Cinematographer Christian Berger has been Michael Haneke's eye for many of that director's most critically acclaimed and talked about films, beginning with 1992's Benny's Video and continuing through 2001's The Piano Teacher and 2005's Caché. With this year's Palme d'Or-winning The White Ribbon, both men have taken a major aesthetic detour from the paranoid postmodern landscapes that characterized their previous efforts, landing instead in pre-WWI Germany, in an agrarian village full of dark secrets. Shooting in black and white with an assured hand, Berger paints stunning monochromatic landscapes, portraits and still lifes of a society savoring its last moments of innocence. We spoke by phone to Berger yesterday from his home in Austria.
CHRISTIAN BERGER: May I ask you a question? For me it's a kind of shock that we are so well received, especially in the States. Is there a kind of saturation from the conventional style of film over there? Why do you think it's that way? Even for Europeans it's a difficult film. It's, you know, really not a blockbuster.
MOVIELINE: Well it doesn't open here until November, but there's been a lot of interest, first of all because Mr. Haneke has developed a real cult following over the years.
But it's so different, that's what I mean. So different from the usual cinema.
Do you mean different from the film's he'd done until now? Or from all films in general.
No, all films -- especially from the States maybe.
There's definitely an audience for it, though. And of course the Cannes win and its reception at various festivals only fed the curiosity. I know I was extremely eager to see it and I loved it.
Fine. So we'll do an interview with you. [Laughs]
The White Ribbon is so different from the other films you've shot for Haneke. Why did you choose black and white?
It was our goal to make not black and white because it's 1914, or to evoke a kind of nostalgia, or to fake something authentic. It was actually to create a strong abstraction. Michael Haneke said, of course all the photos and film of that time are in black and white. But we didn't want to recreate that black and white. I hope it worked, because it's a kind of modern black and white, even if I don't know what it means.
Well, I have to ask -- what is the definition of a modern black and white film?
I don't know. I don't know. I can only say it's not nostalgia, or a copy of the styles from that time.
So you weren't trying to pay homage to older films like the Italian Neo-Realists, or films of that nature?
I don't think so. Of course we were watching Bergman but we were also watching Clint Eastwood's -- how is it called, Unforgiven? Because they used a lot of oil lamps. It wasn't in black and white, but they used oil lamps. Even with the new technologies, at the beginning we were forced to use color negative because of some contract conditions coming from TV stations.
So there's a color version of the film somewhere?
No no no. Fortunately not. But at the beginning it was done as a condition that we have to do it in case of. But I think now with the success of the film, they've shut up, and said we're all very courageous, I don't know. For the moment it's only in black and white. And all the lighting was done for black and white.
What tricks did you use to visually bring the audience back to early 20th Century Germany?
You think it looks like that? I don't think so! Because we used the last generation of color negatives, because that kind of materials are really the top level, and the black and white negatives have no progression. The grading is much more than in a color negative. Each little color is a gray tone on a scale. So I was very happy in the end to use the color negative. The whole post-production is digital anyway, so we could bring together the best of both worlds -- from the analog worlds, the color negatives, and the digital world, concerning scanning, grading, selecting lighting contrasts. We could use a lot of possibilities that the earlier days never had.
So maybe that's what you mean by a "modern black and white" film.
If you really see side-by-side, it's a big difference. But of course it's not important. Story is always priority, and nobody in the audience will analyze what happens, but it makes a different taste, no?
All I can say is, not being a particularly technical person when it comes to these matters, was that it looked incredibly beautiful. Any shot could be frozen and put on a wall.
[Laughs] Thanks.
And I definitely got a good look at it as I got there late and had to take a seat in the front row. My neck hurt but my eyes were happy.
[Laughs] Yeah. Good.
One thing Haneke seems to do a lot is to let the camera remain very stagnant and let the scenes play out in front of it.
Yeah. It looks like that, but very often there's nevertheless a shooting list. But it's very subtle, so you don't realize there's been a cut.
Could you offer an example of a simple-looking scene that was actually very technically complex to shoot?
Yes -- the very strong scene, the dialogue between the little boy and his sister about death. Do you remember that?
Of course.
In that twilight kitchen atmosphere, it was many shots, but it looks quite simple and clear. Of course, with a kid it's not easy to shoot, and we had difficulty with lighting. We were depending on daylight, and it was thunderstorming outside, and the branches on the windows were slapping around, and there you have this kid, and yeah -- sensitive scene. But I think it came out moving, no?
It was a beautiful scene. It's stuck with me, and I imagine it would stick with anyone who sees it. Could you talk about Haneke's use of close-ups?
I don't think it's extreme close-ups, because it was in relation to the normal shots. It's not the close-ups you are used to in normally shot movies. We have much closer faces. Maybe it felt that way to you, and that's good. The lighting on those figures was modest -- tender, even, if I might say that. No harsh lights; they were very modulated, more like a painter.
There were many scenes that were very difficult to watch for an audience. I wonder were they difficult to shoot?
Which scenes do you mean?
Scenes of corporal punishment inflicted upon children, and a scene involving the sexual abuse of a child.
It doesn't happen in the camera. It happens in your brain, because it's just evoked. You never see it really. So we didn't shoot it, it doesn't happen in front of the camera. In the punishment of the boy, the door closes and you just hear a few screams. In the father-daughter scene, you see nothing in that moment. But you imagine it, because of the script and the actors' reactions. But the injuries on the mongoloid boy -- those wounds were added digitally.
Right -- that was another very upsetting scene. Can we speak for a moment about Caché? I assume that since you were the cinematographer, you also shot the videotapes that were delivered to the family.
Yes, of course.
What were Haneke's directions to you in filming those? Did he tell you who was shooting them? Did that help you create them? They're surrounded by so much mystery.
You know the basic idea behind the camera work was that you should not be able to tell the quality between the tapes and the reality. So were all shooting in HD -- even the tapes -- producing one level of quality.
So there was no differentiation from the normal scenes.
No, we didn't want that. The first script from Michael said there should be the same look between the tapes and the real scenes. That's why we chose HD. It gave us the chance to have that video look. We didn't use 35mm for that reason.
Did making those tapes have any kind of personal effect on you?
Not really, no. Except that it was shitty shooting with that HD rig. [Laughs] "Permanent out of order."
You had a lot of technical problems?
Yes. Definitely. And you know Sony was supporting zero. Zero. It's really a shitty company. They only can say, "The future is now," but that's it. We had problems, but we were content with the result in the end.
It was very affecting for me, and I was wondering how it felt to shoot them. But I guess when you're making the film --
You don't feel like that. That's the thing about Haneke's script. The tension is created in a laconic style of images. In other words it's the brain of the spectator that creates high tension. Because you see something but you never see it really. It's never concrete there. It's only provoked. ♦