Ed Lachman Pt. 2: A Musical Approach Beyond Concert Films
"The most interesting work is things that are happening that aren't right. "
Hello! Welcome to Nothing Bogus, an Indie Film Listings+ newsletter. The + is commentary, interviews, dispatches, tutorials, and other groovy stuff. I’m going to start with the +. If you subscribed for the listings and only the listings, scroll as fast as you can to the bottom of this email. If you came for the +, no scrolling necessary :)
by Dan Arnés
Initially, my conversation with cinematographer and director Ed Lachman was intended to commemorate Saturday’s Metrograph screening of 1990’s Songs for Drella. But our chat organically zoomed out to his larger career as a cinematographer in narrative film, documentary, and beyond.
In Part 2 of this interview, following the musical thread of both the Metrograph In Concert series and his many unique and acclaimed music centric projects, Ed and I discuss his approach to cinematography, the commonality between expressing ideas in music and images, shooting music genre hybrid projects like David Byrne’s True Stories and Ornette: Made in America, working with legendary collaborator Robert Altman on A Prairie Home Companion, the lasting appeal of film over digital, and more.
Dan Arnés: In addition to your narrative work, there’s an interesting through line of music projects in your career. With this Metrograph screening being part of a series of concert films, I was curious what your relationship is to music and musicians and how much music has informed your work either as a DP or filmmaker in general.
Ed Lachman: I never played an instrument. You know, I was probably very limited in my own scope of music. Other than what people tell me I should listen to. I came up in the ‘60s, so I was into Bob Dylan. In fact, I just had to do an article for CAMERAIMAGE, and I said the only instrument I ever played was the camera. [Laughs.] Because images have a rhythm and tempo.
I mean, I did things like Hail! Hail! Rock and Roll, the Chuck Berry documentary, The Velvet Underground, and [the] features Selena, I'm Not There, and now the latest film, Maria, about Maria Callas. I would just say [that] generally money is more present for music-driven projects because they already have a built-in audience. And that's probably the real reason I've been involved with so much music. You know, I would love to do a Marvin Gaye [film], but they never will allow that to happen. I really think there's a lot of music-driven projects out there because the people that put up the money say, ”Wow, there's that much success in that area anyway, it's a given.”
Speaking of some of your narrative stuff, you shot True Stories, which is kind of a rare combination of narrative and concert film. That was just a few years before Songs for Drella. Given that proximity and just how much of it is a concert film, how it kind of bridges your worlds, is there anything about that project that informed Drella or anything after that?
I never thought of it until you brought it up. [Laughs.] David [Byrne] was very experimental in the way he made that film, and he never thought consciously about how a film is made. He thought about his creative process — I mean, he did something in that film that now people could do — and he said, “I want to do the video transfer first, and then we'll go back and do the color correction on the negative.” And I told him that's weird. It's just the opposite of the way you would do it. Because those images had a plastic quality to them anyway. I think that's what we're always looking for: The subjective viewpoint of how you tell a story and what makes that story unique in itself is how you create the images for it.
Around the same time, you also shot Ornette: Made in America, which is an interesting hybrid between concert film and documentary. Likewise, did that experience inform anything you did afterwards?
Well, that was working with Shirley Clarke, who was the greatest. She was so free and open. I had the funniest story with her once. I said to her, “What was your favorite drug growing up?” Because she was a real product of the underground in the ‘60s. She looks at me and says, "Heroin." [Laughs.]
Ornette was so out there. He was so beautiful. He said, “I want to make music for the astronauts.” When you're in an environment with people who want to be open and creative, that allows you to be open and creative. You know, if you go in with people being uptight about what they're doing and afraid of that, then you're more careful of not stepping out of the boundary of failing. The most interesting work is things that are happening that aren't right. When someone took the chance to fail. And so you always want to put yourself in the position to take chances. So maybe it's just being around that type of creative energy that allows you to feel like you can be that way too.
Bringing it back to Drella, it’s screening with that very famous Warhol short that you guys actually use in The Velvet Underground, Scenes of the Life of Warhol. I'm curious if you have any relationship to that film, Jonas Mekas’ work, or just that time in general?
