Rodrigo Prieto is the Oscar-nominated cinematographer behind films such as “25th Hour,” “Brokeback Mountain” and “Argo.” In recent years he has worked with filmmaker Martin Scorsese on projects like “The Wolf of Wall Street” and “Silence.” This year they have “The Irishman,” which, on a technical level, was an absolute beast to tackle. On this episode of “The Call Sheet” you’ll learn about the R&D that went into developing a proprietary camera rig to allow visual effects artists to “de-age” the film’s stars to play through a series of decades. Prieto also discusses his game plan for visually representing the three distinct time periods of this mammoth 3-and-a-half hour opus.
KRIS TAPLEY: I'm Kris Tapley and you're listening to THE CALL SHEET, a show that dives deep into the craft of your favorite Netflix films and series with some of the most talented artists and artisans in the game.
We're going to take a trip behind the camera lens this week. Let’s go to our guest first for a quick introduction.
RODRIGO PRIETO: My name is Rodrigo Prieto, and my craft is cinematography.
KT: Rodrigo Prieto is the Oscar-nominated cinematographer behind films such as AMORES PERROS, BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN, ARGO and one of my favorite movies, Spike Lee's 25TH HOUR.
In recent years he has developed a fruitful collaboration with master filmmaker Martin Scorsese. The two first teamed up on 2013's riotous WOLF OF WALL STREET, and again for 2016's SILENCE, Scorsese's simmering, personal study of Christian faith. Rodrigo was again Oscar-nominated for his beautiful work on that film.
This year they have THE IRISHMAN, about one man's journey through mob life and his relationship with two paternal figures, one of them the luminary James R. Hoffa. It's an elegiac story, one overflowing with themes of regret and legacy, the perfect yarn for someone like Scorsese to spin at this point in his career.
Technically, though, the film was a beast to tackle. De-aging technology was employed to allow actors Robert De Niro and Joe Pesci to play through a series of decades, which — on top of crafting a handsome period piece with all the design trappings that come with that — made Rodrigo's work all the more challenging.
On this episode, for instance, you'll hear about the R&D that went into developing a proprietary camera rig for shooting material the effects artists could work with. You'll also learn about Rodrigo's game plan for visually representing the three distinct time periods of this mammoth 3-and-a-half-hour opus.
And that’s just a taste. So let’s get into it.
Okay, Rodrigo. We're going to get into the weeds of what you guys accomplished here. But first I wanted to talk about the conversation that you had at the start of everything with Mr. Scorsese. What kind of references might've been thrown around in that conversation? What was he saying to you in terms of just what he wanted this film to look like?
RP: Well, the very first conversation was not a moment where we were actually supposed to be talking about the movie, “The Irishman.” So it was – it came to me as a surprise. It was a photo shoot and they were taking some photos of us while we were promoting “Silence.” Scorsese, as we were there, standing in front of the photographers said, “You know, I was thinking maybe we could give this movie of the feel of home movies somehow.”
And then he added, “But I don't want it to be grainy and handheld.” And then the photographer went, “Okay, guys, look this way!” or whatever. And that was it. That was our first conversation. Period. End of it. But that stayed with me.
I don't think I'd even read the script even at that point. The book, I’d read the book. Later, you know, reading the script, I realized that it's such a movie about memory and remembrance and the past that I thought, “Okay, that's probably what he means.” He wants the image to reflect that sense of memory of images.
So, since we couldn't do the Super 8 or 16 millimeter feel, I thought that maybe we could apply the look of still photography – of amateur style photography. So that was one of the first things I started researching in terms of images. Finding photographs from the fifties and sixties.
And most of them ended up being Kodachrome and Ektachrome . So, I showed him photographs of that. And he did like it. And so we designed these lookup tables, which emulated the color, the way that a Kodachrome reproduces color and contrast. Same as – And we use that for the 50s. And then for the 60s, we did Ektachrome.
That was the first part of it. But then we did have a lengthy conversation, when we actually started the prep of the movie. And one thing he talked a lot about was that he didn't want the movie to have exciting – to give it a name – shots, because he wanted the camera to reflect Frank Sheeran's way of approaching life and approaching his job, which is painting houses.
KT: Yeah. Quote unquote.
RP: Quote unquote “Painting houses.” So he wanted the camera to be simple. Just as he doesn't do, you know, complex killings and he just is practical about it and methodical. That became another big mantra for us during the filming of the film.
