Greek-American filmmaker James
Chressanthis, ASC made his first documentary thirty years ago while visiting
his ancestral village in Greece. Since then, he has worked as a
cinematographer on countless movies and TV shows, and his feature length
documentary "No Subtitles Necessary: Laszlo & Vilmos"
debuted at the 2008 Cannes Film Festival. It's the story of legendary
Hungarian cinematographers Laszlo Kovacs and Vilmos Zsigmond, who photographed
some of the most iconic movies from the last 40 years and particularly
groundbreaking films of the American New Wave of the late Sixties and early Seventies. It is now available on DVD and streaming on Netflix
Instant. I spoke with him this week, just before heading to the Sundance
Film Festival, where his cinematography can be seen in the world premiere of
the feature documentary "Cesar's Last Fast."
 |
| James Chressanthis, ASC |
James Chressanthis: I was very fortunate in 1988
to travel to Delano, California, where Cesar Chavez was fasting on water and
juice to bring to light the dangers of pesticides. Particularly on the
farm workers in the fields, as well as the general population by poisoning our
food chain. The director of the project was Lorena Parlee, and she was a
filmmaker for the United Farmworkers of America. She called me to come
out and capture this. Cesar Chavez fasted for 36 days, and thousands of
people came to witness the end of his “Fast For Life”. Jesse Jackson was
running for president at the time, and he was going to lose the nomination, but
he did a very good thing and brought the world press to this obscure outpost in
California and brought all this attention to what Cesar was doing with this
fast. Aside from the news at the time, this footage has not been seen.
Now flash forward to 2012. The original director Lorena had unfortunately
passed away, and Richard Ray Perez had taken over the documentary. I
filmed additional material in 2012, and Richard did many interviews because he
wanted to bring it into the modern age and not just be a historical
documentary. The premiere is Sunday, January 19th at Sundance.
 |
| Cesar Chavez with Ethel Kennedy |
JC: Working class background in
Philadelphia. Father was an engineer, and amateur photographer. He
gave me his camera at age ten. Mother went to art school and encouraged
me a bit. I had zero encouragement from school. I studied
engineering and had a secret desire to do something with photography.
Even more secret to do something with movies. When I was 16 I was in the
library and found this red book entitled "The Work of the Motion Picture
Cameraman" by Freddie Young, BSC. And I was transfixed. I quit
engineering and went to art school. Studied sculpture, photography,
drawing. I borrowed a teacher's Bolex and made a little movie. I
eventually made the documentary "Remembrance of a Journey to the
Village" about my own roots in Greece. I shot it, edited, mixed the
sound, sold it to PBS. Then I took it to film festivals and won several
awards. I quit my job teaching in Michigan, and went to the American Film
Institute. Got an internship with Vilmos Zsigmond. And then started
shooting music videos, which got me into narrative filmmaking.
MC: Which opportunities are you pursuing
now: directing or cinematography?
JC: I've been working regularly as a
cinematographer, having made 5 movies in the last 2 years. Mostly TV
movies. I'm trying to do some independent features. As a
cinematographer, I've read three great scripts this year, with major stars
attached, yet none of them have been greenlit. Even with modest budgets,
the economy has not fully recovered where there's confidence to make these
types of personal, dramatic stories. And those are the types of projects
I'm most attracted to.
 |
| Vilmos Zsigmond filmed by James Chressanthis |
JC: Sure, but even before then I was interested
in their movies. I remember seeing "Five Easy Pieces" when I
was young, and the fact that it was so raw and truthful, that I loved it.
It hooked me. And it turned out, that so many of the movies I loved were
shot by Laszlo Kovacs and Vilmos Zsigmond. And also Conrad Hall, Owen
Roizman, and Haskell Wexler. And I got interested in those guys, as I
slowly admitted to myself that I wanted to be a filmmaker. Ironically
enough, I loved these films and when I finally moved to Hollywood and became a
cinematographer, I actually became an intern for Vilmos Zsigmond. And I
finally met my idols, and I realized they're human beings just like me.
MC: Having been both a director and
cinematographer, what are some of the filmmaking lessons you've learned from
each?
JC: I am so glad I made "No Subtitles
Necessary" because I had been thinking of doing it for 20 years. I
learned to follow my gut. One benefit that I didn't foresee is that when
you start a film you're going to learn something new - it's not
prepackaged. All these new experiences were waiting. And I got to
meet all these filmmakers that I admired. The interview with ("Five
Easy Pieces" director) Bob Rafelson was a day I didn't want to end.
I actually called Laszlo and invited him to come to the interview, and he said,
'Oh, Jim, it's Friday afternoon and the traffic is bad, I don't think I can
make it today.' And then he died the next day. And that's the other
reason, that life is fragile. And the fragility of life is something that
we yak about, but you have to live it. So the movie was just in time.
MC: What was your favorite interview?
JC: So many people were great. Bob Rafelson
is a lovable cantankerous raconteur but his description of the era was so clear
and humorous. Peter Bogdanovich was wonderful, and Tatum O'Neal was so
surprised we were shooting on film that she changed outfits. Karen Black
was astonishing and her comments about the artistic process are a gem. I loved the fact that we were filming
in Steven Spielberg's office at Amblin, interviewing John Williams, and Steven
was down the hall and wouldn't do the interview. That's the one interview
I wish I had gotten. Because we tell the funny story of Vilmos being
fired five times from "Close Encounters." It's a great story to
be fired five times then win the Academy Award, and then thank his teachers in
Hungary and 'Thank America for giving me a second life.' You can't write
a better story than that. But there's more to that story, because
"Close Encounters" was so difficult. And Steven still doesn't
want to talk about it, but I see it as showing this conflict, because despite
their disagreements, they made one of the most breathtaking masterpieces of all
film history.
 |
| Available on DVD |
JC: One critical change from the past two years
is not a camera change, but the monitor. We now have an OLED Monitor,
that shows actually what you're getting. Right on set. Previously,
none of the monitors displayed the full information of the image. It was
always an approximation. Now, with this OLED, digital filmmaking has
become really practical. Also, the Alexa camera has become the
standard. All the previous digital cameras were useless. One of the
reasons is the Alexa is balanced for daylight and tungsten, and its contrast
range and smooth highlights are the most pleasing of all the cameras out
there. It's the first digital camera where we have the confidence to
disconnect from the monitor. Just like film. But I like the
immediacy of digital. That being said, I hope film keeps going. If
you've noticed, several big successful movies have been shot on film this
year. I hope it continues as a niche because it's valuable. When I
shoot digital, I shoot the same way as I shoot on film. I don't change my
working process. I still use meters when I'm lighting and making
decisions. The cameras often aren't ready yet. Overall, shooting
digital is not any faster than film. If you know what you're doing, you
can move really fast with a film camera. The incompetent people didn't
know how to make it work and blamed the camera. Ironically, we're coming
back to the film model, in terms of the filmmaking process. The process
on set is almost back to the 35mm film model, and that's a good way to keep
making movies.
MC: I agree. Thanks so
much, and good luck at Sundance.
No comments:
Post a Comment