Manuel Alberto Claro (born in Santiago de Chile on 3 April 1970) is a Chilean-Danish cinematographer, filmmaker, and still photographer. He has won numerous awards, including four Robert Awards, two Bodil Awards, and the European Film Award. In 1974, he moved to Denmark and since that time lives in Copenhagen. Having graduated from the European Design Institute (IED), Milan, he studied Cinematography at the Danish National Film School. He is a member of the Danish Association of Cinematographers. The most important collaboration in his career is the one with director Lars von Trier: Melancholia (2011), Nymphomaniac (2013) and The House That Jack Built (2018).

leggi in italiano
 

You were born in Santiago, Chile. Your family then moved to Denmark in 1974. For what reason?

I was born in Chile in 1970. After the coup d'etat in september 1973, we stayed in the Italian embassy in Santiago for almost a year, then in the middle of 1974 we got asylum in Denmark. My father was politically active on “the wrong side”.

After graduating from Milan's Istituto Europeo di Design as a still photographer, you frequented at the National Film School of Denmark, from where you graduated in 2001. Is it correct?

Yes, originally my passion was still photography, that’s why I went to IED in Milan. Later I was a little lost in my still photography quest, and after seeing an application ad for the Danish Film School in the newspaper I thought: why not try cinema. I had never been on a film set, but I loved to go to the cinema. I applied and was accepted, but I had no idea what the job of a cinematographer was. After starting film school I realised that I really love the collaborative process of making cinema, still photography could be quite lonely, I also found that the position of the cinematographer, being next to the director, fitted me well, rather than being the one with the big artistic vision. Being a helper, who tries to help the directors achieve their vision suits me.

Which film of the past has impressed you most in terms of cinematography in your artistic training?

At the Istituto Europeo di Design we had some history of cinema classes, I think it was the first time I noticed the idea of cinematography, telling stories with a series of images. I remember being very inspired by Fellini’s 8 ½  and L’avventura by Antonioni, there must have been a lot of other films, but I don’t remember. Later Tarkovskij, the French Nouvelle Vague and what I would call European art movies became part of the inspiration. At the Film School we looked very much to USA, of course on films from the 70’s, but also 80’s and 90’s. Fincher was huge with Se7en when I was in Film School. But personally I was more inspired by the European scene at that time. Later Harris Savides became a huge inspiration, Birth, The Yards and Margot at The Wedding are some of my favorite films. His way of stylizing the natural, felt so effortless and incredibly precise and never self indulgent.

What was your first feature film?

Reconstruction was officially my first feature, but I shot another feature, a teenage drama named Bagland (Scratch, 2003) before that, but it came out after Reconstruction.

From the beginning you showed your talent, with the excellent Reconstruction, a psychological romantic drama film that marks the debut of the director Christoffer Boe. With this film you won the Bronze Frog at Camerimage and the Golden Plaque at Chicago International Film Festival. The film was shot almost entirely in available light, shooting Super 16 on an Arri SR3 using three different stocks. Then the film was scanned, color-graded, and digitally masked to CinemaScope. Is it correct? What can you tell me about it?

Reconstruction was a natural extension of what Boe and I had been doing at the Film School, trying to mix Tarkovskij and Dogma96 (smiling). Using the energy of the amazing actors and trying to do natural dramatic scenes, within a very constructed artistic subjective reality. I also think we used the limitations of budget and technical possibilities to our advantage and made a very grainy underexposed, but still stylized film. This mix of something quite perfumed and fetischistic mixed with the very grainy handheld image, created a quite powerful dynamic energy in the visual language, I think.

Boe is the head of so-called Hr. Boe & Co. consisting of a group of filmmakers who gathered together because of a mutual adoration for the perfect frame while studying at the National Film School. With him you worked after Reconstruction on Allegro (2005) and Everything Will Be Fine (2010). What can you tell me about him?

At the time Boe used the expression Hr. Boe & Co when making films, to acknowledge that he was not doing the films alone. It did not refer to a specific group, just to the people who had been part of the specific film. Boe has really been the most important teacher in my career, even though he is younger than me. His passion and enthusiasm for films really showed me a path. He is always trying to push limits for how to tell a story. And visually he has always been very ambitious. The perfect frame is really his passion, I am much more messy and interested in presence and connection with the actors in my visual style, but I think together we make something that connects classic beauty with a more raw energy.We still work together and our latest collaboration The Taste of Hunger, premiered in Denmark in June.