KT: Let me back up though for a second. You said you read the book before, obviously before you read the script. I'm just curious like… do images fly into your head as you're reading that kind of material? I mean, like what kind of ideas were just coming to the fore for you that you brought to him from that?
RP: I try to avoid thinking of the cinematography as I'm reading a script. I try to just focus on the characters, the story, how it moves me, what I'm feeling in each scene. So that when I talk to the director, I don't have preconceived notions of anything yet. And then I try to listen carefully to what the director has to say, and that then becomes the basis of the ideas I'll start exploring.
So then the second time I read the script, okay, now is the time when I'm designing the look. And then of course it's organic as you advance in the preproduction, as you scout locations, as you see what the production designer is designing, what the costume department are making. You know, all of this influences many of the decisions of the cinematography as well.
KT: Well, beyond just the kind of sense of referencing the look of photography, but just because he has such a student of film history, I'm just curious, was there anything from the world of movies that he was wanting to reference at all and bring into this? Not that anything's derivative, but you know.
RP: I do know that that's a big part of him, obviously. Just the history of cinema, he's constantly seeing movies and it's a big influence on him. But we didn't discuss it specifically.
KT: It’s probably subconscious for him.
RP: Yeah, it's something that sometimes after the fact, we'd talk about certain shots, and he'd say, yes, that certain movie made me think of a shot like that, but it's not something that he asked me, “go see this movie.” Not generally. Sometimes.
But in this case, I did see “Crazy Joe,” which is you know, about Crazy Joe Gallo, but it wasn't for any reference of the look of it. Just, it was more context of the story, you know, and in fact, we were much more accurate in terms of the locations and, many things that…
Even the killing in Umberto’s Clam House. He did just some restaurant, you know. So we did a very, very careful reproduction of the place. And that's, by the way, one of my favorite parts in the movie as well. There's so many, but the Umberto's Clam House section is, I think, the combination of the visual effects and what we did lighting those streets.
And on the production design team in the streets, in the lower East side in Manhattan, is astounding. And then I think it's really something to really go back in time and feel what might've been like. Yeah. And we used a lot of references. News, for example, at the time, photographs of the actual place. It was really exciting to really see it come to life and come together.
KT: Yeah. Because, you know, in this movie, you wait about 50 minutes before this huge introduction of this major character happens, Jimmy Hoffa. I'm curious about, just to jump ahead a little bit, if you guys talked early on at all about: how are we going to show Hoffa when we first see him? How are we gonna capture him with our lens?
Because it's interesting how we see him. It's very close. It's kind of from below. There's some interesting contrast with how it's lit and he's on the phone, you know. So just tell me about that, since this was going to be a movie with him so at the fore, how did you decide, how are we going to kind of like bring him into the movie when we finally show him?
RP: It was all about the phone conversation. Scorsese was very keen on how the phone was handled on the, let's say, the Frank Sheeran side of the conversation. He really wanted this notion of the phone being brought with a long cable from all the way from the bar area onto Sheeran's table.
And this shot where the camera goes around from the back of the phone, you know, kind of from the back of his head and the phone, to the front of his face and the very tight shot. That was I think, one of the first shots that he described to me, of Frank on the phone.
So then I think that was kind of the thrust of the discussions about the conversation. When we shot Hoffa, we did it in the sound stage. You know that where we built his own whole office. And he did want to see the Capitol building outside of the window. So that dictated the angle of the camera. And then I personally felt that giving him a sense of mystery the first time we see him with the lighting was important. Not to suddenly, “Ba-nah!” Here's Hoffa, you see him clearly.
Because Sheeran is talking to him on the phone. He's not actually seeing him. Since the movie is from Sheeran's perspective, I thought that it was, it'd be a good thing to light him in such a contrasty way, chiaroscuro, so that half his face is dark. Just to keep that sense of mystery, even for the audience.
The conversation when they talk about painting houses and carpentry. These are things that Frank Sheeran obviously understands and Hoffa knows. But for us as an audience is mysterious. It's weird. So I just want to give that whole scene that sense of mystery and a little bit of, perhaps, foreboding.
KT: Let's go back to the… you were talking briefly about emulating these looks of Kodachrome and Ektachrome. And then for the later portions of the movie, I believe you did, you were trying to emulate a bleach bypass kind of a look. So just tell me, get into the weeds with me a little bit on this. Like, what did you want those different kind of emulations to… What did that mean for you? The Kodachrome, Ektachrome, and the bleach bypass look.
