American Cinematographer - December 2004 - 65

Left: Mathilde's

fiance, Manech

(Gaspard Ulliel)
observes

an

enemy plane as
he seeks refuge

by

a tree

in

no

man's land.
Below: The
crew

executes a

circular

dolly to

capture a key
moment in the

sequence.

can't create

depth with soft focus -
example, to isolate a face from
the background - you have to do it
with lighting.
"Jean-Pierre wants everything
to be pretty sharp. I'm therefore
obliged to work at a closed-down
stop, at least a T4/5.6 in interiors;

becomes

otherwise, it's too hard for the assis¬
tant. But even with a 21 mm, if you're

does the 35mm."

for

doing

a close-up of an actress who's
50 centimeters away from the cam¬

you're going to get some softness
background no matter what
the stop. You need to close down the
aperture just to keep both the nose
era,

in the

and

ears

in focus!"

Wide lenses

are
traditionally
close-ups, because the
heightened perspective can make
faces bulge in an unflattering way,
especially when the actor is close to

avoided for

significant in terms of per¬
spective. We found the slight tilt
angle, usually a tilt up, which was the
limit that Audrey's face can take. We
saw

that her face worked well with

the 25mm and 27

mm.

The 21mm

still works for her, but you

have to be

careful; the 18mm doesn't work, nor
The close-ups in A Very Long
Engagement have a peculiar intima¬
cy, with the actors' gaze often almost

head-on into the lens. Delbonnel

could press

his face against the
help direct the eyes of his
on-camera counterpart. On modern
actor

camera to

sets, cameras are festooned with

wires and accessories, but

Delbonnel

says that Jeunet wants a "naked cam¬
era" to allow himself and his actors

and to avoid distracting the
players. This often meant stripping
the camera of its mattebox, a highly
access,

unusual

configuration.

Much of the film's poetry is
created through fluid camera move¬

describes Jeunet's

ments.

The

as

move,

whether creeping around a

camera positions
"inquisitive, almost peering into

the actors' soul." The director likes

eyelines very close to camera.
During dialogue scenes, the crew
sometimes taped a foam cushion on
the

camera

side, so that the offscreen

camera

is often

on

the

dialogue scene or
battlefield. Jeunet
with extensive

swooping above a
designs the shots
storyboards, and he

avoids traditional

master

shots and

over-the-shoulders. As is often the

the

camera.
Yet A Very Long
Engagement is rife with beautiful
wide-angle close-ups of Tautou.
Delbonnel explains that each face is
rendered differently by a given lens,
and before shooting Amelie, the
filmmakers sought the ideal lens for

the actress. "We did

tests to

find

out

the focal

lengths and the camera
height that suited her best. JeanPierre doesn't like to have

a camera

height, so there's always a
slight tilt up or down. With a short
focal length, a tilted camera quickly
at

eye

American

Cinematographer 61
American Cinematographer - December 2004

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