Yorgos Lanthimos on shooting movies with film

There is an interview with Yorgos Lanthimos, director of Poor Things about to be released -

About half way in he describes why he hates shooting digital and uses film where possible. He has even built a darkroom and after shooting develops stills from the set.

“That’s why I wish to shoot everything on film! I have shot a couple of films digitally and I totally hated the experience. I just don’t appreciate the process,” he sighs. “Being on set and watching these things that look like a soap opera on the monitor. It kind of distracts you. You don’t understand what it is that you’re getting and you’re seeing, and then you have to live with that horrible image during post-production and editing. Then when you are finishing the film you are just striving to make it look like something – to add texture, make the skin tones look kind of OK; it’s an effort to make it look OK instead of enjoying a creative experience. Also, I just feel that everybody senses there is something a little more precious going on when you are doing a take on film instead of just pressing a button. And I am becoming more hardcore. I have just built a darkroom – a studio in Athens for developing and printing my film. Actually, during Poor Things, I would shoot pictures on set, on film. And after finishing filming, Emma and I would go together and develop all the negatives. It just became this thing of winding down and relaxing after an intense day of shooting. We’d go and process the film of the day."

I saw yesterday Kenneth Branagh's Belfast and I feel what Yorgos said. I totally disliked the image quality they got from digital 65 (Alexa Mini LF). Ultra sharp, ultra clean, so clinically perfect and so... BORING! Opening scene in color looked like a TV advertisment.

I read that Villeneuve's Dune, shot also with Alexa LF, was afterwards recorded in intermediate film and scanned to give an organic feel to the digital footage. Yorgos will say: shoot it on film, silly boy!

Nice to see him say this... but honestly, I have disliked every one of Lanthimos' films that I've seen. I just don't "get" him.

I liked Belfast a lot and wasn't bothered by the non-film b/w. Same with Roma. Digital b/w is its own thing with its own strengths - notably handling extreme lighting/contrast situations that film can't.

Sure, shooting on actual b/w film is better - I recently watched Maestro, half of which was shot in Double-X/Eastman 5222 in the old 1.33:1 aspect ratio, which looks outstanding. See also: The Lighthouse, Oppenheimer, and the b/w sequences in Wes Anderson's recent films.

Not that I like Anderson's films anymore either. He gave up telling stories about actual human beings years ago and disappeared down his symmetrical composition, story-within-story, overwrought production design, multiple film stock and aspect ratio games, reuse-his-stock-company-as-unbelievable-characters rabbit hole. I just watched Asteroid City and found it even less connected to believable human behavior than his previous films.

FriedLouisStudio said:

Digital b/w is its own thing with its own strengths - notably handling extreme lighting/contrast situations that film can't.

Click to expand...

Film can handle also extreme contrast but in a different way. Digital sensors can handle shadows extremely well, and film can handle highlights also extremely well. Both can fit extreme contrast underexposing the shadows (digital) or overexposing the highlights (film). Vision3 film is capable of recording 14 stops as long as the shadow detail is properly exposed. Main advantage of digital is versatilty, you have all sensibilities in the same recording system and, thanks to the ammount of shadow detail that can be recovered, it can work with less light more easily than film. Both media are capable of excellent results properly handled and I really don't care which one is used when it comes to watch a movie.

Unfourtenately the image quality is not the only thing I found boring in Belfast but the whole thing. I didn't get into the story, believe the situation or any single character. Kenneth got lost many years ago for me as a director, but he is still a hell of an actor that I wish appears more (not as Hercule Poirot, please).

Huh. I feel Branagh is underrated as a director and overrated as an actor. But whatever, we all have our likes and dislikes, and all opinions are valid.