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Performance Enhancing

Nov 1, 2008 12:00 PM, By Michael Goldman

Darren Aronofsky’s team strategically highlights Mickey Rourke’s work in character-driven film.

“We had this idea to shoot Super 16 widescreen even though not too many people do it [for features],” Aronofsky says. “I really liked the idea of how portable it was and how fluid and easy it was to move the camera — to simplify things and get that kind of documentary feel. We talked about HD, but we didn't feel we could control everything, and add the grittiness we wanted, if we shot digitally on this budget and time frame.”

Alberti adds this methodology was also chosen by Aronofsky, in part, to emulate the dramatic handheld camera work done in a film that Aronofsky discussed at length with her — a 1999 Belgian picture called Rosetta, which was directed by brothers Luc and Jean-Pierre Dardenne. That film had the camera feel Aronofsky was looking for — handheld, in close proximity to the main characters at all times.

“This whole film, like [Rosetta], is handheld, and Darren wanted lots of improvisation [in certain scenes], so Super 16 was better for all that,” she says. “The whole thing is about the chemistry and dramatic tensions that come from following the character very closely. The camera is very close to Mickey at all times. We are moving with the character. It's very interesting when you place a camera right behind someone. There is a sense of being in their space, in their soul, and into what they are feeling. I used [Carl Zeiss] Ultra Prime 12mm lenses almost the whole time to create that feeling.”

That intimate sense of being almost a part of the character's space carried over to the wrestling scenes and the stripping scenes featuring Randy's love interest in the film — an exotic dancer called Cassidy, played by Marisa Tomei.

“We put a camera into the wrestling ring,” Aronofsky says. “That's usually how they shoot boxing, but for wrestling, most people use a master shot. But I wanted to get the camera into the ring, moving 360 degrees, so we also chose to do that whole thing handheld, and it worked out great.”

Alberti credits camera operator Peter Nolan for capturing unique POVs during the highly choreographed, ultra-violent wrestling sequences.

“The idea was to always keep the camera behind the character, but always within his space, to experience what he experiences,” she says. “We always had the camera in the ring with him, usually using the 12mm or a 15mm lens, and Peter did an amazing job. Work like that takes great physical and emotional strength, especially when we are doing lots of takes.”

Choreographing the exotic dancing scenes involving Tomei was also complicated, she adds.

“The big thing was Darren asked me to light as much as possible for 360 degrees, which we did sometimes,” Alberti says. “But in the club and places like that, it is a bit hard to do dramatic lighting at 360, so we sometimes gave him 280 or 290. But we got as close as we could.

“[For the exotic dancing], we had the same approach as with the wrestling — the camera was onstage with her. The thinking was to actually be less voyeuristic. Instead of just looking at her from the outside, we wanted to stay with her to keep with our philosophy of experiencing what she experiences. It was difficult to light for that in the club, because all the moving light can cause camera shadows. It was a real challenge to get the camera so close to Marisa Tomei when she is dancing while there is a lot of moving light happening. We had to very finely choreograph the dancing of Marisa with the dancing of the camera to get it just right.”

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