Benoît Delhomme (Paris, 28 August 1961) is a French film cinematographer. He was nominated for the César Award for Best Cinematography in 1998 for Artemisia directed by Agnès Merlet. Among his films to remember: The Winslow Boy a 1999 period drama film directed by David Mamet, The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas a 2008 British-American historical tragedy film written and directed by Mark Herman, Wilde Salomé a 2011 American docudrama written, directed by, and starring Al Pacino, The Theory of Everything a 2014 biographical drama film directed by James Marsh, At Eternity's Gate a 2018 biographical drama film about the final years of painter Vincent van Gogh's life directed by Julian Schnabel and Minamata, a 2020 drama film directed by Andrew Levitas starring Johnny Depp.
At Eternity's Gate is a 2018 film directed by Julian Schnabel, which recounts the last and tormented years of Vincent Van Gogh (played by Willem Dafoe). Also, Schnabel had already directed another film dedicated to the life of a painter such as Basquiat (1996). How was your professional relationship with the director Schnabel, who was himself an established painter?
Well, I need to recap a bit my history with Julian. I met him thirteen years ago when he visited the set of Al Pacino’s Salomé. He sat in a chair in front of the monitors and spent the day watching me work. That was very intimidating but at the end of the day he came to talk to me and told me he would like to work with me one day. Then he offered me to shoot The Diving Bell and the Butterfly but I was unavailable at the time. This drove me mad for years to have to pass on this so when I heard he had the Van Gogh project I did everything I could to get that film. He had totally forgotten about me and so I had to pass all the exams this time. I never fought so much to get a film. I was ready to break all the rules of classical filmmaking to please Julian in a way. He told me that he appreciated very much the fact I never said no to him even if he was asking me to do crazy things on set like putting his bifocal yellow glasses in front of the lens. If you want to work with a painter you have to expect that things will be different. You expect spontaneity, you expect new creative strategies to make images. In general, painters start painting on a blank canvas which is the opposite of putting a camera in front of some existing thing and frame that existing thing. There is an interest for the unknown in painters and I like very much this approach.
How did you compare with the director about light and colours?
It is difficult to tell a painter as successful as Schnabel what kind of colour he should like! In the beginning, Julian told me to not try to do any colour grading on my images as he said he may prefer the images not properly graded. He believes a lot in the beauty of things you find by accident. One day he told me: close your eyes and try to frame. He also had a theory that if the camera has been abandoned by the grip or a camera assistant you should always look at what that camera is unconsciously framing as it could become the most beautiful shot of the day. This was a good lesson for me as I still believed a lot in controlling everything at that time. I tried not to bring much artificial light to this film, I understood that Julian wanted to embrace the world as it was at the time of the shoot and the main thing was how and what to frame.
At Eternity's Gate (Julian Schnabel, 2018), cinematography by Benoît Delhomme
In the film, the hand-held camera is used in particular, as if to reproduce the inner state of agitation and disturbance of the famous painter, right?
Yes, this was the idea. To get the audience to look at the world like Vincent. I shot 100% of the film with the camera held in my hands, not classic handheld with the camera on my shoulder. I could react to any impulsion much faster like this, I could be closer to the gesture of a paintbrush in a way. I could walk, I could run, I could suddenly put the camera on the floor during a take. Julian wanted the camera to be able to describe the world around as much as filming the actors. We were also using split diopters quite often to blur the bottom of the frame when Vincent was losing control of himself.
What can you tell us about the interpretation of Willem Dafoe (nominated for an Oscar) who identifies himself perfectly with Van Gogh? Is he a collaborative, light-conscious actor?
Willem is incredibly aware that the camera must be his friend. He often said in interviews for the promotion of the film that we were like two dancing partners during the shoot. It says it all I think. This was an honour to be on his side and always trying to be at the right place. Sometimes I was so close that I was touching him during the take. Julian even asked Willem to operate himself a few shots and I did shoot my feet walking in the fields like if I was Van Gogh, so you see our roles were intertwined.
Willem Dafoe as Vincent Van Gogh in At Eternity's Gate (Julian Schnabel, 2018)
Is your cinematography for this film based on warm colours, especially the painter's beloved yellow and blue?
I did not try to go too much in van Gogh’s colour territory when I was shooting because it was not Julian’s first intention. But we were shooting in Arles and Saint Remy where Vincent lived and painted and so we were using his daylight and his landscapes and so it was not difficult to saturate these colours during the final digital grading. This became very tempting of course. I kind of pushed Julian in that direction but he was not sure to start as he preferred the softer colours we had in the dailies.
Did you prefer wide-angle lenses for this film?
Julian liked very much to go with wide lenses on this film, I guess a bit like in Van Gogh’s paintings when you have the feeling that he was very close to his models. He was never afraid to have a bit of distortion and this was helping my handheld operating a lot. I would never change the lens to go close up, I was walking closer instead. My dream would be to shoot a film with only one lens anyway.
You used a RED Helium 8K camera and Kowa lenses: what can you tell us about these technical choices?