RP: Well, it all started also from my own memory of my childhood or my photographs of my parents. And I do remember very clearly my childhood in Kodachrome colors. When I first went to Disneyland, you know – I grew up in Mexico City, but an uncle of mine lived in Los Angeles. So we went to visit and we went to Disneyland.
And I remember all those photographs. And for me, it's a very specific color. And it's saturated, but the colors are present in a way that in reality, they are not there. And say the sky, there's a certain hue to the blue of the sky. Reds are very, very prominent in Kodachrome. And all this is something that I just had in my memory, but I didn't understand what exactly it meant, color Kodachrome means.
So we actually did a pretty deep exploration of the way the colors are reproduced in Kodachrome. And it was a scientific study, let's say, in the sense that we mapped these colors to what the camera captured. Let's say the green grass. In Kodachrome, actually green is de-saturated a bit, whereas red is very saturated, so it's not just adding saturation. It's a very specific way where the colors behave in, you know, different ways.
And Ektachrome is also different to Kodachrome even though it's also saturated. But I think the main thing I noticed on Ektachrome is that the shadows and the dark areas become cool. They become kind of blue, cyan.
And still there are images saturated, but it's different than Kodachrome. So it's something that certainly the audience won't notice and say, “Of course! Oh yeah. I remember those Ektachrome shots,” but it's just, you know, something subliminal. But then I thought that those bright colors wouldn't work for me, just emotionally for the rest of Frank Sheeran's life.
Originally we were going to apply Ektachrome to the 70s as well, but then I thought maybe we should tone down the color in the 70s, and researched bleach bypass processes that are done on the prints of movies. And there is a process called ENR that Vittorio Storaro first used, they developed that in Rome, in Technicolor.
And the result of ENR is that the blacks become very deep, higher contrast. And the overall color is reduced, it's de-saturated. So we developed two different stages of ENR for the 70s. It starts as a pretty subtle, de-saturation, extra contrast, until 1975 after the road trip that they take to Detroit.
And all of that is, let's say, “ENR Light,” but then when Frank Sheeran actually kills Hoffa, right after that scene, it changes to a more extreme version of ENR. So the rest of Sheeran's life and everybody's life is less colorful and with deeper, deeper blacks.
So in essence, the net result in the movie is that you start with a colorful Kodachrome, and then a little less colorful Ektachrome and as his life progressed, especially after Hoffa’s death, color is drained from the image.
KT: Color just starts to bleed out. And I love that. That it just mimics the kind of emotional journey.
RP: Yeah, exactly. Yeah.
KT: You guys shot film and digital, right?
RP: That's right.
KT: So what were those discussions like in pre-production?
Like deciding on – were you're talking about, maybe you would shoot all in digital at one point? Or all in film at one point? Or did you just decide this, that doing both would be better?
RP: Yes, well, once we started discussing this idea of memory, right, of photography, it became clear that film negative would be more accurate to that feeling, you know?
And still a digital image doesn't have that feeling of memory. So we early on decided we wanted to have a filmic look, but parallel to that, I was already in conversations with Pablo Helman from ILM. He insisted that all the shots of that were visual effects needed to be digital.
And the reason for that is that he needed to capture depth information from each angle. And that meant that he needed to have the main camera that was doing the shot, in addition to two witness cameras for each angle. And those three cameras had to be synchronized, perfectly synchronized in terms of the shutter. That's very, very hard, if not impossible to achieve, with film cameras.
And also he needed these three camera to move in unison. So film cameras with the magazine, it would be too heavy and too bulky to achieve that. So it became necessary to shoot all the visual effects of the de-aging technology with digital cameras.
But since we wanted this filmic look, I insisted that we shoot whatever did not require a visual effect of de-aging to be shot with film. And then that becomes the look that visual effects has to match. We did a lot of testing of this and we determined that the camera that better reproduced the look up tables that I was using on film was the RED Helium camera, so that's why I picked that camera as a central camera on the, we call it the three headed monster, which is the rig we created for the visual effects.
KT: Well, let's get into that. You’ve run your tests now, you've got your game plan, and I want to talk about this three headed monster because I'm curious if – is there anything in the realm of an industry standard there? Or is this all R&D, and you're figuring it out? Like, tell me just about those nuts and bolts of putting something like that together.