You know, the funny thing is, as you get older… When I did I'm Not There, myself and my gaffer were the only people who were around when Dylan was in that period of time. And the same thing, I knew Andy Warhol. I had gone up to his factory at that time. I was on the periphery of that scene. So that gives me a take on trying to institute the feeling of what they were doing. Like, I said to Todd: “Let's shoot super-8 in these interviews. It would just give a texture to what they would have done back then.” And he was totally cool with it. In each one of those interviews, at the end of the interview, they let me shoot a couple minutes of Super 8 footage. [Laughs.] You made me think of something: When we interviewed Jonas Mekas, I should have given him the Super 8 camera and had him shoot us. Ugh!
[Laughs.] Damn.
That would have been very cool, you know… Ahh, why didn’t I do that? [Laughs.] You know, there’s a thing I do in I'm Not There. Cate Blanchett's in a press conference and I turn the camera on and off. On and off. So it's like the camera’s running up and running down. And I just did it because I felt like, Oh, that's something we would have done in that time period visually in an experimental way. And it works perfect. You feel the flashbulbs going off, but they're not. It's the camera running up and down. That's always what's brilliant for me about Todd: he always finds the visual language that's influenced by the time, the period he's referencing. I think it's an important way of giving some kind of authenticity or believability in the images. Somehow institute what you're referencing in images.
That film is another big favorite of mine and I'm glad you mentioned it. I'm obsessed with music mythology and Dylan is sort of one of the archetypes of that. As a result of the film being kind of about that, you get to play with so many visual things and you have such a wide palette, as opposed to a straight music biopic. I'm just curious if that film sticks out to you in a way because of your personal connection to Dylan, your previous music related work, or just the fact that I would imagine that was such a fun project.
It was kind of like I was terrorized, because one day I'd be shooting in black and white, the next day I was shooting in 16mm, the next day I was shooting in 35mm. There wasn't any order about what the scenes were that we were going to shoot. So that was like a real mind fuck, because you have to do those things different ways. When you shoot 16mm or when you shoot black and white, it's a different sensibility to the lighting and the exposure. Also, you could read that script chronologically or you could read it by character. It was a very abstract way to make that film. I really didn't know what the film would end up being. It really had to be edited. That's why I'm really interested, I'm sure it's another Hollywood version of, you know, the public life, referencing what happens in the personal life, with the new Dylan film.
Yeah, I imagine there’s a lot of considerations to making straight ahead music biopics, constraints and orders from up on high you wouldn’t have to otherwise deal with if you’re making a film with, you know, Altman or someone [Laughs].
Right. I worked with Altman too, on A Prairie Home Companion.
That’s right! Which is funnily enough also a music film. Was there anything about working on A Prairie Home Companion that felt informed by — or that informed — other things of yours?
Well, the wonderful thing of working with Altman is that you’ll have multiple cameras and the cameras even see each other, but he knows he can cut around that. He originally came out of television with multiple cameras. And he wanted to document something that was authentic about the performance, by, he felt, letting it just happen. Before we would start the take, he goes, “Let's boogie.” He was totally into the jazz improvisational idea of how you make a film like a jazz orchestra — how a jazz musician would work. That's a really good point — that Altman was totally into that aesthetic of making a film.
And you shot the concert scenes in that film, the radio performances, in the same way the dialog scenes were shot? They were kind of all shot in that very freeform multi-camera setup with you calling the shots?
Exactly. I think what I was able to do was change the camera position, so it wouldn't always be the same image. I think a lot of times his best films are [boosted by] the good operators that they're able to hire. [They rely on] the person behind the camera to capture the timing, the rhythm of the performance, or the music. And I had his son Bobby, who was a wonderful operator, and a couple other operators I brought in from LA. And I did some. And so that was fun.
I would imagine that free way of working, as a DP and as an operator yourself, is so appealing. You have a very direct way of aiding the storytelling and informing it because it's so musical and on the fly. Was [Altman] very concerned about technical coverage or anything beyond just the directive of, like, jazz? [Laughs.]
He knows. That's what was so wonderful. He knows if I have these three camera positions and I run the take more than once, I'll have it. He's watching the three monitors and he's just grooving with it. You're right. He's probably the closest to the experience of a musician or a conductor of any director I've worked with.
