Carlo Di Palma
Carlo Di Palma says…
An interview by Stephen J. Szklarski
Breaking the rules and taking chances is what cinema is about. You can break the rules with story structure, content, or versatile cinematography. Italy’s legendary Carlo Di Palma is a master cinematographer that has done just that. Since the 1960’s, his collaboration with international and American directors has been a great part of cinema history. His work on films such as Red Desert (1964) and Blow Up (1966), with director Michelangelo Antonioni has led this visionary genius to shoot films all over the world, and work with directors such as Sidney Lumet and the brilliant Woody Allen. Carlo Di Palma has never once slowed down and is continuing to take all the risks needed to shoot beautiful images for many directors. He is a cinematographer that has created an unlimited landscape of vision for many directors. IFQ had the chance to interview him while he was in New York City in preproduction for the next Woody Allen film.
IFQ: What was your first interest in film?
CDP: My father used to work the camera for several film studios in Italy. I’d run to the studio or the location, and watch my father work. I was fascinated by the whole experience. I would stand on a crate sometimes and watch. All of the people that were on the location were pleasant to me. I was very quiet and observant, so with that they let me stay on set. I would watch many different directors over and over.
IFQ: Who were some of the directors you watched during this period?
CDP: I wish I could remember. (laughing)
IFQ: What was your first job in film?
CDP: Focus pull and continuity. I was very curious, very eager to learn. After a few small films, I worked my way up to camera operator then to cinematographer.
IFQ: In the early sixties, Italian films were suddenly getting recognition, there was lots of attention paid to the style and craft of the process. In 1961, your work on the film The Assassin (Assassino) with director Elio Petri was well-received.
CDP: The Assassin (Assassino) is a fast moving film. Originally, I was to be an operator on the film. The script was brought to me and we looked it over and I was excited about it. It was a story that required lots of movement. He wanted me to break the rules or bend them; I enjoy his style very much. For the first time, I was able to begin to experiment with different lenses. Wide, telephoto and zoom lenses. I began to experiment mostly with zoom lenses. At that time in Italian cinema, camera operators always changed lenses for shots. I would use the long zoom lenses and get the shot that way. Minor lighting adjustments were made and it saved lots of time, so Petri and I were able to get more shots quickly.
IFQ: You began to work on documentaries after that for sometime.
CDP: I was one of the first cameramen to shoot documentaries in color format on 35mm in Italy.
IFQ: So, your documentary work led you to film Red Desert with Michelangelo Antonioni in 1964?
CDP: Michelangelo Antonioni sat one night and watched ten documentaries from all over the world. He then watched my documentary footage that I shot in color. The next morning he called me. He gave me three pages of the script for the film that he was prepping for. I went out and shot test footage for film. When I went out with a small rig alone and shot for him, I was hired to film the rest. It was challenging to me, with all the different lenses that were becoming available to us. At that time, we began to play with the f-stops and with different lenses.
IFQ: The next film is the legendary work of art, Michelangelo Antonioni’s Blow Up (1966).
CDP: He is a wonderful and very clever director. It was the first time he shot a movie sequence with four cameras. He was one of the first European film directors allowed to do this. There was a lot of preparation for it. So we took quite a long time. Lighting was a very important part of the movie. We had to rig and hide so many different lights for the movie to be shot and look well. We ran into problems because of all the different cameras. One would have a wide lens, another would have a long telephoto lens with focus pull, and another would have a wide lens on a crane, another would have a zoom lens while on a moving dolly or a wide lens on a dolly. We did many things that we had never seen before.
He had lost of footage to view after each day because many of the scenes in the film were all shot like that. Hours and hours of film. Antonioni was a very unconventional director. His camera movement on the set was subtle at times and then extreme but he was so brilliant. It was cinema that we wanted to see ourselves. Antonioni was very clever at shooting this film. I love the movie and I am very proud that people still like to watch Blow Up.
IFQ: Girl With A Pistol (Ragazza Con la Pistola) directed by Mario Monicelli (1968). That film had such a unique look to it. How did you get the film to look that way?