RP: Yeah, this was complete R&D. Never done anything like that. I mean, I guess the closest would be through, you know, 3D rigs, but that's two cameras. One of the most important things for Scorsese and for the actors is that they didn't want to have tracking marks or any sort of helmets or, you know, little things attached to them that would be distracting for the actress. He wanted them to be able to perform like they always do right in front of, you know, the other actor when there's costume and everything.
KT: Can you imagine, though, behind the scenes photos of, like, Pesci with stuff all over his face? [Laughs]
RP: Yes. That’d be weird. I wouldn't envy the person who would go to Pesci and say, “Okay, put this on, sir!” “What?! Take it off!”
But in order to make that work is that Pablo Helman designed this technology. So he needed to be able to capture all this information from the camera angle. And like I said, with the two witness cameras, but also one thing that was interesting is that he needed that the camera's capturing the depth of it, they are called witness cameras, he needed them to not have any of the lighting information.
Meaning that those cameras had to capture a completely flatly lit image. So these cameras had filters that blocked out all of the visual spectrum of light except infrared. Around this filter was a series of LED infrared lights, which were projecting infrared light onto the actors' faces.
The main camera would not register the infrared light. So it was invisible to us as on the set then to the actors and to the main camera. But those witness cameras were seeing the face of the actor completely flatly lit frontally by these LED infrared lights. So I could light the actor in a silhouette, let's say. No light on the face or real you know, high contrast, like that situation on the phone with Hoffa.
But the visual effects would have all the information, even though it's dark on the lighting, it could have all the information with the infrared. So that was one of the reasons, you know, that became a complicated rig because, you know, these witness cameras had to have all this stuff around them and monitors for each camera. And then add to that the team – there had to be a focus polar for each one of the cameras and monitors and you know, so it became kind of an ordeal.
And then another part of it was matching in post-production for visual effects to match the lighting I was doing on the set, because the face was actually replaced by a computer generated face that was exactly reproducing the performance. But now we had to also exactly reproduce the lighting.
So for that, of course, they had the reference of the main angle as a reference, but then they did all sorts of things where after we shot the performance, they would bring into the set, right in front of the camera, a silver – or mirror, actually – sphere. We'd photograph that. And that reflects all that's around where the face would be.
So then you have the information of where the lights are because you see them reflecting on the ball. And then, a gray scale ball as well. And we'd photograph that. And then a color chart. So we photgraph that too, to get the intensity of the light and the colors, and then they put a camera that would photograph 360 right where they actor had been, it's called LiDAR, and they also photographed all the information of the lighting and all that.
So all that is fed into the computer and applies all this information onto the CG face. And it's really seamless. I mean, when I was doing the color timing of the movie, I had never thought, “Wait, this does not represent the lighting I did on the set.” So it was very accurate. It was pretty amazing.
KT: Did you have any idea that you were getting into this kind of a scrum? I mean, like, did you think you're going to come in and just, like, shoot a nice little period gangster film?
RP: No, it was clear from the very beginning and there were tests that were done beforehand ,before the shoot. And so we kind of knew. And then, you know, during preproduction, just designing this rig and making it work. It was a ordeal.
KT: You're obviously at the fore, I think, of this technology, obviously with what you've done. So is it up to snuff for you? Is there a room for improvement? Like, where do you think, like, the hurdles are to advance it from here?
RP: From a cinematographer point of view, I think that, one place to advance is to make the rig easier, simpler, the cameras more lightweight, because it was still a thing – it was a monster, you know? So I hope, the day comes soon where if we're doing this, we don't need to call it a monster. It's just bring in the…
KT: The tri-camera.
RP: The tri-camera! That sounds good. I like that.
KT: I think I’ve coined the phrase. I think you should use that.
RP: But, I think, you know, that it was well worth it. I mean, in this movie, I think it's very unique to see a movie where realistically the actors are aging that many decades.
KT: Absolutely. Let's talk about the plan for camera movement. You talked about it briefly, that it would be a little simplified, but you know, I just think of a few images, like the opening shot floating down this hallway and eventually coming around to capture Frank sitting there. And then there's a couple of these classic sort of Scorsese-like movements of kind of sweeping into a conversation or something like that.
But dig in deeper to me on what you guys talked about when the camera moved, what it would mean.
RP: Well, the camera always moves with a reason or doesn't move for a reason. And Scorsese is very specific about that. And one of the things I most enjoy of the work with him is when he describes this shots he's imagined, and why is doing a certain language with a camera or a different one.
And that's something that happens in pre-production. He, maybe for a week or sometimes more, will disappear from everywhere and he'll go to a hotel and do this shot list on his own.
