When it comes to this year’s Best Cinematography race everyone is focused on the legendary Roger Deakins (“Blade Runner 2049”) and the first female nominee Rachel Morrison (“Mudbound”) but Bruno Delbonnel should not be ignored. Now a five-time Oscar nominee, Delbonnel’s work on Joe Wright’s “Darkest Hour” is a beautifully lit and worthy entry in a body of work that includes “A Very Long Engagement,” “Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince” and “Inside Llewyn Davis.”
Joe Wright and Gary Oldman discuss discovering Winston Churchill
Delbonnel jumped on the phone before learning of his nomination last month, but took some time to talk about “Darkest Hour” and at confirmed his reunion with the Coen Bros. on the upcoming Netflix mini-series “The Ballad of Buster Scruggs.”
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Gregory Ellwood: Hi, Bruno. How are you doing?
Bruno Delbonnel: I’m fine, and you?
Not too bad. Congratulations on the film.
Oh, thank you very much.
How did you come to partner with this on Joe Wright? You guys had never worked before. Who sort of put you two together?
In fact, Joe called me years earlier, when he was prepping “Pan.” Seamus McGarvey couldn’t do the movie, so he called me. But unfortunately, I was not available. I was doing “Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children” with Tim Burton. He said, “I’ll call you next time.” And for “Darkest Hour” Seamus was not available again. So, it was my luck. He offered me the script and asked me what I thought and I thought it was pretty good.
What themes were you guys going for from a cinematic perspective?
There was a constant. There was in fact two things which were really interesting. The first one was Churchill’s personality. He’s just like a guy who has a lot of doubt, and on the other hand he’s a bully. So, it was the first thing. How can we show something like that? Showing with light and composition, you see. And then the second thing was the actual spring of 1940 which was the sunniest in a decade in Europe. So, it was playing with those elements like that to say “How can we play with light and shadows?” Almost like a black and white movie. That’s kind of how we started and then pushed it a bit further.
So much of this film takes place in underground bunkers or offices or private homes. What were your concerns or ideas about how to give it more scope? Because I think if, in a different director’s hands, in different DP’s hands, it could have felt much more claustrophobic. How did you guys approach that?
Did you think it’s not claustrophobic enough?
Did you want it to be? Let me rephrase this. It’s not that it doesn’t feel claustrophobic, but it still feels like the movie has scope. I mean, that’s my opinion, and I think that other films that could have all taken place mostly in those types of locations might not. So, I’m just wondering how many would think this film has more scope and breadth?
I don’t know. I think it’s about trying to get the melody, in fact. The way of these scenes now, that light is more like a music score and yet it’s [also] trying to balance the scene as if it was a piece of music. So, when Churchill is meeting with the King, for example, it’s very contrast. And it wouldn’t make sense just to be contrast and to be claustrophobic, let’s say, when he goes down to the war cabinet. And this opposition was working well in some ways, just to find something which is more shaded and less lit. The audience will feel the claustrophobia by comparison. You see what I mean? And it’s not like a prison they were living in. It was just dark and very confined. But there’s the set where they are confined already, so I didn’t have to emphasize it a bit more.
Absolutely. I’ve spoken to Gary about the long process that he and the makeup team went through to get the right Churchill. At what point did you come into that mix to sort of make sure that what they were doing would play onscreen and look as realistic as possible?
I came very late. First of all, those guys are brilliant and professional. The prosthetics they did? I was shocked the first time I saw it. I said, “Oh, wow, it’s amazing. There is nothing to change.” Usually when you have a prosthetic like that, you know, since the people are wearing clothes, there is nothing I can do with light just to make it better. But it’s always with the makeup on the face, which is the hardest thing. But they were so good that I couldn’t see any difference. Only when Churchill was shouting, for example. When Gary was shouting it was hard because the skin tone was changing by the nature of it. All of us are changing when we are not happy; we become really red. So, his skin was changing while the prosthetic on his face was not changing. It was bit tricky for that.And then there was the wig he was wearing. There was only one scene where I could see the mesh of the wig and we fixed it. Other than that, you know, I was really impressed with what they did.
