Sébastien Buchmann, AFC, accompanies the image on Jessica Palud’s film "Maria"

Maria Schneider is not yet adult and wants to play in films, like her father, Daniel Gélin. When a young and promising Italian director offers her a leading role in a claustrophobic drama mixing sex-and-violence, alongside an American star, she achieves fame and becomes an iconic actress. But she does not yet realise that fame and scandal will destroy her.
With Anamaria Vartolomei, Yvan Attal, Matt Dillon, Céleste Brunnquell.

Maria spans about twenty years, from the early 1970s to the late 1980s. The cinematography highlights the era but without accompanying this evolution, why ?

Sébastien Buchmann : Annamaria Vartolomei plays Maria Schneider from her 16th birthday (1968) to her 30th (1982), without any deliberate ageing through make-up or VFX. Hairstyles, yes, to emphasise the character’s youth or maturity.
Through the cinematography, we could have emphasised more on the passing decades by showing the late 1960s aesthetic, then the 1970s and 80s. But that wasn’t Jessica’s desire : the film had to reflect a straight-line trajectory, with Maria as the central figure. We preferred to let the sets and costumes alone convey this evolution.

What was your approach to ensure that the cinematography of Maria ¡reflected that era ?

SB : I had experimented, with Florine Bel, Colour Scientist, in researching period imagery for Les Passagers de la nuit, by Mikhaël Hers, which takes place in Paris in the 1980s. For Maria, I continued this collaboration with Florine and the film’s colourist, Mathilde Delacroix, who helped me develop a look. This work was done prior to filming.
We shot some initial tests, without lighting, make-up or costumes, with Annamaria, on location on the Passy bridge and then in an apartment we had scouted, in which she uses drugs. These tests were intended to capture colours and textures. We graded these tests with an initial visual style developed by Florine based on reference images that I had provided. Initially, the image was more desaturated and grainier ; we toned this down in the final colour grading. Then we shot additional tests, this time with the help of the hair, makeup and clothes department to refine the hairstyles, costumes and make-up for the main characters and continued our visual look development, introducing filters. The final aesthetic was applied to the rushes, which facilitated grading but also allowed us to have an image very close to the final one during the edit. On the shoot, we applied LUTs that gave a good preview of the visuals without all its characteristics (no grain and no halation).

The contrast is fairly soft and there is a sense of diffusion in the highlights, so it’s a little reminiscent of 35mm film from the 1970s.

SB : We never wanted to imitate 35mm film ; the choice of digital was fully assumed. Jessica wanted to shoot in digital and wanted an image that remained modern. But all our references were film-based, starting with those of Last Tango in Paris, so yes, one could say that the visuals evoke the 35mm of that era.
Jessica Palud also often mentioned Andrzej Zulawski’s film The Most Important Thing : Love (1975), which is not at all the same kind of film, but whose visuals she really liked. Another reference that guided us a lot was Jerry Schatzberg’s film Panic in Needle Park (1971), for the drug scenes, because Jessica wanted them to be very realistic, somewhat raw.

Recreating scenes from that era must have been an exciting step for a cinematographer !

SB : Absolutely ! I would like to thank cinematographer Jean-Marie Dreujou, and Natasza Chroscicki, head of Arri France, who between them provided me with all the cameras for the recreated shoots. Jean-Marie has an incredible collection of 35mm cameras from all eras. He lent us the Arri BL, the Camé 300, a Nagra and many other things, and Natasza provided the Mitchell BNCR used for The Last Tango in Paris. This camera is an inheritance from her father Henry Chroscicki, the founder of Technovision, who was close friends with Vittorio Storaro, the cinematographer for The Last Tango.
It was very exciting to find all the period equipment and to use the same models the crews used at the time.

Especially since it’s not just Last Tango in Paris, there are also other shoot sequences in the film with different equipment.

SB : Yes, and it was great to do all that research. The first shoot that appears in the film takes place in the 1960s, with Maria Schneider’s father, Daniel Gélin. It was shot in a studio with a Caméflex 300 and Fresnels. The second is Last Tango in Paris, in 1972. Then there is the shoot of Buñuel’s That Obscure Object of Desire, which includes a scene that goes badly for Maria Schneider, who is eventually replaced by Carole Bouquet, who took over her role. The scene took place on location, and we used frames - unfortunately, modern ones with aluminium frames that had to be concealed. For another shoot, I found photos of a Godard film, Contempt, where you see an incredible setup made out of tinfoil with projector lights aimed at it.

Let’s talk more specifically about recreating the scenes from Last Tango in Paris, and your research to identify the equipment that was used and how to light those scenes.

SB : The first time I rewatched Last Tango, I noticed that in the Schneider-Brando couple’s apartment, all the windows seemed falsely overexposed, probably blocked out, as if there was a light source behind a white cloth. Why block out the windows ? Did they shoot in a studio ? Or in a ground-floor apartment ? We knew for a fact that everything was filmed in apartments.
We had access to the Cinémathèque archives and it was indeed filmed in a flat on the 6th floor. We found it, but it had been completely renovated, so we couldn’t film there. But the head of set design, Valérie Valero, was able to access the apartment’s dimensions and drew up the plan so we could rebuild it in the studio where we filmed these scenes.
I wrote to Storaro, who never replied. It was Renato Berta who told me about the Maxi Brutes and Mini Brutes lights used at that time, in real time, which Storaro had probably placed on a balcony just behind the windows of the apartment.
I used these projectors through the windows, but it was quite difficult as they overheated a lot. Actors aren’t used to this kind of lighting anymore !

Did you respect the axes and framing of the scenes from Last Tango in Paris, especially when filming the one that destroyed Maria Schneider ?

SB : The production was worried about rights issues for all the recreated scenes of the film. We could hint at the film but nothing could be the same. The colours were distributed differently, the colour of the carpet was the same colour as the walls, the gradient on the walls was in the opposite direction… All the costumes were different except for Marlon Brando’s long beige coat, which is somewhat iconic and which Mat Dillon insisted on having.
No frame was identical to those in the film, no dialogue. The scene that caused a scandal, for example, had a completely different focus. We were oriented towards the film crew, allowing us to film the gazes of the technicians who witnessed this scene. Embarrassed, evasive glances that suggest the emotions they probably felt during the filming of this terrible scene.

Besides the recreated filming scenes that punctuate Maria, one of them is particularly touching, and with a different lighting, where Noor (Céleste Brunnquell), Maria Schneider’s companion, persuades her to change her life.

SB : For this scene, we had to break away from everything we’d seen before, because something seemed to be opening up towards, perhaps, better days.
It’s the only night scene, in the middle of the countryside. I thought that what happened earlier in the film was very dark narratively, and that I had to offer some warmth and contrast. How could I maintain the stylisation consistent with the rest of the film ? I didn’t want day-for-night or a night effect that was too classic or desaturated. I was inspired - even if my visuals are not nearly as beautiful ! -by Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s, Tropical Malady. In this film, there are nights in the forest where you can sense that it’s being directly lit by projectors and torches, with blue and orange ; it’s very colourful, very artificial, but very beautiful. I wanted to avoid the moonlight effect ; I wanted the night to be warm and comforting.
The very warm light of the house can be felt in the background and this effect is replicated with a fairly pointed PAR placed far away, echoing this warm light. The foreground ambience softens the image. There were also small Dedolights aimed at the foliage to add a little warmth to the background. I would have liked to work more on the backgrounds, but the film was shot in 25 days, which was very short !
Acknowledgements : Jean-Marie Dreujou and Natasza Chroscicki.

(Interview conducted by Brigitte Barbier for the AFC, and translated from French by Chloé Finch)