For Kinematographer Joe Syselli it was a smooth transition from Stop-Motion “Anomalisa” (2015) to Live-Action “The actor” with director Duke Johnson. This is because both films are formally bold, mind -bending stories about the search for identity.
“Anomalisa” explores Fregoli syndrome, where people appear as the same person in disguise, by marrying distinct stop-motion patterns with stylized action; “The actor“On the other hand, handles a variety of memory loss, where people appear as a group of actors who play several roles, with more dream -like theatricality.
Based on Donald E. Westlake’s surrealist novel, “Memory”, Johnson’s latest film Focuses on André Holland as a man suffering from both long -term and short -term memory loss; He tries to get back to New York from a 50’s Midwester city, but his only anchor in a changing reality is the woman he becomes friends with Gemma Chan. Holland’s ever -refreshing empty slate is the story Motivation for Systelli and his team to wrap the “actor” in a picturesque fog of soft but increased images.
Of course, there is a clear point of reference that all cinephile can point to for the 50s, picturesque, raised Film art It mixes all the sense of reality and fantasy: Charles Laughton’s “The Night of the Hunter.”
“We really liked how the backgrounds were right up to the stage wall, and we kept stuck to that look,” Syselli told IndieWire. “And it was really cool when we have the sky so close to the back wall on Main Street, and we played with a compulsory perspective.
Johnson and Syselli also watched many other black and white films from the same period, partly because Johnson wanted to explore the things that make people feel they are in a period film. But all the “actor’s” stylistic choices arose from a desire to express the increased meaning and feelings that memories can take on.
“It started with discussions about our memories in some places and the further back they go, the more remote and raised they become,” Syselli said. “Imagine if you forgot all these things, and then these memories must seem like the biggest memories ever.
The “actor” was filmed in Budapest, where Syselli shot at the Alexa SXT cameras with the period’s anamorphic lenses to bend the images around the sides of the artificial sets. With the help of soft lighting, this constantly put the Netherlands in the limelight – as an actor. “What kept it balanced and focused was the journey home, and then suddenly he is back in flushing,” added Syelli.
Although there are obvious differences between the tannery that Holland is stuck in and his bohemian Greenwich Village home, the director wanted everything to be whimsical and independent from reality. The filmmakers achieved this by combining parts of the theater with a TV soap opera that Holland shows up in.
For the latter, they gave the appearance of being backstage during the recording of a soap opera where Holland plays “The judgment with man”, where the camera follows him closely when he becomes more and more disoriented, wandering from one set to another (one of them even turns out to be his apartment in New York).
The feeling of Artifice is found throughout the movie. The “actor” opens in Monochrome as a vintage TV show, from the main titles to the violent incentive event that causes Holland’s amnesia. For the horizon they even borrowed from “Anamalisa.”
“After we shot everything at Budapest, we went back to (the animated Starburns studio) for just a few pickup pictures for the titles with these” anomalisa “buildings,” Syselli said. “So I lit it up and had one of our sky from the stop movement out there and put small flashes of thunder and rain on the windows.
For the stage where Holland and Chan first exchange looks in a cinema as the only protectors who looked at Casper animated cards, “Boo Moon” (1954), the director and the Kinematographer was inspired by Martin Scorsese’s remake of “Cape Fear.”
“We had seen a bunch of different people watching movies in theaters,” said Syelli. “And we wanted to see their faces very clearly and get that balance in the André screen wakes up after he has expired.
The “actor” is currently playing in theaters.