His final film being a music film is really fitting. Even in his prior films from the ‘70s and ‘80s, his approach to filmmaking and performance seems to have a musical quality to it — this musicality in their staging, shooting, pacing, and overlapping dialogue. Was that freedom and musicality that he had something that appealed to you about working with him as a DP?
What's funny is I was told by other cinematographers that worked with him that he was difficult because he shoots in every direction. So, where do you put your lights? For me, it wasn't such a problem because I was on a stage. So if you saw the light, it's part of the stage light, right? But if I ever wanted something from them, I would just go to his son Bobby and say, “Could you ask your dad if we could move the camera here because of the grip or the light?” And he would always say yes to his son. So I had a great experience with them. But I was told that if you said, “Oh, I have a problem because of the light,” he would then say to the cinematographer, "That's your problem, not mine.” [Laughs.]
[Laughs.] Sick.
So he never wanted to be restricted by the methodology of how he wanted to approach the imagery, you know? Yeah, I loved working with him; in fact, it was really sad because when he died, we were in pre-production on his next film. It was called, Hands on a Hard Body.
Oh yeah! Oh my god. Yeah, I've heard of this.
Yeah. In Texas, of course. It was about a guy that would [have] cars [at] a dealership, and they would give away a car, but the people would have to have their hands on the car, and the two that lasted the longest would get the car. So that would have been wild to shoot. [Laughs.]
What's on the horizon for you? And what continues to push you out of your comfort zone?
Oh, it's always working with people that are taking the biggest chances, you know? I just did this film with Pablo Larrain. The second film I did [after] El Conde in Chile. And I was just really surprised that my work got the recognition it got. I got an [Oscar] nomination, which was, like, bizarre, you know. But anyway, we'll see what people think of this new film, Maria. We shot it in Budapest and Greece and in Paris, with Angelina Jolie. She did a really remarkable job. And… tell you the truth: I really don't want work.
[Laughs.] Yeah, sure.
The politics. It’s not just about the creative part. I'd rather do my own stuff now. I always do my own still photography, and these little films. I'm just interested in exploring things on my own. I have something right now at the Whitney — just doing more work in installations and photography.
Do you come from stills initially?
No, actually, the first camera I ever picked up was a Super 8 camera, and then I only got interested in stills after the fact. I mean, the person who was probably the most influential for me in stills, and we became friends [for] a long time, was Robert Frank. He's probably the most important photographer for me. What he brought to the idea of what creates an image — your experience with the subject and the material, and to be in that. We talked about rhythm or, you know, creating your own poetics about what you're looking at.
Everyone's a byproduct of when they started out. Do you ever think what your approach would be if you started making films now? Is there something about the democratization of methods of making, and specifically shooting, things that appeals to you?
You know, my fear is I see a lot of young cinematographers coming up, and they didn't have the experience of learning through film, and film gives you the discipline of understanding what exposure is. There's so many elements of how you have to control the negative. Now, anybody can put a camera out there and get an image. But that doesn't mean the image is authored by you. There's nothing wrong with that, but I feel there's a loss. I'm sure every generation feels the tools they learned with were essential for them to learn their medium. But I see young people’s need to work in film… I even have an 18-year-old daughter, and she wants to shoot with a camera with film. They want that experience. So, I'm very thankful that I grew up when I did. To learn that way.
Particularly in very, very low budget filmmaking, there are a lot of people who go out of their way to add in the expense, which is, relative to their budget, vast, to shoot film, usually 16mm. So it's obviously not going away. There's still that reverence.
Well, I can tell you on a personal level why I like film. The ACA, you know, used to be the exposure latitude. Can you get the same exposure latitude out of digital as you can with film? You probably can now. But what it doesn't do is: There's the way it responds to color, right? There’s a difference in how the digital world sees color through exposure and through how you manipulate the image. And we could also do things like push the film, pull the film, underexpose it, or overexpose it. Everything becomes more in the middle with digital. It's one Sony chip versus an ARRI chip versus a RED chip. It’s really not much of a difference to what those sensors are in creating a look. And that's why everybody is going to lenses from fifty to one hundred years ago — because they think that's going to give them a different look, which it does to a degree. But we're all struggling to manipulate the digital image to make it look different than what somebody else is doing because of the story that we're telling. And so the other thing young people all rely on is shooting wide open, so they have very little depth of focus. And to me, that just makes it feel like it's digital. What they're trying to do, I believe, is make it feel like it's film grain. And it ain’t film grain, you know?
