James Laxton
All film stills by David Bornfriend, courtesy of A24.
This interview was originally featured in Issue No. 17 — Enigma.
ANDREA BLANCH: Why Moonlight? It has resonated with an incredibly large audience, but what does it mean to you?
JAMES LAXTON: I guess there are two answers to that question. What does it mean to me as someone who can sit back, watch the film, and enjoy the story? Or, what does it mean to me as a cinematographer, someone who has played a role in the creation of the film?
ANDREA: Number 2.
JAMES: I feel like the journey, the process of making Moonlight, was an opportunity for me to find my voice. Finding a project like Moonlight was a gift because it enabled me to really express myself in a way that I felt very personal about. I imagine that’s true because of how personal it was to our director, Barry Jenkins, and the entire cast and crew as well. It was a personal journey for all of us, and Barry, as a director, really pushed everyone involved to take it so personally.
All film stills by David Bornfriend, courtesy of A24.
ANDREA: You talk about authenticity as something that you’re always playing with, can you talk about how that comes through in the film?
JAMES: Authenticity’s a really personal thing; I think maybe that’s why I say that the project was personal. Authenticity means something very different for me than it might to you or someone else. Images that feel real to me might not feel the same to someone else. It’s weird to say real or authentic, because the irony is we didn’t necessarily set out to make a film based in realism. We wanted to create an experience, something that resembled the emotional perspective of Chiron and not a documentary. But at the same time, we wanted to anchor this experience in something that you digest as truth. That was the line we were walkingthroughout the project, visually speaking. Presenting images in light, in camera angles, in lensing that reflected something that was truthful but not necessarily real. Authentic can sort of mean both things, but truthful imagery is something different.
ANDREA: In certain parts of the film there is a dreamlike, surreal aura, which is beautiful and intriguing. Why this stylistic choice?
JAMES: I think you’re describing the times we went deep into Chiron’s personal journey as an emotional character in the film. We hoped to not just depict Chiron in this world, but to place the audience inside Chiron’s emotional arch. That is where we hoped to find that emotional truth, which he’s processing as he’s growing up. That aura is not to depict Chiron doing things or having things happen to him, that’s what we see narratively speaking. You’re narratively walk- ing through Chiron’s life, and you’re seeing what happens to him and what the results are from the experiences that he’s having. But visually speaking, we wanted to identify deeply with the character. The concept was to not just depict those things and photograph him going through that experience, but to visually present what he’s feeling inside. Hopefully then you’re able to feel what Chiron’s feeling, and then digest that in your own life. That’s what I do when I watch the film, and I feel more of what Chiron is going through on an emotional level. In that way, I’m able to truly identify with him as opposed to just watching him. I identify with his struggle and his process because of how we’re depicting and presenting his emotional journey, and less so just the narrative journey.
ANDREA: It’s interesting to hear you say that getting the audience’s imagination working is an important goal of yours. What else in your opinion makes a good cinematographer?
JAMES: A good starting point is communication. I think truthfully eighty percent of what I do is communicate with the actors, with directors, producers, the writer. All of these things revolve around communication. I was given some stage advice by a camera operator once when I was just coming out of college. He sort of said, ‘you’re not hired because you know the equipment better. The guy at the rental house that rents you the camera and the lenses, that person’s always going to know the gear better than you will, it’s the job. You’re hired because of how you collaborate and communicate with the people around you.’ There are a lot of things that go into making a good cinematographer, but I think being able to communicate and collaborate in a way that is conducive to the creative process, that’s paramount. You need to have that.
All film stills by David Bornfriend, courtesy of A24.
ANDREA: I want to go over this question you’ve been asked a thousand times about the film stock and your choices. As a photographer myself, I find that very interesting.
JAMES: Let me just remind us of the idea that these are postproduction film stock LUTS, because we shot the film and then we placed film, LUTS, they’re called, and used different ones on each chapter. I just want to clarify that it wasn’t shot on film, it was shot on the Alexa.