CDP: I shot many of the scenes with different zoom lenses. Also, after reading the script and looking at the location, I would write down what lenses I would want for each location. The look of the film is very rich. There wasn’t much change in the lighting once we had the scene ready for shooting. I used different zoom lenses on that film instead of shooting it with a long lens or wide lenses. Shooting with a zoom helped me shoot faster. I like shooting with a zoom lens because if there is an immediate change in scene or location, it’s easier. It becomes tough to take off the lens and put on another one. I’d rather move the light a little and get a good reading and shoot.
IFQ: You made a transition from international directors to American directors with Sidney Lumet’s The Perfectionist (1970).
CDP: In early 1970, Sidney Lumet came to Rome. He was not familiar with Italy. He wanted to work with a cameraman and a production crew that understood the way things were run in Italy. With that, I read the script and I thought it was very powerful. Lumet is a unique director. He plans ahead. Lots of preproduction. On set, he is very fast. Many setups, fast shooting schedule. He is a director that knows technically what the movie should look like. He likes to not only have storyboards and shooting script.
For me, it was an important movie because it was the first time I worked with an American director. Better still, a New York director. Very bright, sharp, and wonderful craftsman. Lumet moves fast because he comes from television. Lumet likes to shoot a three or five to one ratio per scene. He gave me lots of freedom with the camera operation. He likes to create an atmosphere of collaboration and respect for everyone involved on the movie set. Over the years, he has wanted to work with me several times but I was not available. To this day, we remain very good friends.
IFQ: Speaking of New York directors, you have worked on ten Woody Allen films since 1980. The first being Hannah and Her Sisters.
CDP: The two of us wanted to work together for at least ten years before we started to work together. But our schedules never met. Finally, we began to work together on Hannah and Her Sisters.
IFQ: Insight on Woody Allen?
CDP: Woody’s films are all dialogue. Several people speaking at one time. I always have to have an extra camera on standby with a full mag ready to go. (Laughing)
I’ll tell you a funny story. The first time I worked with Woody Allen, I received the script for Hannah and Her Sisters. I only had twenty-four hours to read it, then it had to be returned. So I read it. And reading his scripts is such an experience because he has such brilliant taste and a witty sense of humor. So many conversations at once while walking, or in a car, or in an apartment page after page. Hannah and Her Sisters is a masterpiece. I had to read all of this and make shooting decisions in twenty-four hours. It’s funny because Woody had stayed an extra day to talk with me. So everyone in New York and Italy knows how Woody Allen is about travel. They thought he was missing (laughing). I thought the script was great and I’ve been working with him for sixteen years.
IFQ: Your collaboration with Woody Allen is a special one.
CDP: We work well together. I really respect his vision as a director. He is very clear and precise about what he wants on film. There is lots of discussion with him in preproduction. I tell him that we could shoot some scene faster with a long zoom save a lot of time (laughing) and he would say “Carlo, Carlo, Carlo no no…”. Over the years, you begin to know his habits and the way he crafts the film with the actors. It’s wonderful to be a part of it.
IFQ: In Shadows and Fog (directed by Woody Allen, 1992), the camera shots illicit tension with dark and murky unusual camera angles. The outdoor scenes are always somewhat blurred and slightly out of focus, adding to the climate of fear.
CDP: I looked at American black and white detective films of the 30’s and 40’s. I wanted to recreate the movie to look like a recreation of that era as much as possible. When shooting black and white, the grays and the blacks are very important. The light source can be hard or soft. Grays can be shot at so many different light temperatures. I first began in black and white so it was like going back to when I first began shooting, I had to remember what kind of light source or temperature would give me what image on black and white. Black and white also requires different lenses. I was very proud of my work on that film. I really took a lot of time to prepare for the shoot. Woody is a fan of black and white films and since we are close to the same age (chuckles) we were able to shoot something very beautiful.
IFQ: In Husbands and Wives (1992), the style changes again – you took a different approach to cinematography with lots of hand held fast movement. Lots of available light and source light.
CDP: Husbands and Wives is a very nervous film thanks to the tension between relationships. Negative and positive. An emotional experience. We thought hand held would make it more realistic. I didn’t really structure the lighting as I would on other films. There was lots of available light and single source, two source light.
IFQ: What type of camera equipment was used?