At that time it was the right camera choice. The Red Helium was the best compromise in terms of the lightness of the camera body and the quality of the colours. I chose the Kowas because their flares were incredibly close to how the sun can look in Van Gogh’s paintings. They were difficult to use as sometimes the sun would burn all the images but I liked that danger and used it a lot.
At Eternity's Gate (Julian Schnabel, 2018)
In 1997 you illuminated another film about painting, Artemisia directed by Agnès Merlet, based on the life of the Italian painter Artemisia Gentileschi, belonging to the Caravaggesque school, played by the Italian actress Valentina Cervi. With this film, you were nominated for the Cesar Award for Best Cinematography. Have you interpreted the pictorial style required by the film, capturing the plasticity and chiaroscuro of Caravaggio's light?
Yes, this takes me more than 20 years back. I enjoyed shooting Artemisia a lot. We shot in Cinecittà which was a total dream for me. We also shot a lot on locations around Rome and in Tuscany in autumn and the light was unbelievable. The painter Artemisia did not have the cult following she seems to have now so we all felt quite free to portrait her. I was blessed to have the best Italian crew possible. Many of them had worked with Storaro, our production designer had worked with Fellini. A dream. I studied Caravaggio’s light quite intensively at that time but I was still a cinematographer who had a lot to learn. I was unconscious of the importance of the task. I would shoot it very differently now if some director was asking me to do it again.
Unlike At Eternity's Gate (shot digitally), Artemisia was shot in 35mm. What do you think of the epochal transition from film to digital?
I shot 35 features on film and only 7 on digital. So I am quite a young digital cinematographer. I used digital for the first time on a film I shot in the US called Lawless. I was scared but the director John Hillcoat pushed for it. His main reason was that the Alexa was incredibly more sensitive at night compared to the Kodak 5219. I still regret that we did not shoot it on film in fact. I am not so sure that the extreme sensitivity of the new sensors is always a good thing but the very good thing with Digital is that the cameras became very small. The way I operated the camera on At Etenity’s gate would have not been possible with any of the existing film cameras. Except shooting S16 with the Aaton A Minima. The fact you have to light less or not at all to get exposure with digital kind of makes all cinematographers very talented compared to the time when I started. Because you see your mistakes in real-time on the monitors, you are tempted to correct things to a supposed perfection but at the same time, you lose the soul of a more unpolished unvarnished film texture. We can discuss forever if having the tools now to totally change a digital image in post-production is a good or a bad thing. I feel that I can sleep better at night when I shoot digital because I do not have to worry about my exposure and this is a good reason to go that way at my age.
Artemisia (Agnès Merlet, 1997), cinematography by Benoît Delhomme
Is there a painter or a pictorial style that has influenced your work throughout your career?
I am a cinematographer so I have to be able to let myself be influenced by a large number of styles and art work. This is a big part of the pleasure I still have to make films. I have some easiness to immerse myself in a new style and experiment to find new textures of lighting for a film. I have no recipe. I hate to have to redo things I have done in the past. I treat every film as a prototype. I always start a film saying that I don’t know how to do it and the film is there to prove that I finally found a solution. Obviously, I own a lot of art books, they are my safest friends. I prefer to look at a book of paintings of Rembrandt than looking at a film that tries to light like Rembrandt.
Which film of the past has impressed you most in terms of cinematography in your artistic training?
Years before film school, the first time I tried to remember the name of a cinematographer was after watching Terrence Malick’s Days of Heaven. Nestor Almendros. Then during film school, I remember you had to choose quite quickly your group of friends to make short movies. In my class, it was either John Cassavetes style or 1920’s German Expressionisms and I chose the later. I thought it was more interesting to learn lighting with Murnau’s and Fritz Lang's movies because the lighting was very graphic, you could feel where all the sources of light were, you could understand why a flag was useful to control the beam of a lamp.
Which Italian cinematographers, past or present, do you most admire?
I realize I don't really know enough about the work of contemporary Italians cinematographers to talk about them. But many of my mentors even if I never met them were Italian cinematographers. Vittorio Storaro of course for all Bertolucci's films. Carlo Di Palma for Il Deserto rosso, Blow-Up. Gianni Di Venanzo for L’eclisse, La notte. I still do not understand how they managed to do what they did in these films. This is pure genius to me.
Concluding. Your latest film is Minamata, a 2020 drama film directed by Andrew Levitas, based on the book of the same name by Aileen Mioko Smith and Eugene Smith. The film stars Johnny Depp. What is your relationship with still photography?
I first wanted to be a photographer. When I was 15. I got offered a Canon FTB and started to photograph everything around me and spent days in my small darkroom making B&W prints. That was a paradise for a teenager. I discovered Eugene Smith at that time through the Life Magazine books about photography techniques. I learnt everything from these books. So when I got offered Minamata it seemed like a project I could not refuse. It brought back to me why still photography was my first love interest. And yes Johnny Depp is playing the legendary Eugene. It was a passion project for him and you can feel it in every shot.
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