He'll go through the script and scene by scene, he'll design the shots sometimes with little drawings, sometimes with diagrams. Most of the time he writes the shots, he describes them, and then he shares that with me and with the assistant director, David Webb, and that becomes the basis for the shoot.
So for the most part, when we are with Frank Sheeran, the camera behaves in a very simple way and it’s as I described before. When we see him driving a car, we're frontal, right through the windshield or completely sideways, and as we're tracking with the car, this sort of thing. If we see the facade of a house or a building, it's completely flat on. Let's say when the first time we see him kill Whispers. The other Whispers.
KT: Well done.
RP: We see him, the camera sees him coming down one street, and then the camera simply pans around and we see him, we see Whispers, and boom, he shoots him. That's it. That's it. There are no additional shots. There's no reaction shots. There's none of that. So it's simple.
There are other moments where the camera does have more dynamism, but usually that's when Frank Sheeran is not involved. For example, even the moment when we see the Anastasia killing and the camera starts in the barber shop and then it comes out with a bodyguard into a hallway – which by the way, that's two different places.
We shot the barbershop in the studio that was built by Bob Shaw. And then the camera goes into this hallway that's a location and an actual hotel in Manhattan, and then the camera goes around, looks down some steps, and follows these other guys. We go completely now the opposite direction and end up in these flowers as the shooting is happening.
KT: Why the flowers?
RP: Why the flowers? Well, because, uh…
KT: I wanted to ask you that. Not to interrupt.
RP: Well, I'm going to give you my theory because Scorsese never actually said to me there's a symbolism to the flowers. But to me it's the way life is, where something maybe really horrible is happening. And right around the corner, there's flowers. That's the way life is, you know?
It’s this combination. Sometimes something tragic is right next to something funny. The combination of this beauty with the ugliness, right? And I think that's why we end up on the flowers while we hear this happening. That's not Frank's Sheeran doing that killing. So the camera's free to behave that way.
Or in these swooping crane shots. We did a few in some of these court scenes also when, for example, Joe Gallo is in his deposition and the camera swoops down to Joe Gallo. So this is where the energy of the camera picks up because it’s Joe Gallo, who is this cocky, you know, guy and the way he walks into the place and the cameras, I think that was a steady cam shot.
We go through these columns and the flashes, and there's flares on the lens and you know, so there's a whole different style when we're following Joe Gallo than when we're following Sheeran. Also the scenes where Frank's Sheeran is throwing the guns away in the Schuylkill River, and you know, the gun sinks to the ground and then we see all these other guns that are there.
KT: Is that an actual shot?
RP: No, that shot was completely – we did it in a soundstage. Dry. And I lit it with these units that create sort of a watery lighting effect. Rosco makes these machines. They protect these watery lights. So I put these units on the truss in the studio and lit a piece of a set that Bob Shaw built with trash and all these guns on the floor.
And then we smoke the setup. And that's why the shafts of light – that's actually smoke, not water. And so the camera tilts down and finds all these guns and the gun itself, that’s CGI, that's created by visual effects.
KT: It's a beautiful shot.
RP: It's a nice one, huh? But just going back to when he's throwing the guns. If you remember the scene, the shots are repeated with different cars and different guns, and it's part of that – Scorsese was describing as that routine, that repetitive thing, that methodology that he's developed.
KT: Yeah. And by the way, was there anything notably different about how the camera would behave when Hoffa was the subject of what we're seeing? Obviously he's with Frank a lot, but you know, maybe like in the court scenes. Obviously we've got a lot of movement, but I'm just curious if the language took on a different kind of tenor with Hoffa.
RP: I think that there is more energy simply because Hoffa is that way, you know, a very energetic person. But in most of his scenes, he is with Frank Sheeran and it's all about that relationship. So,I think in those moments when they're together, it's Sheeran's perspective. So we're with that language.
I mean, even there's one shot, which I was startled when Scorsese described what he wanted to do, because it meant a big cheat in terms of how to photograph it. And it's precisely when he kills Hoffa. We built that , on a studio interior, and it's a very small, narrow area where the hallway, where they walk in. And after he shoots him, then there's this wide shot, a proscenium shot, from where there would be a wall.
It's kind of an impossible shot. You can only do it in a studio. It's very fake. And we had to extend the stairs and make them bigger because otherwise they'd finish and we had to take away a column. We had to do all sorts of things to make this shot possible. I was totally skeptical, I must say, as we talked about it and as we made it, I was, “Oh my God, this looks so weird. It looks fake.”
