. "It had

Dalloway: the
Woolf (Nicole
Kidman, bottom),

use

who lived in

1923-1941;
Clarissa

Vaughan
(Meryl Streep,
middle left), a
book editor in

present-day
Laura Brown

ban housewife in

Angeles.
Cinematographer
Seamus

McGarvey, BSC
faced the chal¬

lenge of render¬
ing these three
eras onscreen.

modern-day New York City in the
Clarissa
"Dalloway"
Vaughan (Meryl Streep) meticulously
orchestrates the details of the reception
she's hosting for Richard, a poet, friend
and former lover who is dying of AIDS.
McGarvey's goal was to render the
scenes set in New York realistically.
wintertime.

Manhattan; and

1951 Los

Kodak emulsions instead, and he

eventually settled on three Vision stocks,
200T 5274,320T 5277 and 500T 5279.
One of the film's settings is

Richmond,

England from

unhappy subur¬

soft, low-contrast

quality, and colors read in an interesting
way - the primaries didn't pop," he
observes. "It had the complete color
range, but all were slightly muted."
However, studio preferences led him to

author, Virginia

(Julianne Moore,
middle), an

a

he has been beaten to death

The

Semites

says, "was to tell three distinct stories, to
achieve a sense of particular contexts,

by antispurred on by Hitler's dema¬
Koltai reveals, "We wanted

goguery.
him to look like

a

statue of the future

-

this is the first victim of the Holocaust. I

challenge of the project, McGarvey

but at the
the three

time to find ways to

fuse
together to give the impression
same

"For me, this section of the film acts as
emotional and visual hinge," he

an

used

only two bulbs in the Dino because
a single shadow."
In creating that iconic image, the
filmmakers caught a break in the form of
an unexpected snowfall. "The snow
arrived to help me make a really remark¬
I wanted to create

able black-and-white frame," Koltai
on it, but I used it
right thing. I can do a
lot of things, but that was a kind of mira¬
cle. In filmmaking, sometimes a miracle
has to come and catch your hand."
says.

"I didn't plan

because it was the

A Tale of Three Women

by Bob Davis
When Irish director of

photogra¬
phy Seamus McGarvey joined the British
Society of Cinematographers in 1998, he
was 31 years old - the organization's
youngest member. In the years since, he
has shot features such as High Fidelity,
The War Zone and Enigma, as well as
the HBO film Wit. His current project,
The

Hours,

based

on

Michael

Cunningham's Pulitzer Prize-winning
novel, seems a cinematographer's
dream: the film presents three eras,
three locations and three women, all
linked by a tenuous chain of events and
the

26

January 2003

recurring theme of self-destruction.

DFruahncmodiesl,

bCHoolpihuvoytrtess PPacrocumroueursfnt.etsy
The
American Cinematographer - January 2003

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