Rodrigo Prieto has long been one of the most versatile cinematographers in the world. He first came to international fame with the gritty Oscar nominated Mexican drama Amores Perros (2000) though filmmakers in Hollywood, we learned in our interview, had noticed his skill even earlier than that. Since then he's worked all over the world and in an impressive array of genres and styles.
We gave you a teaser of our long sit down with this great visual stylist a couple of months ago (we had to grill him about Brokeback Mountain first) but we were meeting to discuss The Irishman. Martin Scorsese's latest Best Picture nominee had yet to open when we spoke but it was a critical darling immediately and Prieto secured his third Oscar nomination for his contributions to the mournful epic. We spoke to him about his visual choices, what he loves about his job, and working with auteurs like Martin Scorsese and Ang Lee. How do they differ on set and which of Prieto's films had they seen to convince them to begin their long collaborations?
[This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity]
NATHANIEL: Your first several movies were in Mexico. It was Amores Perros (2000), wasn’t it, when Hollywood came calling? Could you feel your career exploding?
RODRIGO PRIETO: It was actually a little bit before. My fourth movie All of Them Witches got international recognition. That's what got me my agents. I did another movie called Un embrujo (1998) that Carlos Carrera directed that got an award in San Sebastian for cinematography. It put me on the “10 to watch list” in Variety. That's the one that made me think, you know, people might have started hearing my name a little bit...
When we finished the Amores Perros (2000) shoot, that's when we moved [to the US]. Yeah, that was good timing. I didn't expect it to become what it became, frankly.
NATHANIEL: Really?
RODRIGO PRIETO: I thought it was a good movie, sure. But with the subject matter and all that, I thought lots of people would not even want to see it, but it turns out that it was a hit!
The first American movie I did was Original Sin and [the director] Michael Christofer had not seen Amores Perros but an earlier movie. After that Frida, Eight Mile, 25th Hour, I had the chance to start with a variety of styles which is a good thing.
I have to tell you that I grew up on Six Mile so when Eight Mile came out, it was so authentic looking to me ‘This is where I’m from!’. But realism isn't your only mode. There's so much bold color and stylization in your filmmography. One thing I'm curious about, though, is there's also this other thread, if you will, that's a bit “western” for lack of a better word. These sort of mythic grand outdoor movies, like Brokeback Mountain and The Homesman or Silence. Do you actually like shooting outdoors?
Not so much. No. I mean, I enjoy the composition and being outside but it's very, very challenging, especially because of the continuity, which is a big part of cinematography. Making the illusion of something happening in two minutes that actually happened over, you know, a full day shoot with different lighting conditions and a moving sun and changing weather patterns. With nature there’s nothing really you can do. So you sometimes have to simulate the sun or simulate clouds or both -- it's really tricky.
But I prefer interiors. On The Irishman, I had the opportunity to do a lot of soundstage work. You have more control but also you strive to make it look like it's an actual location. It's something that excites me, you know, just faking things and making it look real.
With The Irishman there’s all this talk about the visual effects of de-aging. You’ve been incredible throughout your career at lighting movie star faces -- Brokeback, Original Sin, oh, and I love Lust Caution. I imagine it was frustrating to shoot faces that were going to be altered on The Irishman.
No limitation at all in that sense! I mean, that was one of the preconditions. Scorsese wanted to shoot the movie in whatever way he wanted to shoot it. And I wanted to light it in whatever way I would light it anyway. There was a moment where there was a discussion about having to light everything with LED lights and I refused. ‘Sorry, but I need to light this with whatever tool I need. If it's tungsten or HMI or LEDs, or just practicals, whatever it may be, I need to be able to do that.' So we shot some tests. So the tricky part, for ILM, was to match that lighting exactly on their visual effects to be identical.
And I must say I was very impressed. To me it's pretty seamless. But in any case, what happened on set is that they, they would have, you know, a silver ball and that would be filmed and that would reflect everything, the lighting and everything. Then they shoot the stills of the whole thing. And then LIDAR, which is this other technology they do to get the sense of the whole, all the lights and the intensity of the lights so they could reproduce that and map that exactly onto the visual effects.
Did they consult with you?
They’d show me tests here and there, but quickly I became confident that it was working. It did add a little bit of time on the shoot because we had to go through that process. So, you know, it took an extra I don't know, five minutes or more, but then that adds up in a movie where we had approximately 300 scenes.
The logistical challenges for my gaffer Bill O’Leary and my key grip Tom Prate and I were pretty intense but we had a lot of fun.
You've worked with Scorsese several times now. It must be exciting to work with auteurs.
