RIC GENTRY : I understand that it was your father who originally inspired you to work as a cinematographer.
VITTORIO STORARO : My father was a projectionist with a major Italian company. He encouraged me into a school that taught photography. I was about fourteen years old, so I really didn’t have a very good idea of what this was about. It was something my father thought he might do but he never did, so he influenced one of his sons into photography as a continuation of his own ambitions. Much later, however, I discovered that photography allowed me to express myself. I can say today, very truly, that I don’t see myself doing anything but trying to express myself through light.
“Photography” originally meant “writing with light,” and it is the term I prefer for what I do. It’s writing with light in the sense that I am trying to express something within me: my sensibility, my cultural heritage, my formation of being. All along I’ve been trying to express what I really am through light. When I work on a film, I am trying to have a parallel story to the actual story so that through the light and color you can feel and understand, consciously or unconsciously, much more clearly what the story is about.
RG: This “parallel story” that you speak of complements the director’s vision?
VS: Of course. I believe that making a film can be compared to conducting an opera. Whether the director is the author [of the screenplay] or not, he is still similar to the conductor. The orientation, the language, the style that we are going to seek for the story originates with him. What is really very important for me is the relationship between the main author, the director, and the coauthors: the composer of music, the art direction, the costume design, the photography, and so on. As the photographer, I listen to what his feelings are, how he thinks about the material that is before us, what his concepts are. Then I read the script with all of that in mind, trying to visualize his concepts in terms of a style. Essentially I am trying to continue our dialogue. Then I suggest to him what can be done to augment his concepts in the photographic area, how the story can be represented in an emotional, symbolic, psychological, and physical way. If we reach an agreement, if we really know in which direction we are going, I go back to the script and, scene by scene, apply to it, in a specific way, the general concept that we have established, the principle that guides me in lighting any single shot. Of course, step by step, day by day, I can make changes, always trying to come closer to what the visual concept is. It will take you through the picture as it is made, as it evolves. Because you can see something along the way that is more attractive, more beautiful, but that is not right for the picture you’ve set out to make.
You should always be very strong in resisting these distractions. You must select only the right kind of light, the right kind of tonality, the right kind of feeling, the right kind of color for the story. This is my approach, and the work I do with the script has helped me a lot, usually. Also, from the moment I begin a picture, I also try to find stimulations, corroborations through external sources, such as images, museums, films, music, people, locations, costumes, that add to my feelings about the material. I am always trying to come closer to my original impressions of what is photographically needed. The first few days of any new picture are very difficult, very frightening, because you are taking a step forward. You are starting over, and until you know what you want to do, there is incredible pain and suffering. Yes, it is like being born. I remember every first screening of every picture I’ve ever done. There is an incredible emotion as you sit and wait for the screen to be lit by an image. Then it is magic, when you see an image moving. It almost doesn’t matter at this moment what kind of image it is. That you can see it and it is there is something very powerful, magical. Until then, it is all very painful. Until the light beaming through the positive stock breaks the obscurity of the room and you can see an image. After that, you can analyze what you think of it, whether it is good or bad, but that moment in the screening room is an incredible moment. Sometimes I think you live for that moment.
~~Film Voices: Interviews from Post Script -edited by- Gerald Duchovnay
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