It’s that time of the year where we celebrate the best films of 2009. And as much as there is reason to praise American cinema and its homegrown talents, there is competition abroad that never seems to let up. With that said, the Golden Globes are now fast approaching (January 17) and we here at Anthem are ardently cheering on Michael Haneke’s The White Ribbon, which is representing Germany in the Best Foreign Language Film category.
The White Ribbon is no doubt intriguing, but it’s Christian Berger’s breathtaking monochromatic cinematography that takes center stage here. His take on the black and white aesthetic—a common nostalgic device often associated with inexpressive flatness and austerity—posits only a vague reminiscence to a familiar past. Berger’s is a look that is definitively modern.
Here are some highlights from our conversation with the Austrian cinematographer.
On why he chose to become a cinematographer:
I guess it’s from watching a lot of films and falling in love with the actresses on screen. [Laughs] I wanted to document how they moved and how they looked. I can’t tell you precisely why though. I mean, my father was a painter and maybe that had a big influence. I have a strong relationship with nature as well. Sometimes I feel that I have a stronger connection with nature than human beings.
A film critic once said, “Film is the only art form where you can hold the tremble of a leaf in the wind forever.” I found this to be very poetic. You’re given the opportunity to capture magic. It’s not to document that I was somewhere at a certain time, it’s about the images and capturing moments that will live on forever.
On working with directors:
It can get very technical. You can’t really experiment on set because everything is pretty much mapped out before the shooting begins. Directors expect that everything that was discussed prior to shooting will happen on set. And they often believe that the final product is worse than what they envisioned. As a result, it’s quite damaging working with directors and you need to have a strong ego. [Laughs]
You definitely have to make sure that the pairing works before committing to a project. If you’re working with someone entirely new, you need to take at least a few weeks to gain each other’s trust. It’s very important that you’re both on the same wavelength. There are times where you say one thing and the other person will say, “I completely agree!” and later find out that you both meant totally different things—that could be disastrous on long shoots especially because once you start shooting, it’s too late to go back and change anything. The trust will be forever broken and there will be a lot of anger as well. It doesn’t have to be harmony all the time, it’s not about that, but you have to be heading down the same path.
On why he wanted to shoot The White Ribbon:
Experimenting with natural light, oil lamps, candles, and torches interested me. The fact that we were shooting in black and white drew me as well. I learned a whole lot working on this film. For instance, even if you choose a lot of different colors for the costumes, they all produce the same grain in black and white. There are a lot of dangers with depth of field too—it looks totally different in black and white as opposed to color.
On choosing black and white vs. color:
We didn’t want the film to have a nostalgic look at all. We were never thinking, “Since it takes place in 1914, we have to create a grainy look and replicate the aesthetic from that time.” It had to be present. There was a big discussion with one of the participating TV stations in Germany that wanted to have a color version for future broadcast. It’s possible to make a color version from a technical standpoint, but I think it would look horrible from an aesthetic standpoint.
About preparing the village for the shoot:
It was a huge undertaking and certainly the most expensive part about this production. The dry roads were all done for us and we were lucky because they were planning on paving new streets anyway. There were some facades put in. Many of the big roofs were put in digitally because it would be too costly to actually build everything when you only see it in one or two shots.
On dealing with the village’s inhabitants:
We had very good producers, Michael Katz and Veit Heiduschka, who acted as diplomats. I still don’t know how they do it. How do you motivate people to let total strangers come into their town and take over for two to three months? The dust constantly rising into the air, putting fake bowls on their windowsills… it must be strange. But they were invited to visit the set as much as they wanted and everything worked out in the end.
On working with mostly young actors:
The casting was a very long process. I think we auditioned around 7,000 kids and the 12 that you see in the film are the ones we ended up with. We found really good kids. Obviously, some of the kids are very small and you can’t have them shooting for long hours. You just need to have a lot of patience and there’s a lot of waiting around at times. It doesn’t really bother me at all though. If you treat them like friends and not enemies from behind the camera, they will give you what you need.
On his next project:
My next film is with a female director from Germany. I can usually smell whether a film will work or not. You consider what kind of a cast it has going for it. You go out and look at the locations it will be shot in. You get a sense of the film’s overall style. Only after all of this do I start reading the screenplay. It’s going to be a project starring Tilda Swinton and Isabelle Huppert. It’s an ironic vampire film. I think it’ll be quite nice, especially with those two great actresses.
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