Interview: Cinematographer Edward Lachman (‘Maria’) on Filming at La Scala, Capturing Angelina Jolie and Why He’ll Always Shoot on Film

Throughout our history, artists have collected memories, emotions, time, and our place in the world with their art. Painters, sculptors, photographers, and cinematographers use their canvas to capture our past, present, and even our future, within deeply complex, layered work that stands as a testament to their genius and conveys works of art that leave you entranced.

Over the course of a career that spans fifty years, Edward Lachman has enchanted audiences with his bold, elegant, immaculate images in films from directors like Wim Wenders (Tokyo-Ga), Robert Altman (A Prairie Home Companion), Paul Schrader (Light Sleeper, Touch), Sofia Coppola (The Virgin Suicides), Steven Soderbergh (Erin Brockovich, The Limey), Mira Nair (Mississippi Masala), and over a dozen more. His most frequent collaboration has been with writer, director Todd Haynes, for whom Lachman has worked lockstep with since 2004’s Far from Heaven, which brought together one of the greatest cinematic duos in modern filmmaking. They would go on to work together on six more masterful projects that include I’m Not There, Mildred Pierce, Six by Sondheim, Carol, Wonderstruck, and Dark Waters. But while doing a commercial in LA a few years ago, Lachman found his latest collaboration with Chilean filmmaker, Pablo Larraín, and from there went on to make his last two films with El Conde, which Lachman received an Oscar nomination for last year, and for Maria, which is an another showcase of brilliance from one of the greatest visual artists of our lifetime.

Born in 1948 in Morristown, New Jersey, Lachman was the son of a movie theater distributor and owner that fell in love with cinema at a very young age. A top mind in his class, he went on to study at Harvard University as well as the University of Tours in Paris where he fell in love with painting and returned to the states to Ohio University to gain his BFA in painting. Through his knowledge of the still image and the passion for cinema, Lachman turned his eye to capture the human condition one strip of celluloid at a time, getting his first chance to work in Hollywood as a cinematographer in 1974 on The Lords of Flatbush. From there, countless memorable, celebrated works of genius have landed him three Oscar nominations, four American Society of Cinematographers nominations, a BAFTA and an Emmy nomination. With Maria, it might be time to start adding some long, overdue wins to his resume as Lachman delivers some of the best work of his career as he expertly captures the final days of the legendary opera singer Maria Callas (played by Angelina Jolie). In her review out of the New York Film Festival, our own Sophia Ciminello highlighted Lachman’s use of “bright, warm autumn hues of the present contrast the crisp glamour of the black and white interludes” creating an overall “vivid” experience that ranks as one of the most detailed, beautiful films of the year.

In a recent conversation with the famed cinematographer, Lachman and I spoke about the collaboration process with Pablo Larraín, bridging the visual gap within Larraín’s female, biopic trilogy, creating the visual perspectives we see from Maria’s point of view, capturing Jolie’s performance, and what it has been like to capture other signature performances by acclaimed actresses within his career. He was also kind enough to talk about his work with Haynes, as well as his thoughts on film preservation and shooting on film rather than digital. By the end of the conversation, I sat back and just listened as Lachman, a master of his craft, spoke passionately about his work with the fire of an artist who still has so many more images to show us; sparking emotions only he can provoke like he has for five decades.

Ryan McQuade: Before we get into Maria, I want to go back to your initial meetings with Pablo on your first collaboration on El Conde. What were those conversations like in terms of coming together and agreeing on a mutual visual language for your two films you’ve worked on with him?

Edward Lachman: Well, Pablo was somebody that I had followed for years. We would inadvertently run into each other at festivals, at different festivals, for Todd (Haynes) films, and we were very friendly with each other, and he loves the camera. He said to me, “One day, I’m going to bring you to Chile to work with me on a film. I thought, “Oh, yeah, that’s going to happen.”

