A few excerpts from a correspondence begun by the “Philosophy of the Gaze” group on the relationship between cinematographer and director…

An informal correspondence alongside our meetings helped us refine our thinking on various subjects, notably the relationship between cinematographer and director. It brought out the points on which we converge, while highlighting the diversity of our personal experiences.

Renaud:

“Professionally, we are far more inclined to turn words into images than the other way around, and nothing seems more natural to me than the reluctance we often express to putting on paper the thoughts our practice inspires. But we all have within us enough to feed those thoughts, and that is even one of the reasons we decided to come together in this Union.

For my part, much of my work consists of verbalizing vague ideas, putting words to images, matching my own vocabulary with an author’s… This question of turning to the written word (or at the very least to structured speech) directly echoes a suggestion made in the group about the director-cinematographer relationship, which bears the concrete trace of the hesitation waltz that both unites and separates image and word.

Yes, I think talking about our relationship with directors opens the door to a host of aspects: artistic, technical, philosophical, human…

I suggest a starting point in the form of a very simple question: ‘As creative collaborators, do we serve the film or the director?’

It is a question that has nagged at me a great deal, and I hope it will pique your interest too: I have often found myself in delicate situations, thinking I was working on the same film as a director, only to realize, sometimes too late, that interpersonal issues could take precedence over that collaboration.”

Ned:

“The director conveys their way of seeing to me in our conversations before the shoot, but also at any moment while we are shooting. When I’m operating on a documentary shoot, for example, a director’s sense of what lies off-screen is broader than mine, allowing them to sniff out a possibility that escapes me and that matches their intuition of the film we are making. They might suddenly whisper an idea for a shot that pulls us away from what we are doing. Sometimes this change of course unsettles me, jolting me out of the breath-hold of action… but their gaze carries meaning and opens a door that lets me be more fully inside the film we are making. That is only natural, since their point of view is the only one that can connect every stage of the film’s creation.

Working in tandem allows each of us to step aside from the chosen course of work, at different moments and according to our personal intuitions. This sharing of the work helps refine the film as it develops and make the most of unforeseen events.”

Charlie:

“Light always serves a purpose greater than itself; it can only be appreciated in relation to that purpose. No technical description, no visual descriptor, has any hold on that relationship…

… If the film is insignificant, so is the light. Of course, the cinematographer can pull off a superb technical performance, but it leads to an empty aesthetic, a beautiful image with nothing to say…

… The materials available to director and cinematographer are seen as instruments, each with its own territory, coming into play in very specific and interactive registers. From this point of view, each creative collaborator becomes one performer among others. And one of the functions of directing is to orchestrate this ensemble. Each soloist is therefore directed by the mise en scène, just as the actors are.”

Note: These remarks are taken from the foreword to Charlie Van Damme’s book “Lumière actrice” (Éditions FEMIS, 1987), and we include them in the correspondence on the relationship between cinematographer and director with Charlie’s permission.

Pascal:

“I’m thinking of what Philippe Rousselot said about Chabrol:

Chabrol believed that the director was the one able to see, and to see as well as possible. You can only ask yourself ‘how do I see?’ once you have started to see. Everything is a matter of looking, and to be nothing but that gaze, you have to do nothing else, and forget what you think you know, the text you have read, and the images with which you have already illustrated it.”

Claire:

“My best collaborations have grown out of a strong desire on the director’s part. Whether it is expressed in writing, in conversation, through visual references, or during location scouting, I find that it is this desire, and the imaginative world that comes with it, that lets me see directions and possible approaches and make concrete suggestions (framing, lighting, camera angle, focal length…), but also agree on the method specific to each shoot regarding the people involved, the actors, and the priorities for intervention. Quite simply, it is when we feel complementary, partners in the same adventure.”

Isabelle:

“What do we allow to emerge of the other in ourselves, of ourselves in the other, and how is this nourished in the exercise of our gaze?

This hidden part that runs through every film can only find a form or a voice to express itself and leave its mark because the film has been inhabited.

Inhabited by a desire fed by the strength of a director’s own, and by that of every crew member who follows in their wake.

Thinking about Claire’s apt words on the relationship with the director, the metaphor of the child has been on my mind lately. ‘The best collaborations grow out of a strong desire…’

Films, like all human beings, are above all the fruit of a strong desire and of a process shaped with the director, onto which we graft and project ourselves. A desire that we inhabit, accompany, deliver, water, feed, nurture, digest. A desire that we make our own, take ownership of, transform, and who knows what else.

In this sense we are interpreters; perhaps we can only express ourselves through others?

Through the desire of others, through someone else’s question, into which we insinuate ourselves and which mirrors our own back to us?

And perhaps, for my part, I cannot approach my own question, my own desire, head-on?

The need to go through a third party to reach oneself and the world?

How is it for you?”

Thomas:

“After a phone conversation with a director this very morning, I was thinking that this exchange was exactly what one could call a philosophy of the gaze. In our discussion, both technical and artistic, there was an intention, a direction, a shared vision, backed by our individual experiences (his with other cinematographers, mine with other directors) and our shared ones (we have shot so many different projects together, in such different setups). We talked about focal lengths, camera positions, shot breakdowns; we leaned heavily on a particular shot size because the references of the moment invited us to, because they particularly interested him and because I was entirely receptive. We like working together because we understand each other implicitly and explicitly, by feel, and as I hung up I told myself that this was one of the great joys of my profession: having intellectual, conceptual discussions fed by the very concrete experience of shooting. Hands in the grease and head in the stars.

It’s true that we work with someone else’s desire, the director’s, who seeks in our companionship a creative interaction, a mutual stimulation that becomes an encounter in action, which will nourish our shared film. But it is also because at certain times that encounter did not happen, or I wondered whether it ever would, or would come around again, that I came to direct my own films, mostly documentaries, let’s say. Films that I obviously directed, for the most part, from behind the camera. As I tell you about it here, I realize that I became a cinematographer thinking that if no one was interested in my stories, I could at least try to bring them to life myself. Then, once I was a cinematographer, I started directing films I would have liked to be offered as a cinematographer. This double gaze, as director and as cinematographer, which I can separate quite easily, may be why I sometimes feel that I can’t work with just anyone, to borrow Isabelle’s expression. Or rather, that some directors don’t think they are dealing with a cinematographer who, when the occasion arises, can agree to carry their desire as far as it will go.

As for the others, I believe they welcome, with esteem and satisfaction, the idea that there is a little of us in their films.”

— The “Philosophy of the Gaze” group