Tema: Gordon Willis ha fallecido

Tripley seguramente dirá que estando aún vivos -aunque ya muy mayores- Roger Deakins y Storaro la afirmación de Lubezki es un tanto cuestionable... o no, quién sabe.

"That technique or that approach to the movie visually just came out of a thought process. And the process, in my mind, was based on evil; it was based on the soul of the picture.” The wedding outside had “a very sunny, almost Kodachromey, 1942 kind of feel to it. Then when we cut inside the house with Brando, it was very down and very ominous…so it was a very simple philosophy. However, the overall look of The Godfather was a kind of forties New York grit, with the exception of the scenes in Sicily. The Godfather II is basically the same approach only more romantic.”

"The segment in the beginning of the film, where The Godfather is in his office, was shot with overhead soft light, "with the addition of whatever was necessary on the floor to accentuate someone’s face or eyes”. “I didn’t give a shit whether I saw their eyes or not. My thought was that it was better not to see their eyes in some scenes. It seemed more appropriate not to see their eyes because of what was going on in their heads at certain moments.”





Paramount was in a panic over the fim’s dark look. Willis told writer Peter Biskind, “Screens were so blitzed with light that you could see into every corner of every toilet and closet on the set. When that dark stuff started to appear on the screen, it seemed a little scary to people who were used to looking at Doris Day movies.”





Dean Tavoularis, Francis Ford Coppola’s longtime production designer, had spent a lot of money on the sets, furnishing them with hardwood floors and oriental carpets, and now you couldn’t see them. Paramount ultimately didn’t understand what Coppola and his crew were going for with the film. Not only did the studio executives dislike the film’s darker look, but they also thought the pacing was too slow, and they didn’t like Brando’s mumbling, although Brando kept the Don’s voice quiet because he believed powerful people didn’t need to yell.

While Coppola supported the film’s darker cinematography, he had a number of clashes with Willis as well. “Gordon would light so precisely that if Pacino bound around a bit or moved his head, he went into darkness,” says associate producer Gray Frederickson. If the cast didn’t precisely hit their marks, Willis’ shots would be ruined. Coppola wanted his actors to feel free to move around, and resented Willis trying to restrict them. Frustrated, Willis posted a sign on his camera: ACTORS THINK MARKS ARE GERMAN MONEY.

“At that point in his career Francis didn’t realize that you can’t get art without craft,” Willis said. “He knows it now, but he didn’t know it then. You can’t just arbitrarily block a scene and forget the fact that you’re making a movie. The blocking had to be basically comfortable for the actors and it has to function for the director, and then finally it has to work for the camera. If the scene doesn’t fit in that little hole that you’re looking through, then it’s all irrelevant. Unless a director can transpose his feelings and interpretations into a visual structure, they’re meaningless.”

“The Godfather transformed how cinematography was thought of, it was one of the those landmark movies,” “There was a certain amount of resentment against Gordy in that he shook everything up and he made the rules that other cinematographers had to live by no longer so applicable.”


Esto puede ser el motivo por el cual no ganó un Oscar.

Iniciado por Branagh/Doyle

Tripley seguramente dirá que estando aún vivos -aunque ya muy mayores- Roger Deakins y Storaro la afirmación de Lubezki es un tanto cuestionable... o no, quién sabe.

Yo diría que no Willis era eso el príncipe de las tinieblas. Para mí Deakins sería, el príncipe de las siluetas, para mí Wilis creaba sobras mas geneales y Deakins, cuando decide trabaja las luces y sombras, para mí, hace eso siluetear más las figuras en sombras ante un fondo más luminoso. Para mí dos maneras tan conseguidas como casi perfectas de trabajar con la luz y la sombra. Y Storaro para mí pues casi igual, crea sombras pero a la vez mantiene el color mucho más de lo que pienso que lo hacía Willis.

Saludos

Su hijo Fredo tiene neumonía....

Un grande entre los grandes, ni mejor ni peor que otros grandes, todos con grandes talentos que tuvieron la oportunidad de trabajar en grandes películas y plasmar sus estilos.

Exacto. De hecho, sin gente como Gregg Toland o Stanley Cortez, por ejemplo, que fueron rompedores, no hubiera habido un Gordon Willis.

Ojo, no le niego a Willis que haya sido uno de los más grandes. En absoluto. Pero uno llega a ser de los más grandes, por talento, y porque siempre ha habido alguien detrás que ha roto moldes y ha enseñado un resquicio por el que hurgar y ver qué se puede conseguir llevando las cosas al límite (si artísticamente lo requiere).

Y Nestor Almendros