And yet it perfectly works. I think. In the movie. That's one of the shots, by the way, that he said was inspired in a movie, and unfortunately I can’t remember which one it is. But this notion of going outside of it, you know? But it also works with the language of where the camera is totally frontal to the action.
It's like almost theatrical, but I think it works because we've established that style in the movie. And also because it's such an emotional moment that you're not thinking, “Oh wait, there was a wall there.” You're just seeing what's happening.
KT: Yeah. Until you started describing that, I didn't even think that…
RP: Yeah. It's an impossible shot. It’s totally impossible.
KT: Wow. Also, you know, there's a few notable instances of slow motion in the film, you know, assassinations, the wedding. They kind of, they really play up the faces in these big events that are happening. So just tell me about the thought behind when you would go to do slow motion, like this really extreme slow motion.
RP: Yes, it is extreme. And we use the Phantom camera. Phantom Flex. It was first based on photographs he'd been seeing on the research, especially of the Colombo killing. And he kept referring to the faces that you can see in those photographs and the expressions of the people you know, in the moment of such high drama and reality. You know, the reporters that were there.
So that's why he wanted to slow it down to get that feeling of seeing these extreme expressions that he saw in the still photographs. It's interesting that he used it also for the wedding scene at the end because it's not a very active scene anyway. Not much is happening.
So everything is already slow as it is. So enhancing the slowness of that, I think puts you more in Frank Sheeran's mind. He’s in an altered state. You know, he's pretending that everything's fine and he just killed his mentor, his best friend, and he has to hide it.
So just a way also of seeing the detail of the expressions, you know, in a way can go deeper and ponder a little bit more about what people are feeling.
KT: And Ray Romano gets a nice big moment there, at the beginning of that scene.
RP: He sure does!
KT: Okay. So before we wind down, I wanted to talk separately just about the final third of the film and drill down there a little bit more. You know, we talked a little bit about the bleach bypass look and stuff like that, but just the visual language overall really starts to slow down here. The editing, even. It's this sense of just the final threads, unspooling, right?
So just beyond the look and the way colors would look, just what was the kind of game plan for slowing things down with how you were going to cover this portion of the film?
RP: Well, I think the change of rhythm, it is the way it's written, first of all, and the way also DeNiro played the character.
It just changes. So there wasn't that I'm aware of a conscious change in the way we move the camera or any of that. And it was still Frank Sheeran's world. We were still pretty simple in the coverage. But having said that, I think that a moment where we kind of go into that world is when he is looking at his car being washed, and by the way, that's one of my favorite moments in the movie.
The funny thing is that we, like everyday, we were always moving from one location to another, two or three times a day, every day. So that was in my memory a day we were shooting in the car wash and it seemed a pretty simple scene. We're doing some Phantom shots, also slow motion. And the whole idea was to see Frank Sheeran in the little hallway through a window looking at his car being washed.
So that was kind of the main thrust of it. And that shot was kind of the essential one. So when we were there rushing to get it all done, De Niro stood in the hallway there in the shot. And then he told Scorsese, he said, “Marty, I had kind of always imagined I'd be inside the car.” And Marty: “Oh, you know, but we, you know, we designed for you out there,” and then De Niro: “Yeah, but it feels like I’d be inside of the car.”
And Marty, he's an actor's director. Whatever an actor feels that the actor needs, he'll go for it. And we then, did that shot of De Niro. “Okay, let's, okay, so let's…” I had had some lights inside the car to be able to register his face because also it was slow motion. So you need more light. And then this is shot on film because this is not digital.
So he gets into the car, I lay some track, and we track the camera with him. You know, just inside the car. And I think it's the most, one of the most beautiful moments in the movie. You know, that the way that water behaves in the tendrils of the carwash and things that are washing the car, it's just beautiful.
But also his emotionless expression is really beautiful. It really puts you in his state of mind. And Scorsese used both! He used him in the hallway looking through the window and inside the car. So it's kind of surreal. And that wasn't planned that way, but it, I think it works beautifully.
And from there on, it's this new, more meditative style. But it's because of the way De Niro’s playing it. And for instance, there's another shot later, when he's older, where he's walking down a hallway in his home and he trips and falls. And I had some photographic reference – I don't remember the photographer – that had a bathroom that was lit in this orange color by a heater.