ANDREA: Are they like filters in post?
JAMES: Yes, correct. They’re basically like filters. They’re reverse engine geared, by taking scans of each film stock and then scientifically designing how colors react on different film stock to different light, color, and shadow. They’re actually very sophisticated tools that people have really gotten deep into in terms of reverse engineering: how film stocks react to different things. It’s not just like placing a film grain over something; it’s actually more nuanced than that and much more specific. That’s why we were able to choose specific film stocks for each chapter of Moonlight. For example, the first act being a Fuji stock. Traditionally, Fuji stock has an enhancement of the greens and blues. We chose that because as a child, Chiron is in awe of the natural landscape of Miami. The greens and the blue water, things that as a child your eyes would pop at. That’s what we were thinking about when we made those choices, using a film stock which then changed the hues and the texture of each color choice in accordance to the character’s emotional journey.
ANDREA: Was that the most challenging scene to shoot?
JAMES: The one on the beach was the most technically challenging. I think we put the most thought and choreography into the diner scene to make it function on a visual level. But the beach scene was, on a technical level, definitely the most challenging. Photographically speaking, I think that nighttime beach scenes are one of the hardest things to capture because you’re photographing a place that should never be able to be photographed. It’s a black void. There’s no light on these beaches, there’s no spill from the ambient hotels and things like that. There’s a lot of technical work to get that to a place of exposure that speaks to the emotional tone the scene needs and also a genuine, authentic version of what light looks like when there is no light. It’s a hard thing to navigate as a cinematographer.
All film stills by David Bornfriend, courtesy of A24.
ANDREA: With all the success of Moonlight, I would imagine that you are in demand. Has it changed your career?
JAMES: Yeah, there’s no way to say that it hasn’t. Of course it has, it changed my life. It’s changed how I think about a lot of different things, on a personal level, but in terms of the career, absolutely.
ANDREA: And your career, it’s probably spurred confidence in terms of the choices that you make moving forward, no?
JAMES: Definitely, for me how the audience receives my work has an impact. Some people just do what they do and it doesn’t matter how anybody thinks of them but that’s not who I am. There’s no way around the idea that when someone likes my work it means something to me.
ANDREA: I think there’s something about film that’s magical and it takes that kind of magic away when you have all these people around talking.
JAMES: When we used to shoot film, really no one knew what the end product was going to look like with the excep- tion of the cinematographer and maybe the gaffer. Now, with monitors on set, everyone sort of gathers around them and broadly speaking we’re all watching what the movie looks like then and there. You can talk about that in a way that’s negative, but there’s a power to that, which I think is a good thing. There’s a power to the digital medium in a way that didn’t exist before that is worth recognizing.
All film stills by David Bornfriend, courtesy of A24.
ANDREA: I just have to ask, let’s talk about the Academy Award blunder. I just want to know what you felt.
JAMES: Obviously there were two feelings, one was disappointment and one was elation. I think when you’re shocked in moments like that, they’re really emotionally confusing. In that moment, I think I was just confused to be honest. I don’t know that I really digested it in a way that made me go one way or the other on the emotional spectrum. Later on I started to think about what it meant for me. But in that moment particularly, it was just shocking. The first idea that we didn’t get it and then the idea that we did, both things were equally as shocking.
ANDREA: James, what’s next for you?
JAMES: I don’t have the answer. The only one I know right now is the project that I am currently in preproduction for, which is a television pilot called Here, Now. It’s being created and directed by Alan Ball who created Six Feet Under and also True Blood, and this is a new series that he’s developing. We start shooting in a couple weeks. I’m very excited about that, obviously. After that I really don’t know. The hope is that Barry has some films he wants to make on the horizon. Hopefully I’m lucky enough, and I intend to be there for those films and those projects.
To view the full interview, visit Issue No. 17 — Enigma.
