🎬 #219 Cinema Patina.
This week is a look at a director that I consider the undisputed king of getting patina on screen. Patina being the texture in a scene in terms of art direction, propping, lens type, and lighting. And also atmospherics, smoke, haze, rain, snow, pollen. All of those things working together to create a filmic look that feels very rich, very atmospheric in terms of set and setting, and just really beautiful to behold. I’m going to write a bit about it, how he does that and the films where it shines through the most, but it’s a rich thread, a signature across all of his films.
Please enjoy,
Bry
Ridley Scott is the filmmaker I’m alluding to in the intro. From his very first film, “The Duellists,” right up until his most recent, the thing that connects them all is his supreme ability to put texture in front of the camera.
For example, in the interior scenes in Tyrell Headquarters, there are light ripples off water projected across the set. He puts rain wherever he can. He layers in extras in front of the camera, in front of the action. He uses smoke, all of these things, to add depth to the frame, to add visual interest, a sense of a crowded, polluted future megacity.
I remember seeing in a behind-the-scenes that Bud Yorkin, who co-financed Blade Runner, was over Ridley’s shoulder during the shooting. He said from take to take he couldn’t tell the difference, but Ridley obviously could. He was trying to explain it to Yorkin, saying, “OK, well, in the background of the last take this was off. In the foreground this was off,” so he’s considering every single aspect of the frame and how all of those elements come together to create and build the world that the story takes place in. One layer of paint at a time.
In Thelma and Louise, he uses the dusty, heat-beaten terrain to add the same effect, sweat on the actors, beaten, used, and dirty costume design. You can practically smell the petrol fumes as they speed through their adventure. In Alien, you have the condensation, the grime of the ship, the used-futureness of a spacecraft as oil rig, a future tanker in deep space. The filthy, greasy end of a dirtier company.
In his epics set in the past, 1492, Gladiator, Robin Hood, Kingdom of Heaven, he art-directs the air with snow, pollen, incense, droplets. Anything to add to the look he’s going for. There are very few “clean” frames when it comes to exteriors; even in American Gangster, he dresses the air with dust motes, or something that’s not quite snow, not quite rain.
Even Nolan, a big fan of Ridley’s, has taken some of his techniques for The Odyssey, particularly the scene with the giant warriors. If you didn’t know better, you might think this frame was lifted from a Ridley Scott picture.