So I showed that reference to Scorsese. He liked it, and that's the way I lit it, where it's kind of his silhouette against this, in my mind, kind of a hellish thing. It’s kind of this fiery inferno behind him in a way, you know? But the way he walks down the hallway, you know, really struggling and then falls, was so effective.
But the funny thing is that every take you'd be afraid that he might have hurt himself, you know, because he looked so frail, but then…
KT: He's kind of a good actor.
RP: He's a very good actor! So then when the Scorsese called cut, he would just jump up as a joke. He'd jump up and know, be all strong and all that, and he'd literally jump.
But anyway, this change of rhythm is important, but also I did change the lighting in terms of… I thought that in his moments closer to his death, I wanted to have this bright sunlight on him. And so there's one moment where he's talking to a priest and it's actually in a church and so I put this hot spot of sun on Sheeran.
To me it's like, ”it's coming.” Death is coming. It's almost here. Right? And he knows this. So, so he's trying to reckon with that. And then again, in the scene, which is another one of my favorite scenes, with the nurse in the room where he's looking at the photos, I wanted to put him close to the window and put this hard, really bright sunlight on him.
So, that's not something that we see previously in the movie. It's something that I added towards the end and it was, for me, it was kind of symbolic of… what would it be? Heaven approaching or something? I don't know. Just this proximity of death.
KT: Yeah. And that heater shot, I think is kind of beautiful. And it gives me a different – it reminds me of something different, which is: I kind of think of my grandparents’ house and there was a heater at the end of the hallway. Growing up, going to the house, so it just, that registers in my brain as like frailty, a grandpa, something about that, you know. It's just, it's a really interesting image.
RP: Exactly right. Exactly. The whole, you know, cold bones. You know, you're older, you need a heater, right? So, yeah, I totally agree with you. It's a memory I have also, my grandparents and heaters.
KT: Yeah. And then, you know, you and I have talked a few times over the years with my old “top 10 shots of the year” column.
You've been on there a couple of times for Mr. Scorsese's work. So I gotta talk to you about the closing shot of this film, which if I was still doing that column, I think that would be on there. Because there's just something beautiful about the framing, certainly, but Sheeran, he's alone in the room with nothing but his own reflections to keep him company.
I mean, it's staggering, really. It's a staggering way to close the movie, subtly so. So just how early did you decide what that image was going to be? And then just tell me what comes to mind about it.
RP: The whole final section of the movie kept evolving as we were shooting actually. There were scenes that were different, there were scenes that we added. Even his whole narration of the story. At one point it was going to be to someone else, physically, maybe a priest. It wasn't clear. And then we got these pages, which he was just talking and it didn't make sense to me. So who is he talking to? What, we see them in this room? Nobody's there.
But of course it works beautifully. That last scene, I don't remember at this point of the script, the first script I read, mentioned the part of the door staying open. It might have or not, but I do know that when we scouted this place, Scorsese only then started talking about this transition he wanted to do of the day into night, which I think is a beautiful moment.
You know, where we were with a nurse, the scene I described earlier, which I love, and then the camera comes to the hallway with the nurse and pans around, and now it's night. And then it comes again into the room and it's nighttime and the priest is there and they have this conversation.
That last shot through the doorway speaks to me volumes about the vulnerability that Frank Sheeran has been hiding his whole life. He is very stoic, and you don't read a lot in his expression, but you do actually see him a lot in his eyes. And that's, I think, very masterful of DeNiro. The way he maintains this persona of this macho guy who, you know, who will do anything unfazed.
But he, in the end, he is vulnerable, like all of us. And I think that is what Scorsese is telling us with that shot. This man, everything he's done, and yet Scorsese allows us to follow this man for three and a half hours and we're riveted. And we want to see more. We want to see what's behind this man and what's in his soul.
And this shot reveals a lot. This vulnerable old man who's almost like a child. Fearful of what? What is it that he fears? Is it ghosts? Is it his own death? What's he fearing that he needs a door to be open? Besides the also the fact that we earlier saw Hoffa doing that.
KT: They talk about that in the book, where Hoffa didn't like to sleep with the door closed.
I liked how they didn't, like, you didn't hit that over the head. You just show him, kind of leave the door open and then later when Frank says, “Leave the door open,” hopefully there's that connection that he's kind of taken it from him.
RP: There's that connection, but I see it in a different way. Because with Hoffa, it's kind of a realistic thing about it. You know, he is rightfully paranoid. There is reason to keep the door open. But for an old man in a nursing home, there really is no reason to keep the door open. It's symbolic, I think, of his own fear of death and of this vulnerable person that he has now become. And that he's always been, but now, you know, we see it.