[Laughs] Yeah.
To have it soft in the background or in the front, it doesn't give you the depth to the image. Something that causes color in the negative is RGB: the red, green, and blue layer. Well, the layers between each other are infinitesimal. And for me, when it gets developed through the processing machine, it's like an etching. So the light is then projected through the negative onto a print, and you feel the difference in the depth of the image. And when you're a little out of focus digitally, it looks wrong. But it's not. It doesn't feel wrong [in] film because you have a grain to work through to create an image.
I just had this experience. Maria was shot on film, and the way color temperature — the way cool light from a window or warm light inside on tungsten — balances film, it mixes. In digital, it doesn't mix the same way. I think it's more like oil paint versus watercolor. Oil paint, you manipulate to create an image. You're more limited in watercolor to create a color and the depth of a color. So that's what I miss with digital. I love digital for documentary films, but there are certain films that, I think, will be more relevant in film because they have a different texture.
Is there anything in the indie film world that is exciting you at the moment?
There was this film Zola. I really liked that film. And then there's a number of really independent, low-budget films out of Europe. There's a Bosnian Dutch director, [Ena Sendijarević]. I just talked on her behalf [regarding a film] called Take Me Somewhere Nice. It's a brilliant film. It's a road movie. And then, there's this one documentary that you should watch. I think he's maybe Croatian or Serbian, and it's called In Praise of Nothing. He gave a concept to different filmmakers throughout the world to shoot nothing. And of course, it's about something. He got Iggy Pop to do the voiceover, and it's really brilliant.
Songs for Drella + Scenes of the Life of Andy Warhol screens at Metrograph on Saturday August 24th as part of its In Concert series.
Dan Arnés is a filmmaker, editor, and composer in NYC.
Listings
Mongoose Picture House is partnering with The Future of Film Is Female to award a $2K grant for a horror short in pre-production directed by a female or nonbinary filmmaker. Apply here.
BrickFlix, a screening series at the Brick Theater, in Williamsburg, BK, will be held on Monday Sept 9th. It's a collaboration with the streaming service MeansTV. 7pm. Price: $10.
A feature film called Honeyjoon is casting for a couple of roles here.
Josh Palmer is looking for a vacation type-home with some character & surrounded by nature to both shoot and house a small production team in Fall 2024 for a micro-budget feature film. Preferably within 5 hours driving of NYC. Here are inspiration images, but open to all sorts of leads! Send leads to: luxmotustempus@gmail.com.
Josh Palmer is also casting two roles for that fall-shooting feature, with descriptions here.
Neighbors, a documentary series, is searching for unique ongoing neighbor/neighborhood disputes and interesting stories. Email HelloNeighborsTV@gmail.com.
The 48 Hour Film Project, in Montreal, is looking for teams to enter and make a film this September 20 -22. Winner goes to Filmapalooza in March 2025 and is eligible for a spot in a screening at the Canes Film Festival Short Film Corner. $99 CAD to register. Email jasen48hr@gmail.com or erin48hr@gmail.com with questions.
Breanne Thomas is an LA-based producer seeking remote part-time or full-time production and post-production gigs in film and commercial. Email Bre.Thomas@gmail.com.
From Bucky Illingworth: Have an affordable / sliding scale Super 16mm package available in NYC. It's an Arri SR2, PL Mount, HD tap, 2 mags Otar Illumina Lenses (9.5, 12, 16, 25). Insurance is required for rentals but also open to work as a DP / operator. Just looking to make shooting on film more accessible for people! Email: email@bucky.website.
If you would like to list in a future issue, either A) post in the Nothing Bogus chat thread, or B) email nothingbogus1@gmail.com with the subject “Listing.” (It’s FREE!) Include your email and all relevant details (price, dates, etc.).