Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1062452
92 DGA QUARTERLY Q: The Wolf of Wall Street… A: —and then it was late. But I had already done a lot of scouting and I had story- boarded that scene. I always wanted to see how it must have felt to be in those battles. It's only in paintings. But the paintings were so beautiful. So I told myself, "Okay, I really want an extreme point of view with no cuts, to really not make this a fi lm experience but actually a stream-of-conscious experience, a sensorial one. And immersive—as far as I can go in the immersive world. So I started blocking the scene bit by bit. I storyboarded it. And I knew that I would have to arrive at the river for the escape. So I developed certain actions that involved the two characters: Hugh Glass (DiCaprio) and Fitzgerald (Tom Hardy). And I had to be telling both the stories, these two guys who will then become rivals. So both points of view, floating, going from one to the other, going toward the river while things were happening. And then planning how far we can go with one long shot, and then where we will do the stitch to create the illusion, and then go to the next long shot. So it was several long shots. Not many, but three, four, which were stitched in the right moment. It was di cult because we were using 65 mm, and we were basically the first ones to use the [Arri] Alexa 65 digital. And there were a lot of complaints about us using digital because everybody wants me to shoot in fi lm. I detest fi lm now. Because I wanted to shoot in a big format at 3 p.m. under the trees. There was no light; no exposition. I needed to do it in detail. So it was inevitable that technology in this case helped. So we used that camera. And it was a couple of weeks of rehearsals and then like three days of shooting. Q: Were you using a handheld Steadicam? A: A Steadicam, yes, handheld. Q: And there was never any tracking? A: No. Not tracking. The last shot when they go into the water was a Technocrane. Q: I assume there were a lot of non-actors in that scene. A: Yes. Many of them were not actors. That was a native territory where we were allowed to shoot. So we [reached out to] the indigenous communities in Canada. They were super gracious. They were very happy that we were basically doing this fi lm. I wanted to make sure they felt respected. And it was a beautiful landscape. I found when I was scouting that it's di cult to fi nd rivers that have not been industrialized or manicured by men. So to find something that looks really untouched is di cult. And that was a particular area that has the right sun direction, and a lot of it, so… Q: So were you shooting a lot of that in early morning and late afternoon? A: Only late afternoon. And every single scene of that film was absolutely pre- rehearsed. But with precision and in terms of movement of the actors, blocking, camera movement. Everything was absolutely mea- sured. And then when the sun was exactly in the position that we wanted… We always had only one hour and a half, two hours if we were super lucky to shoot the scene. Every day of that film was like that. There was no normal day that you could shoot in the morning. Every day was like a clock—tick tick tick—that was about to explode. Q: Another of the notable aspects of your fi lms is the richness and the depth of the casting. You've introduced international audiences to actors such as Gael Garcia Bernal, Emilio Echevarria, Adriana Barraza and Rinko Kikuchi, to name just a few. Tell me a little bit about your casting process. Are there people you already have in mind going in? Or are you completely open to new talent? A: It depends. I have been very lucky to work with (casting director) Francine Maisler on the films I did after Amores Perros. But I have to say that if I can work with non- actors, I'm happy as hell, because there's something invaluable about the naturality of non-actors. If you find somebody with that truthness that is real, you are lucky. But I also really love to work with talented actors who have such an amazing range that they can do whatever you want. And then I found that the combination [between pro and non-pro] is what's really exciting. So it's the most di cult thing, but when you pull it o , it's a fascinating process of having Cate Blanchett with a veterinarian from Morocco who has never seen a camera in the same scene. It helps the actors. It's very alive. Q: Let's switch gears. Music plays a role in distinguishing the three different worlds in Babel, and Gustavo Santaolalla's work is so evocative. What were some of the other ways you di erentiated the scenes in Morocco from the scenes in Mexico from the scenes in Japan? A: I shot all the Moroccan part and both the story of Cate and Brad and the (Moroccan) kids in Super 60. Then I shot the story of the (American) kids and the nanny in 35 mm. And I shot the Rinko (story in Japan) in 35, too, but I shot it with a completely di erent stock. So I tried to divide it into textures and the way I dealt with the materials in order to give it a little di erence that mostly people don't know. Q: When you're working with actors on the level of Sean Penn and Cate Blanchett and Benicio Del Toro, do you give them a lot of latitude or do you want them to be contained? A: Every one of these actors come from different schools, different traditions, and [have] di erent needs. And sometimes you have, like in 21 Grams, three actors of that caliber and you are trying to deal with the point of view of each of them, and each of them ask you for different needs. There are actors who are inside out, or outside in. Some of them ask you a lot of questions about [a character's] past and [other] specif- ics about the characters. Q: They want an origin story… A: Exactly. And that's terrifying because sometimes you have to create something. And then there are those who the less they know, the better. And they just create every- thing sensorially from the outside, they internalize that. Another person that I have to credit is a woman named Judith Weston. She's an incredible teacher. She really helped me to understand what an actor needs from you. So my job is to get the best of out of them by clarifying objec- tives. I really believe in rehearsal. I know there's a lot of debate about trusting in improvisation or the intuition that will bring that powerful, electrifying thing. I agree that's the case sometimes. But I learned that you cannot rely on improvised responses, which sometimes can be good but some- times not as good. So if you rely only on that, CONTINUED FROM PAGE 48 CONTINUED ON PAGE 94