Sure. Spike Lee, Julie Taymor, Oliver Stone. I was just reminded when you mentioned Lust Caution that that’s the movie that Scorsese saw that he wanted to hire me for The Wolf of Wall Street, which is, right, I don't see the connection, but, yeah! And Ang Lee hired me for Brokeback Mountain because of Amores Perros.
That’s fascinating.
What I find wonderful is that they could see that I had an eye to do whatever was necessary. They weren’t, looking for ‘a style'. I'm very grateful.
Right because it’s usually the opposite where people are just, they get locked into what other people think they can do.
I think once Marty decides who he's gonna work with, he really allows for us to bring our ideas. He is very specific on the language of the camera. He's a visual director but he won't say, ‘okay, I want a 28 millimeter lens, this film stock, and dah, dah, dah.’ He's not technical or specific that way. He’s just ‘I want this type of movement. I want it to go in a circle and end in a closeup. And then it's up to me to determine how to actually achieve that and what lens to use for that and what background and what sort of angle, you know?
So he gives me freedom that way and certainly in terms of the look he expects us all to come with suggestions. He gives a general parameter. In this case, for example, he talked about memory. He talked about maybe a home movie kind of feel without it being handheld and grainy. So what do you do? You know? So, I thought, okay, I'm going to emulate home still photography. So, I did a very deep research into what kind of photography was used, you know, over different decades. And so I ended up doing Kodachrome for the 50s Ektachrome for the 60s. And then I changed. Now we're kind of in the present, even though its the 70s, you know so we're going to go into something that's not this memory thing. So I proposed emulating ENR, which is a process where you skip the bleaching and it leaves more silver on the print. It reduces color saturation and that's contrast. If you do it in the negative, the colors still stays vibrant and it's much more contrast. So if you notice in the beginning of the seventies, it has a little bit of that. But right after Hoffa dies, we went full ENR, let's say extremely. And so every scene after that, if you watch closely, it's less colorful and more contrast.
This is so complicated.
You start losing color as a movie progresses.
All of this surprises me because -- this is probably my lack of knowledge of cinematography talking -- given your career I would have thought your approach was more emotional because your lighting is so expressive, you shoot faces and moods so beautifully. But turns out you really like the technical geeky aspects of it!
Yeah. Um, I do. Yeah. But I'm not really that technical. I do rely very much on the experts. If you give me a camera I need someone to help me with all the menus! But I really love learning about things that'll affect the end result. For Amores Perros, I tested cross-process and bleach bypasses. Let's say if you're a painter, it's knowing the materials and the canvas and the texture of the canvas.
I do get into into what's going on technically but the basis of it all is emotional. In this case [The Irishman] I wanted it to feel like a memory.
I think cinematography can be a little confusing to people and I wonder if you could address this a little bit. Some people view it as compositions and all that as the cinematographer's choice and other people, it's like, no, no that's the director it's the lighting and color. But others will say no the color is the production designer. So how would you describe your place in that ecosystem?
Right. Well, it, it varies from director to director, but, I certainly care enormously about all of these things. color, lights, camera movement. In the end it is the director's movie. When I propose a composition, I go to the director and I'll shoot a still with them. If the director sees something different, we'll, adjust to that. I enjoy getting into the mind of a director because in the end, I think cinematography is about putting the mind of that director onto the screen.
You have so many famous directors on your filmography. Are there any similarities in working with people at that level. Like the Spike Lees, Ang Lees, Scorseses, Almodóvars…
The energy is similar, the desire to do something special, the search for that. But they’re radically different in their approaches. I mean, Ang Lee has these dogmas that he lives by. So for example, for him, the camera has to be always at the height of the actors eyes. It literally has to be measured and that's where the camera goes. But someone likes Scorsese, he'd look at me like, 'what are you talking about? The camera goes where it feels right.' You know, it can be low, it could be high, it could be a top shot.
For Oliver Stone, he thrives in a little bit of chaos. His slogan is ‘perfect is the enemy of good.’ If there was a bump in the dolly, ‘let’s live with those imperfections’ but Ang Lee is the opposite.
You’ve shot quite a few classics now. When you’re working on things like The Irishman or Brokeback Mountain or what have you do you sense ‘this one is special!’?
Like in the process? Well, for the most part you approach it the same always, like it's the biggest thing you've ever done. I've felt that since I was in film school. But, having said that, The Irishman in particular, felt like a really special project from the beginning. As we were shooting and and seeing this magic coming together, we all knew that this was special.
And just witnessing that is something I love about what I do. Behind the camera, witnessing these performers and being part of that energy. When you’re operating the camera, you are part of it, you're right in there and the feeling is that you're also a performer. You have an instrument which is a camera and the lights.