KT: And there's so much sadness about just the overall moment. I mean, like, just knowing that the nurse or whoever says that they're leaving for the holiday, and he's like, “Oh, is it Christmas?” And so, you know, he's going to be there alone through the holidays. I mean, it's, it's just sad, sad, sad, all the way through.
RP: There's a melancholy that you feel at the end of the movie that I wasn't aware of when we were making it. You know, I knew that, that moment was sad, but it's much more melancholic than I expected, and it's very profound and it's really touching. It moves me a lot.
When I even saw the movie for the first time, the first cut, let's say, when it was finished, the editing was finished, but without the visual effects or anything, it was, you know, the actors, I saw them as we shot them. And still the story worked and it moved me deeply even seeing it like that.
And it still does. I mean, I shot it. I was there, I saw that it’s a set and I'm lighting it and you know, or it’s an exterior and the light's changing and I'm all stressed out and all that… all that, I forget when I see the movie, you know. It's very powerful.
KT: Movie magic. Okay. At the end here, just a couple of rapid fire questions to wind things down. No pressure, easy stuff. Like, what's your favorite cinematographer of all time?
RP: Of all time? Ooh, that's a good question. Sven Nykvist.
KT: That's a good one. Can't argue with that one. You got a favorite movie from Sven?
RP: I would say it's “The Virgin Spring.”
KT: Awesome. What's the greatest single shot of all time?
RP: “I Am Cuba” has a few of those. You know, certainly it's a spectacular shot. And just to think of how that was achieved in that time, when the camera goes down into a pool, out of the water and then, you know, flies down to the street. That shot I don't think will ever be a shot you'd be like, “Ah, okay. That's, yeah, whatever.” No, it's still spectacular. I mean, even with all the technology we have now to move the camera, it's still amazes me, how they achieved that shot. It's pretty incredible.
KT: Is there a single image by chance or a series of photography, whatever, that that inspired you to become cinematographer in your own right?
RP: Well, I think it was more, just doing it that I fell in love with cinematography. First it was Super 8. I did Super 8 movies and horror films. And I think that started from Ray Harryhausen's films. “Jason and the Argonauts,” “Clash of the Titans,” and the stop motion that he did was my first inspiration to do stop motion and Super 8.
So that's what started my career in filmmaking. Cinematography, I think was when I, after working in a still photography studio and then going to film school, once I started lighting and doing the camera work on student films, I knew that that's where I felt really excited, comfortable, happy, busy. And yeah, that's where I discovered, okay, that's what I want to do.
KT: Yeah. And then last question here. Everyone gets this question at the end. You might've started to get into it here, but what's the movie that made you fall in love with movies?
RP: Yes, I would say “Jason and the Argonauts” was the film that I thought was completely magical, and as a child I could even understand somewhat how they did some things and I found that the possibility of me actually being able to do something similar and create with stop motion, stories where my clay figures my clay monsters could come to life. And when I actually was able to do it when I was 10 years old, that was so magical to me that I was hooked. And it all started, I would say, with “Jason and the Argonauts.”
KT: Fantastic answer. Well, that's gonna do it for us. But thank you so much for coming on the show. This was an outstanding work. After listening to this, if you can't believe it's outstanding work, you're crazy, because they've created this entire system to do what they've done. So hats off to you, man. And this collaboration that you've got going with Mr. Scrosese just keeps proving dividends.
So a great work. And by the way – a belated congrats on that “Silence” nomination from a couple of years ago. We talked about “Silence” at the top, so I just wanted to say that as well. Thank you again, man.
RP: I appreciate it, Kris. Thank you so much.
KT: We have a few episodes focused on the craft of THE IRISHMAN this year, and obviously, with this film but indeed with any Scorsese film, that craft is considerable. This was years in the making, and again, it’s a brilliant sample from the autumn of a career like Scorsese’s, but it’s also fascinating that as old-fashioned as it might seem on its surface, he’s still pushing the technological envelope with artists like Rodrigo Prieto, truly one of our great contemporary cinematographers.
So don’t hesitate. THE IRISHMAN is available to stream on Netflix right now.
The Call Sheet is a Netflix podcast hosted by me, Kris Tapley. The show is produced by Noah Eberhart and the team at Blue Duck Media. Stuart Park created all the original music in this episode and a special thanks to the team at Netflix.