“Emilia Pérez,” director Jacques Audiard’s film musical a couple of Mexican drug lord who transitions to a lady, clearly has a whole lot of various things happening.
It’s applicable, then, that Oscar-nominated cinematographer Paul Guilhaume utilized a kaleidoscope of strategies to the gritty, noirish, typically satirical and operatic melodrama’s Spanish-language music sequences.
The sequences, staged for probably the most half at Bry-sur-Marne Studios close to Paris, required shut collaboration between Guilhaume and Audiard, who had beforehand labored collectively on the a lot less complicated, black-and-white romantic misadventure “Paris, 13th District.” Belgian choreographer Damien Jalet, movie editor Juliette Welfling and, in fact, performers Zoe Saldaña, Karla Sofía Gascón and Selena Gomez had been essential to creating every manufacturing quantity pop.
Zoe Saldaña sings and dances in musical numbers from “Emilia Pérez.”
(WHY NOT PRODUCTIONS, PATHÉ FILMS, FRANCE 2 CINÉMA)
“Some sequences, like the opening in the market where Zoe does her first big performance, Damien had plans for the right point of view on the choreography, where the camera should be at each moment,” the tousle-haired Guilhaume explains in a video chat from his dwelling in Paris. “We rehearsed it in advance with iPhones and small gimbals. Then Damien, Juliette and I pre-edited.”
Plans proved futile, nonetheless, for Saldaña’s later massive music and dance to the tune of Clément Ducol and Camille’s Oscar-nominated “El Mal.”
“The fundraising gala, where Zoe’s dancing among the tables, was much more improvised,” the cinematographer says. “When we first filmed the sequence, it didn’t have the energy the choreography had: We were staying too distant; the planned blocking disappointed. So we went with a much shorter, 20-millimeter lens on a Steadicam. The Steadicam operator, Sacha Naceri, Damien, Zoe and I just tried to find the right position for the camera on almost every one of her moves. Zoe’s character kind of dictates the camera and lighting movements.”
Audiard’s general aesthetic, Guilhaume says, is concentrated extra on motion than rigorously managed cinematography.
“It’s very Jacques Audiard to film dialogue scenes with handheld cameras,” Guilhaume says. “He likes to bring movement and accident to something that wouldn’t have them if shot on a tripod or dolly.”
“It’s very Jacques Audiard to film dialogue scenes with handheld cameras. He likes to bring movement and accident to something that wouldn’t have them if shot on a tripod or dolly.”
— Paul Guilhaume
The scene the place Saldaña’s lawyer Rita, who organized for narco Manitas’ transition to Emilia (each performed by Gascón), encounters her years later at a cocktail party is a refined masterpiece of ever-so-slightly floaty lensing, dimmed-out backgrounds and body masking because the characters sing their issues to at least one one other.
“Jacques is the kind of director who has a signature shot, like Spike Lee’s dollies,” the cinematographer notes. “He calls it the manhole. It’s like an iris but moving and vibrating in front of the lens when you’re deeply connecting with characters’ emotions. In the studio, we could just switch off the rest of the world on a specific line and be able to light two faces. It’s both in the continuity of Jacques’ mise-en-scene and the revelation, in this case.”
Some appears had been comparatively easy to attain. A toy purchased on-line swirls laser dots round a baby’s bed room to magical impact for “Papa,” which one in every of Emilia’s younger sons sings to her, unaware (but additionally intuiting) that the daddy he’s lengthy thought lifeless is his new auntie.
Jessi (Selena Gomez) performs a music at a karaoke membership within the film.(PAGE 114/WHY NOT PRODUCTIONS )
As Manitas’ unsuspecting spouse, Jessi, introduced again to Mexico Metropolis from a Swiss hideout to dwell with this in-law Emilia she’d by no means heard of, Gomez expresses the character’s sense of entrapment in “Bienvenida,” leaping between solo selfie pictures in her bed room and an all-black stage the place her rage is expressed by writhing backup dancers.
“It’s another key moment that relies on the light changes to enhance the character’s emotions,” Guilhaume says. “There is a missing wall that separates the bedroom from the all-black studio. We just put two very strong, flat lasers there, and as soon as Selena crosses it, you can see the laser light on her head. When she jumps from one side to another, the light effects switch on and off.”
Within the sequence for the film’s second Oscar-nominated music, “Mi Camino,” Gomez and Édgar Ramírez, who performs Jessi’s love curiosity, flip a karaoke membership efficiency right into a tableau of longing, splintered personas.
“Jacques’ intuition was that the walls had to be screens here,” Guilhaume notes. “When we tested that, we realized that we could use a video feedback effect. It’s the same as when you put mirrors in front of each other, and you see the reflection multiplied an infinite number of times. So at first you see Selena from this frontal point of view and her multiple images in the background, and the sequence almost ends just filming the screen.”
What music video veteran Guilhaume discovered most thrilling about visualizing this oddest of musicals was how narrative was at all times his important concern.
“Jacques wanted the drama to unfold during the production numbers,” he says. “It was very pleasant to work in this aspect because you always had to treat the scene like you’d treat a fiction scene. What new information or emotion do you get from the sequence?”