Your most famous collaboration is probably the one with director Lars von Trier of which you have signed the cinematography of last three films: Melancholia, Nymphomaniac and The House that Jack Built. For your first film Melancholia you won the Robert, the Bodil and the European Film Award (as best European Cinematographer). The film's story revolves around two sisters, one of whom is preparing to marry just before a rogue planet is about to collide with Earth, starring Kirsten Dunst and Charlotte Gainsbourg. How did you visually differentiate the two parts of the film?

Visually we mainly differentiated the two parts with color, the first part is very warm and the second goes from neutral to blue as the planet gets closer. The two parts were already quite different in the script, the first is a wedding party with all the natural chaotic events that comes with that and the second is more like a chamber play with few actors and most of the action is in their minds… It’s like a Fellini film in the beginning and a Bergman film in the end (smiling). I didn’t feel I needed to do much, because the difference was already there, built into the story.

What can you tell me about the magnificent slow opening sequence on the notes of Tristan and Isolde by Richard Wagner?

The Ouverture was very much thought out by Lars in the script already, we storyboarded it together with the VFX supervisor. But the idea was very much Lars’. I had seen what he had done in Antichrist and I felt that there was a huge artistic potential in this mix of cinema and painting, a cinematic potential that I still feel can be explored. The sequence was meticulously storyboarded and our VFX supervisor Peter Hjorth, had a split unit with the Phantom camera shooting the elements needed to do the images… Lars and I were only physically there when the actors were there.

Was the camera used also an Arri Alexa?

We used the Arri Alexa for the main part of the film and the Phantom high speed camera for the ouverture. It was July 2010 and the Alexa was completely new and not really out yet, I think it was a kind of prototype we used… But it was already miles ahead of any of the existing competitors in my opinion.

The film's exteriors were shot at Tjolöholm Castle in Halland, Sweden. Was Last Year in Marienbad directed by Alain Resnais a reference for the location?

Well, not until we found the location… I think it was one of the reasons Lars loved it very much. But I don’t remember it being a reference from the beginning.

You said you didn't have a great time with the Phantom camera on Melancholia. It is true?

In 2010 when we shot Melancholia, the Phantom Camera was very bad, the colors were poor and the image quality crappy… But the newer models have improved immensely in all aspects, it was a pleasure to use it on The House That Jack Built in 2017.

What can you tell me about the color of the planet Melancholia? Have you tested other colors before moving on to blue?

We tested all kind of colors for the planet Melancholia. But we went with blue, because we felt that to have some kind of emotional impact it had to resemble something we know… And the moon is the only object in space that we all know, so blue felt real, probably because it reminds us of the moon.

Nymphomaniac is quite an “erotic” film in two parts from 2013, or rather a reflection on sexuality. It is the final episode of the Trilogy of Depression (which includes Antichrist and Melancholia) conceived by von Trier and is divided into eight chapters. Which do you prefer?

The intention was not an erotic film, it is a film about sex addiction, hopefully there is very little erotic about it, but I guess it’s hard to avoid some eroticsism in a film that shows sex. It is hard to seperate the chapters, because one is nothing without the others. But I like the different visual ideas the chapters had. Probably mainly the black and white chapter, but also the chapter called The Mirror (which was heavily cut down in the producers cut, because of the abortion scene), which was all locked camera. Nymphomaniac was an interesting film to shoot, Lars wanted a film that was punk, ugly and raw and he wanted the frame with Joe and Seligman talking in the bedroom to feel theatrical. It was a little counteractive in respect to what cinematography usually is and what we learn in Film School. Cinematography is still mainly a hunt for classical beauty, compared to art history I consider cinema to be comparable with impressionism… Pure beauty is an objective in itself. In that sense Nymphomaniac was a challenge. But also a really fun project to do and I am very pleased with the overall film… It’s probably my favorite of the ones I have done with Lars.

The film was shot digitally with the Arri Alexa Plus with a lot of zoom lenses yet applying a Tiffen 1/8 Pro-Mist (white) filter to remove the digital look?