It was like 20 years later, and we did a commercial together, which I’m sure he was checking me out in LA, and we just hit it off. He’s someone that’s in the moment with his imagery. He has a conceptual idea of what the story is, and he’s very rigid with what his script is about. In the process of filming, he’s very open. That’s the way I love to work with a director. We didn’t have heavy intellectual conversations. It was more like presenting me with all the visual references that he was partaking with the art director, Guy Hendrix Dyas.

They had a war room about this size, and every location had visual references, either what they were drawing on the set, or the textures, or whatever visual references to that location were. I just kind of plug in, I bring my own reference books. The incredible thing about Maria was there was so much visual information. There were documentaries. She was in a Pasolini film, there were home movies.

The minute he wanted to introduce these different textures of her world, because like what I said is the home movies were probably her most personal, where she let her guard down where she wasn’t presenting herself as exactly that she wanted to be seen. Then she was photographed by Cecil Beaton, Richard Avedon, and Irving Penn. That time was documented through the operas. That was all the information to be on the set and allow it to happen. You prepare for the accident, I always say.

Then Angelina’s performance was so brilliant and she embodied her character. I always say, I just try to get this out, for me, the film became an opera about Maria Callas. It wasn’t only a biopic, to use the expression, about Maria Callas, it was if she becomes the summation of the operas that she partook in. Pablo makes the point that out of the eight operas that she played over and over again, seven of them, she died on the stage. That was the language we were going to shoot the film in.

RM: This is the third film in Pablo’s unofficial trilogy. You’re coming in as the third cinematographer. The film has a lot of connection to Jackie, through characters, setting, time, tone and emotion. For yourself, did you have conversations with Pablo about those previous two films before diving into this? Did you talk about the connections between Jackie’s life and Maria’s life as their paths and lives cross?

EL: It’s interesting. No, we never really did. I think there was at one point in the script that Jackie was going to reappear, but then he made the decision not to do that. I think it’s more interesting that it’s through Aristotle Onassis and her perspectives. We’re on the outside the way the bereaved are, the one that would be at a loss for what their relationship was at the time. I think that was really smart to put the viewer in her shoes rather than to reveal that. Yes, that was an aspect that he thought about, but then decided not to.

RM: You’re not a stranger to tackling a larger-than-life figure. One of my favorite films of yours that you shot with Todd (Haynes) is I’m Not There. In that film, you had the various different visual perspectives for each actor playing Dylan…

EL: Well, different timing.

RM: Yes, different timing and visually in every era.

EL: We played with Italian Modernism, the French New Wave, the Heath Ledger character is the French New Wave, the outlaw, anti-hero cowboy of Richard Gere. That was, again, the brilliance of Todd Haynes, that to use different, as Dylan reinvented himself, and he also reinvented him through his own language, through his own style.

What better way to do that is through the cinematic influences of the sixties and seventies? That was the brilliance of Todd. It’s going to be really interesting what we all think of the new Dylan film (A Complete Unknown). That’s going to be Hollywood’s version of Dylan.

RM: Yes, and with Maria, you have three different perspectives here as well. You have her past, you have her present, and then also the Mandrax sequences with playing with perspective in her mind. How did you come across the various ways you wanted to shoot those different perspectives of the film?

EL: Well, I think what necessitated the styles were the formats we shot in. The Super 8 is one aspect, and like I said, those were the most personal footage. Shooting a 1.33:1 with the grain and zoom lens fits what the Super 8 is that she would’ve been seen in. That’s the way she was seen. Then her finding her other reality through the documentary crew was shot like in Super 16 or even 60mm.

I was saying to somebody before, it was very interesting to me that he made a choice to shoot the documentary crew as a documentary. We’re shooting, but it’s because it’s her mind, we don’t mind that it’s another point of view. Would we confuse it and think that’s, who’s the other documentary crew? You don’t think that, because it’s not cinema verite, it’s more so it gives an unbalance to the feeling like it could be someone’s thought.

