Cinematography - Visions of Light

1. What is the role of the cinematographer in film making?

     The cinematographer extracts the directors ideas, helps them become visual. He decides how the camera should move, what mood and feeling the light should have. The cinematographer and the director work very close together.

2. Why did director Roman Polanski insist on using hand held camera in the film, Chinatown?

     He wanted to get a really intimate, spontaneous behaviour from the actors with the camera being very close to them.

3. Name two films which use colour in a very symbolic way and describe what they suggest.

    a, The Last Emperor (1987) use colour and light in a very symbolic way. In the film red is the colour of beginning. Yellow is the colour of identity, the colour that most represents the sun itself. Green is knowledge, a man from the western world comes on a green bicycle.
    b, American Beauty (1999) uses the colour red which they bring through the whole film, that's is by far the most dominating colour. It represents the life force, it's sexualism, it's rebellion, it's transcendence. It has different meaning to every character.

4. In the film, Raging Bull why was the fight scene filmed it different speeds?

     They used different speeds to capture different emotions. People remembered fight scenes as big flash photos from magazines, they wanted to give that back on the screen.

5. Who is the cinematographer for the film, Apocalypse Now and what is his philosophy?

     Vittorio Storaro. He says a film can't be expressed by one person because it's a commune art. Light is very important in his work, he can show every emotion with light.