BEN SMITHARD BSC • THE FATHER
THE FATHER • BEN SMITHARD BSC Photos: (below) director Florian Zeller with DP Ben Smithard BSC on The Father.
MIND GAMES
Photos by Sean Gleason. Courtesy of Sony Pictures Classics.
experience, except for one thing. “There are many big movies taking up the stages, so we didn’t have many options. The one we used was high enough but not big enough, with a Rosco SoftDrop Translight backing something like 14-feet from the windows, and the other side of the set right up against the wall. I’d love to have had another four feet, but I had to make do with what was available.” His lighting was dictated by his wish to stay imperceptible. “It’s all Tungsten Fresnels, every bulb was a Tungsten bulb. I like the old style of lighting, it’s very consistent and I can tell the colour temperature of everything, even if it’s dimmed down,” says the DP. “There’s a scene where it wasn’t perfect, though. Because of the problems with space, I had to use an LED lamp. I knew it looked wrong on Tony’s skin but had no choice. I don’t think anyone else will notice, but I do.” Another compromise he had to make was how it was shot. “I really wanted to shoot The Father on 35mm film, the project was perfect for that, but it was a small independent film and we couldn’t make it work. When we went digital, I knew I was going to shoot on the Sony Venice. I worked with it for the first time on my previous feature, Downton Abbey, and it’s a brilliant camera that gives a whole lot of options. I have a lot of admiration for high-end Sony cameras.”
Cinematographer Ben Smithard BSC created a space for the actors to shine in Florian Zeller’s empathetic, graceful, Oscar-winning and utterly terrifying cinematic journey through senility.
T
hough The Father’s plot may be simply outlined in one sentence – a story of a feisty 80-year-old Londoner gradually surrendering to dementia, which sends his daughter (Olivia Colman) on a rollercoaster of emotions – there is nothing simple about the film. For it assumes Anthony’s (Anthony Hopkins) perspective, an unreliable narrator who is not aware of his unreliability, whilst Zeller, a firsttime film director filming his own play, allows the audience to be as confused as the protagonist is. Though The Father’s plot may be simply outlined in one sentence – a story of a feisty 80-year-old Londoner gradually surrendering to dementia, which sends his daughter (Olivia Colman) on a rollercoaster of emotions – there is nothing simple about the film. For it assumes Anthony’s (Anthony Hopkins) perspective, an unreliable narrator who is not aware of his unreliability, whilst Zeller, a first-time film director filming his own play, allows the audience to be as confused as the protagonist is. It is hence hard to blame Smithard, eminent British DP with dozens of films and high-end TV series on his resumé, for actively campaigning to shoot it. “Florian is French and wanted a French DP, but I loved the script and had a good working relationship with Tony Hopkins. So I begged my agent to get me a meeting,” explains Smithard, whose previous credits include My Week With Marilyn (2011), Alan Partridge (2013), Good By Christopher Robin (2017), Viceroy’s House (2017) and Downton Abbey (2019). “When we talked, I was relieved to hear that his only worry was that the language would be a problem. But, it never was,
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and we got along really well from day one.” Because of the film’s nonlinear structure – Anthony’s shattered mind has us see other characters as different actors/actresses, whilst the apartment he resides in undergoes subtle shifts in interior design – the key word was: precision. “You have to be an absolute perfectionist with this kind of movie as it hinges on nuances that may maintain or break the viewers’ immersion in the story,” Smithard explains. “My lighting and camerawork needed to be kept simple so as not to detract from the performances.” It meant, among other things, a neat display of the apartment’s layout. “We had a clever construct there, a series of simple, empty shots of the place that give the audience something to hold onto while the décor shifts,” says Smithard. “This is something you notice, what you don’t see is the subtle change in lighting. As the film goes on, the light that comes from the window gets lower and lower, like a normal sun. It was my visual metaphor for the light going out in Tony’s life.” The project was quite intimate with only a few speaking parts and no more than three characters appearing in any one scene. “It’s about trust between me and the performers. I had to react to what they were doing, both as a DP and a camera operator, give them space to flesh-out the characters. You also had to be aware that because Tony Hopkins is 80, and such a well-prepared actor, that he was not going to do it 20 times. And he knew I wasn’t going to mess him around.” Smithard shot The Father in six weeks on a stage at West London Film Studios and was happy with the
It was a bit more difficult to choose the lenses, as Smithard explains. “I shot Downton Abbey with Zeiss Supremes, but they’re expensive and I tried to find something else. I chose nice medium format lenses but during prep I saw that, because they’re stills lenses and have wildly ranging T-stops, I was going to have to use more light than I had been willing to. So, I went back to Zeiss Supremes at the last minute, and it was a good decision. They gave me the flexibility I needed.” After principal photography ended, Smithard worked with his regular colourist Gareth Spensley (formerly at Molinare, now at Company3 in London) to subtly enhance what had been done in-camera and make the performances shine. “It’s important that I know that what I’m doing can be made a bit better in the grade,” says the DP. “It’s a detailed work with the colour and the shading of the bits of the frame. Grading for me is an instinctive thing and is about manipulating the image so that the audience looks where I want them to look.” The film premiered at Sundance 2020 to splendid reviews, but had to be shelved for over a year for obvious reasons. Now, riding the wave of two Academy and two BAFTA Awards, it makes a grand theatrical comeback and seems destined to end up on many Top10 lists. Though the only thing
you need to know is that The Father is this rare kind of film for adults not afraid to be confronted with difficult emotions, in this case the horror and the poignancy of the fragility of the human mind. Smithard is really proud of how it turned out. “Sure, I could’ve been more elaborate with how
I have a lot of admiration for high-end Sony cameras it looks, but I don’t think it was necessary. The film is about great acting and great words – it’s brilliant. Yes, I had to put up with things I didn’t necessarily like, but I enjoyed that challenge. It’s where I come from as a filmmaker: if you’re making a great story, it doesn’t matter how much money you’ve got, as long as you’re able to fulfil its potential. I believe we have.”
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