When shooting on film I never use soft filters, but on digital I feel I need to, because it is so sharp that, specially in close ups it distracts the eye and you look at the skin instead of the eyes. My guess is that we shot 90 percent of the film on the 28-76mm Angénieux Optimo.

How did you design then the atmospheres of the serial killer played by Matt Dillon in The House that Jack Built?

As with the other films I have made with Lars, we light for 360 degrees, meaning that we prepare to shoot in all directions. Since we have no idea where the actors go, the main idea is to turn off as much as possible to create contrast once we have seen the first take. Fortunately, Lars is not afraid of darkness, which means that we often turn off a lot to make the shots as dramatic as possible, of course in relation to what feels natural in the specific sequence.

The year 2021 marked the 700th anniversary of the death of the great poet Dante: the dissertations on art in general are particularly stimulating and provocative, with the film studded with quotes as in the case of the oil painting La Barque de Dante by Eugène Delacroix (frame also used for the official poster). The film is a kind of Dante's odyssey (the actor Bruno Ganz plays among other things Virigilio ...)?

Yes, Lars’ intention was to pay homage to Dante’s odyssey in all aspects. Visually we mainly looked at William Blake's illustrations, but also some paintings of Zdzislaw Beksinski. And it was also really fun to try to replicate the Delacroix painting… The overall feeling we were trying to achieve was inspired by the final chapter in Herman Broch’s Death of Virgil, which is a kind of death rant… I don’t know if there is any similarity, but it was an interesting and enlightening inspiration.

What can you tell me about the influence of the Dogme-95?

In Denmark Dogme 95 was a very important movement, in my opinion its main impact was that it made handheld camera normal and acceptable. Before Dogme 95 handheld camera was kind of an extreme and artsy tool you could use in certain cases. In general, Dogme 95 showed us that you could make strong and accessible stories told very cheap and simple. Nothing that had not been done before, but it really had an impact presented in this way with rules and as a movement. I think Dogme 95 was a reaction to the pressure Lars (and the other D-brothers) felt from the industry to tell stories in a certain way.

What can you tell me about your professional relationship with von Trier?

Lars is a very strong and technical director, he doesn’t say much, but I feel it is very clear, especially what he doesn’t like.

How could you describe your cinematography style?

Ideally my style is what feels right for the specific film. I try to develop the style in collaboration with the director. And I try to always start from scratch when going into a new film. But when that is said I sometimes hear people say that what I do on different projects is typically me. I guess what they feel is maybe my taste and maybe the way I approach a scene? The energy and timing in my handheld operating I guess is personal…but it would be against my principles to describe my style in words more precisely.

Over the course of your career, which camera model did you prefer?

I thought the Alexa Mini was amazing… But now the Alexa Mini LF is even better. I try to keep up with new cameras, but I find it quite depressing that there has not really been any competition the last 11 years when it comes to high end cameras. On the other hand, today you can make amazing looking images with very cheap cameras. Which has democratized cinematography. Quality and definition is accessible for everyone. Today to be a unique cinematographer is more about approach, overall storytelling and lightning than what camera you have.

What was your point of reference among cinematographers? Are you inspired by someone?

I think my two biggest inspirations visually, that in my opinion has a very clear and understandable approach to cinematography, are Gordon Willis and later Harris Savides. The way they cover scenes, very simply and always with a very natural approach, but always with a poetic element, that never feels self-indulgent. I find it very inspiring. I think Roger Deakins and Hoyte Van Hoytema are maybe the masters of this school of cinematography today. Others that have inspired me on a more abstract level are Anthony Dod Mantle and Christopher Doyle; their words, passion and reflections have always broadened my perspective on this profession.

Which Italian Cinematographers do you most admire?

The work of Gianni Di Venanzo has always impressed me, both with Fellini and Antonioni, and I loved Marco Onorato’s work on Gomorrah, but I am not sure I have seen other of his films. Storaro is of course also one of the great cinematographers of all time, especially his work with Bertolucci is inevitable.

What movie have you been working on lately?

In the spring we did the third season of Lars Von Triers The Kingdom, a continuation of the series he did in the 90’s and I just finished shooting a feature film, Kagefabrikken, here in Denmark with a very renowned theater director, Christian Lolikke, it is his first film… So that is exciting.

Discover our books
Discover our interviews with directors and cinematographers
Subscribe our newsletter