CDP: The film mags were 120 meter (600 ft.) mags of Kodak 35mm. We used a faster speed film stock, but I can’t remember the number (laughing). I would operate in a few scenes but most of the time the operator would run the camera. No video tap. One this film the shooting was very fast, three to one ratio, sometimes five to one ratio. And with everybody talking and talking, we need to shoot fast.
IFQ: How long was the shooting schedule?
CDP: Ten to twelve weeks. At times we only shot two scenes in one day because of the talking, the actors get tired from all the dialogue. They need their sleep (laughing). Nobody speaks at the end of the day. They can hardly eat, their mouths are so tired. The shooting ratios would be three to one or five to one, but each scene is relatively long because of the dialogue. What can you cut away to when shooting lots of dialogue?
IFQ: Bullets Over Broadway (1994) was an upswing for Woody Allen and the film was well-received.
CDP: Bullets Over Broadway is another period piece that was shot in color. So the lighting had to be warmer. Costumes had to be part of the American era in the forties. It was a great challenge for me to do a period movie with modern equipment. So many different colors to film.
IFQ: No zoom lenses?
CDP: (laughing) No…not too much. Many films of that era were black and white and color was for the musicals that had great big sound stages. During that time period, when one went to watch a stage performance, one would see the colors, the lights, the costumes and it’s a beautiful experience. Woody and I had that in mind when making the film. It was special.
IFQ: In Mighty Aphrodite (Woody Allen, 1995), you had changed the style again. It was more of a contemporary style.
CDP: When Woody is acting in front of the camera, he has a total trust in us. He will rehearse, and then shoot, so we know where the marks are for focus. Again, it’s all dialogue. The story takes place in the present. With this film the style was contemporary and conventional. Miss Sorvino was very bouncy and full of life. It was pleasure to work with her too.
IFQ: What about Everybody Says I Love You (1996)?
CDP: We shot that in so many countries: Venice, Italy; Paris, France; New York. Again, it was different because with the singing and dancing different lenses needed to be used to capture all the movement. There was lots of rehearsal and preparation for it. I don’t remember what the shooting schedule was. Each city had different colors that I wanted to capture as part of the story line. Florence is so beautiful, so is Paris. The movie is a musical and I wanted each city to look romantic. Woody understands the beauty that comes with every city that we filmed. We were very pleased with the movie.
IFQ: What type of cameras do you like to work with?
CDP: Mitchell cameras.
IFQ: What do you favor about them?
CDP: It’s a good company that has great cameras. Good for filming on location. Great for lenses. Mitchell is the best!
IFQ: Film stock?
CDP: Kodak. I use nothing else. There are so many different film speeds. That gives so many different images providing the lenses that I work with. Kodak is the best film stock.
IFQ: How do you like the HD format, have you worked with it?
CDP: (laughing) I like 35mm and that’s it. I don’t even use a video tap on set. I shoot the film, process it, and look at it on the screen in the lab while shooting. Many directors and cinematographers use the video tap on set to choose the best take. We don’t. We look at the dailies on the big screen, then we decide from that. For me, I can see the images, textures. Focus points, light source, and depth of field, you can’t do that with video tap on set.
IFQ: Some advice for anyone getting started behind the camera?
CDP: Go to school, learn, look and observe. Watch everything. One must learn about lighting for film/photography. It is very important. Source light, available light, and light exposure. Then you should move to the camera operations and all the variables. Focus pull, film mags, shutter speeds, camera placement. There are so many little things to learn. I still learn all the time. When you begin shooting for directors, one must need to be sensitive to the director’s vision. You need to always collaborate with the director, and with your camera to film something beautiful. The camera is magic. I like to believe that it is a tool that magically captures beautiful images that we can look at over and over again. I believe many people love to experience visual beauty. Always be creative, always take a chance or a risk because perhaps one risk or two risks might not work, but the third time you try to film something it could be something that is so wonderful that it has to be captured on film. Always do your best.
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Carlo Di Palma is current in preproduction on the next Woody Allen film to be shot in the spring of 2002. There is no working title at this time. After sixteen years of working with Mr. Allen, Carlo says: “Now I’m allowed to keep a script for a week.”