Then there’s the 35mm black/white, which is her past. That’s more of a stable idea of her remembrance of what’s happened to her. That I shot with my older, they’re called Ultra Baltar lenses, the original black and white lenses that shot The Magnificent Ambersons, Citizen Kane. I had those rehoused for El Conde. That was perfect to shoot those. Black and white negative film, not digital, but we shot this on film, hasn’t really changed in 50 years. When you’re looking at the footage, the grain structure, the way it exposes the contrast is the way you would have seen film in that time period.

It wasn’t something we had to recreate. Then there’s, well, what we consider the present, which is from the sixties and seventies, that’s color. There, I also used older lenses.

RM: I think locations for her in the film are very important in the present day sequences. We see very few, but it’s places that she’s comfortable and familiar with in the last days of her life.

EL: That was her own personal set.

RM: Exactly. I wanted to talk about two places specifically. The first being the Opera House, La Scala [Teatro alla Scala].

EL: Well, number one, there was always limited time because we had such a tight schedule. We were shooting sometimes in two different theaters at the same time in Budapest. I had to go in with a game plan. The most complicated and hair-raising was to go into La Scala, because for $250,000, we had four hours. That was the minute we walked in until we walked out. That meant that I had limited time to light that space.

I made a decision that I would just go in with them, they’re called PAR Cans, they’re theatrical lights, and bounce them off the ceiling just to bring the ambient level up in the theater, and then bring in a 4K projector that I needed. I didn’t know if their projector would be strong enough for the throw for my film. I brought in a higher power projector, and they let me bring that up to the floor off the elevator so that it could be set up.

Then the decision was to work with the lighting director of La Scala. I knew he would know the lighting setups quicker than me. I was able to light it as quickly as I was able to. Once we had our background, which was our set, the backdrop, I could work with him very quickly. In 45 minutes, I had the place up and lit and shooting. We shot a lot off steadicam and a lot off of a crane.

RM: Then of course, secondly, we spend the majority of the film in the apartment. In the apartment, I feel, at times the claustrophobia of how she would feel inside, being sort of caged through your work. Then also the place is grand, much like her. Could you talk about capturing her final days in this tight but expansive location?

EL: Well, the camera is observational, but I think we feel as a viewer, look, where you put the camera is the audience. A lot of times, we’re seeing through doors, through a distance, and all these things create a kind of psychology for the audience of how we’re eavesdropping on her visually. I think that’s the element of when you feel it’s claustrophobic, you’re seeing her through a doorway in a room, or you’re partially seeing her. You’re not always seeing all of her.

RM: Obviously, when you make this type of film with Pablo, more so I think than El Conde, it is a three-hand, because it’s the camera, it’s his vision, but then it’s the performer.

EL: Exactly.

RM: You’re in the hands of a performer here that is one of a kind in Angelina [Jolie]. Could you talk about working and collaborating with her to capture this wonderfully beautiful, vulnerable performance of Maria Callas?

EL: Well, I felt she embodied this character so closely that there were elements of her character that were part of her, that she understood, that didn’t have to be explained to her. Also, that she’s a director, she’s directed five films. One of those films, I have great admiration for, They Killed My Father. I had real respect for her, and that she’s very intelligent and articulate about her opinions about things.

It was always an open discussion about anything with Pablo. I always felt, in a joking way, that I had to serve both, I always have to serve the actor foremost, but I was very aware that she understood how things were happening around her, and she welcomed that. She was incredibly hardworking and diligent about the work. It was only about the work, nothing else.

RM: Did it help having those two perspectives, not just from an actress, but her also being a director?

EL: Yeah, look, certain actors know how to play the camera, like Cate Blanchett, she doesn’t even have to ask, “Where’s the frame?” Some actors ask you where the frame is. I always say that the frame is their stage, is their proscenium. They know how to, they know instinctively how to play the frame. Some actors embellish what you’re doing because they know how to make a move within a frame.

RM: I wanted to talk about color, because seeing the film multiple times, the color green stood out to me when Maria was in place of that vulnerability that we talked about. Could you talk about the use of that and the purpose of it within the film? Maybe I could be wrong about that color…

EL: No, you’re right on about it. Look, I studied painting and art history. I always believe that color is more than just decorative, that it can be more than decorative, that it works on a psychological level. People that have written about studies of painting from Johann Goethe in 1810 wrote the theory of color, to Josef Albers in 1963 wrote the interaction of color.

I’ve always been aware to think about, or what pop art was, where you use an advancing color and a receding color, and how they play contrast. I always felt I could do that in a film. I’ve done that in, obviously, like in Far from Heaven, which is a Serkian drama. Here was a chance, because we’re dealing with this heightened state of reality of an opera, and that, like I said, that she always said, “The stage is in my mind, and the opera is my soul,” that I could take those liberties to create for the audience, the viewer, a psychological state the way opera uses color.

Operas use color as an expressionistic, mannerist tool to create an emotion. You were right to think green, because I use warm colors within the apartment, which is for me, kind of her nest where she’s protecting herself. Then the interaction with cool color is something that’s an intrusion for her, that she’s dealing with. Green was a color that I came back to. I lived in Paris in the seventies, and for some reason, I was just talking to somebody about it. Green always seemed to be present for me in certain places.They have certain signs in the streets that are green. 

Anyway, I felt like, what would happen if there was a neon light, or a light source that could be blue-green? I played with that in different places, and I felt it cut the prettiness of the world that she lived in. The tragedy of melodrama is they’re not able to have the very thing that they’re seeking.

She’s captured, she’s entrapped by the desire. She really wants love and to be, and the admiration that she had from her public and her fans, and in her personal life, she was never able to obtain that. Maria is entrapped and betrayed by what she desired. She could never obtain in her personal life what she had in her public life from the adoration and love of her fans in public.

RM: Then it leads to the other beautiful lighting choices; the use of natural light in the finale, when she’s by the window, and she’s having that final moment for herself. What was it like capturing that moment? It felt as if it was her final spotlight before she passed away.

EL: It was, exactly. It was her spotlight. Exactly. She’s singing to the world there. She’s singing for herself, but she’s singing for the stage, because like I said, the opera never left her. The way she saw the world was through opera. I wanted to make that feel theatrical, then.

RM: One last grand statement.

EL: Yeah, exactly, that she’s able to achieve this, even though it was the very thing that kept her from achieving it was her voice, which I don’t know if people know or not, but she had this debilitating autoimmune disease from the sixties on. Part of the reason why people thought she was a diva, she was afraid to sing, that she couldn’t obtain what she had done before.

RM: Speaking of spotlight for yourself, over your career, studying your work with Todd and now with Pablo, you have worked within these two wonderful collaborators, and their use of these wonderful generational actresses. For yourself, being able to shoot these performances, whether it’s Far From Heaven, whether it’s Carol, whether it’s Maria, what has it felt to be a part of those collaboration processes, not only with these wonderful directors, but with those mighty talents of actresses?

EL: Well, fortunate. Look, you never know. When you go into a project, you never know if it’s going to work out or not, but obviously, you want to go in with the people that you feel are the most talented, or that will let you participate in the contribution. I always say this, not all directors are visual. Some directors care more about performance or the script.

I’ve just been lucky to work with very visual directors, or those directors see something in me that I can complement, but I’ve just been lucky and fortunate enough to work with, and generally, when I work with one director, I stay with that director. It isn’t something I envy for certain people, like Darius Kanji is a wonderful cinematographer. My God, the breadth of people that he’s worked with.

I’ve just been lucky that the few directors I’ve worked with, but I worked in the seventies in Germany, or with the German new wave, and I’ve just been very lucky to work with visual directors.

RM: Lastly, I know that for yourself and for many people like myself, film preservation and shooting on film, is still very central. Not that there’s anything wrong with digital photography, but we’re seeing a film, we want to see it on film, I think. For yourself, how important is it that, if a new collaboration does go forward with someone, how important is it to continue to shoot with actual film?

EL: Yeah. I think it depends on the subject. I love film, and I think it has a depth and color, the way colors, I say, mix are different. You know in the RGB layers, the three layers? It’s almost like an etching. It’s microscopic, but light is projected through these three layers that are being etched or chemically eaten away. I think it’s very hard to get that digitally, but you can do extraordinarily beautiful things digitally, like Roger Deakins.

I just think there’s certain stories that need to be told in film, and there’s other stories that can be told digitally. We shouldn’t limit our options. The problem is the film world, the equipment, they’re not making parts to repair the equipment. You’re more limited with the labs. I could be really technical. There used to be a way in a lab, you get printer lights. It shows the cinematographer where your exposure is, RGB, right? It was a scale from zero to 50.

Each one of those colors has zero to 50, with 25, let’s say, is the middle. Then if you’re six stops over or six stops under, you are one stop over or under exposed. They don’t do that anymore. Any lab that isn’t set up with that, except there is a lab in LA, Photo Cam, but the new Kodak labs don’t want to spend the time or money. There is no way you really know your exposure without those printer lights. That’s the way the system works, that you expose the negative with your light meter, with your lights, with your lens, and then it gets developed.

Then somebody puts it on a machine, and they can read the negative and tell you where your exposure is. They don’t want to do that now. They say, “Oh, nobody else asked for that,” or, “They can figure it out digitally.” They can’t figure it out digitally. If you have a problem, that’s it until it’s too late.

RM: What do you do to make sure the issues are resolved moving forward?

EL: Well, it’s a problem, but young people don’t think it’s a problem because they never had it. The point is- they can still do it, but they have to get the equipment, they have to repair the equipment, and they have to put somebody man-hours on the bench to evaluate. I say, “No, just do one roll for me a day.” “Oh, we don’t have it.” They did in Budapest. I could get my printer light. It gives you an indication where you are.

All those factors are going to decrease our ability to shoot and film. Even though actors still want to shoot in film, because they know they look better in film than fighting the digital sharpness, why do you think everybody’s shooting with lenses fifty to a hundred years old? That’s why I’m shooting with a Baltar lens because those lenses aren’t perfect.

RM: The lighting too, I would assume, as well.

EL: Yeah. Now, LED lighting, I don’t like LED lighting. I light with tungsten light or HMI light. The curve of the light source is nicer on the film. It’s young people, like my eighteen-year-old daughter, who wants to shoot with an analog still camera, because they think they’re missing out on, which they are. People see a difference. Even though you’re looking at Maria through a digital file, there’s still a difference. The texture on her face, I could never get that texture the other way.

I’m sure they do. Even if they, it’s a subconscious level, think it’s beautiful. It’s partly that I’m using film. You know the difference, like the green and the warm? In digital, it would be green, and then warm. It wouldn’t mix. On her face, when you look, there’s a mixture between the green and the warm, the cool color. It’s like a mixture. It’s like oil, like I say, like oil paint. When you mix blue and yellow, you get green. It’s the same thing digitally, but not digitally.

Digitally, the sensor sees one color or the other color. It doesn’t mix the way we do. They’re trying to make a chip that way. It’s called a foveal tube where they’re trying to make a three-layer chip, but it’s very slow. Everybody wants to shoot 800, 1600, whatever. The chip is like 400, 200. It’s very slow. They have to give up something for the other to work.

RM: For what it’s worth, I can tell the difference and I hope others do as well. I appreciate your time, Mr. Lachman. Thank you so much.

EL: Yeah, thank you. Nice talking with you.

Maria will be in select theaters on November 27 and available to stream on Netflix December 11.