when he set out to make Anora Cinematographer Drew Daniels said the goal of working with director Sean Baker was to be as “anti-Hollywood” as possible.
“It’s something that Sean and I both have in our DNA,” said Daniels, who is working with Baker for the first time on the 2021 feature red rocket. “We love independent cinema, we love arthouse cinema, we love European cinema. So the more anti-Hollywood and unpredictable we are, the better.
Baker drew on European film classics such as Federico Fellini Cabria Nights (1957) won the Palme d’Or for its story about sex worker Anora or Ani (played by Mikey Madison) who meets a Russian oligarch (Mark Edelstadt) (Mark Eydelshteyn)’s son had a relationship with him, which had disastrous consequences. But the film was shot entirely on 35mm film, and its visual style draws more from 1970s New York thrillers.
Daniels interviewed hollywood reporter Screening ahead of the Cameraimage Film Festival in Poland, the leading film festival dedicated to the art of cinematography Anora as part of its focus on contemporary world cinema.
This is your second film with Sean Baker. How does his approach compare to other directors?
A few things are very different. What really stood out to me the first time I worked with Sean [on Red Rocket] I had a preconceived idea of what it would be like to work with Sean. I expected him to be very edgy because the films he made seemed loose and a bit chaotic. But actually, Sean had a very specific idea of what he wanted, and he had a very carefully planned approach. He is a perfectionist in many ways, especially in Anora.
He’s very insistent on what’s in the picture – it’s almost a formalist, minimalist approach that I really like. You can see him editing the film himself. The amount of time we spent on set discussing editing is very unusual for a director. He knew exactly what to edit and what the next shot would be. So it’s very formalistic, but sometimes we go crazy.
Is there an example from the shoot that illustrates what you’re saying?
Yes. I think there’s a good example of both. So the court scene [near the end of the film] This is a good example of what I call a very supervisory/chaotic approach. It’s not handheld. We don’t shoot a ton of angles, but we let the actors improvise in the frame and let them do some different things. In contrast, the burglary scene was a very controlled, deliberate execution. This is one shot, the next shot, a wide angle shot. We shot it like a Hong Kong action movie, shooting it in a sequence that would be edited on location.
I know Sean is a walking encyclopedia of movies. Do you talk about certain films as visual reference points? Anora?
We looked at New York movies from the 1970s and it felt right, like two films by Owen Roizman: French connection and Capture of Pelham 1 2 3which has these very unique long shots. There’s a bit of a hand-made quality around the edges of these films, a bit of attitude, which echoes Anne’s character – her fighting spirit. I want photography to have the same quality. For example, in the burglary scene, when we’re moving across the floor, if there are bumps along the way, that’s OK. Sometimes I would focus my hand on the barrel of the gun and make similar physical movements. We used old Russian anamorphic lenses, which added a bit of a hazy, soft quality to the images.
From left: Mark Eidelshtein and Mikey Madison Anora.
Courtesy Neon/Everett Collection
Talk about the opening shot of the movie, when we see Arnie in the club. How did you set it up?
I love that shot. I really do. We discovered that shot immediately. When we scout that location [an actual strip club in Brighton Beach]we were walking down the hallway and we knew this was our opening shot. If we put the camera here and move the car that’s it. There’s barely enough space, like an inch, on either side of the camera. It’s really a special moment. It really draws your interest in Anne and makes you feel like she is the star of the movie. Also fearless. I mean, showing your leading lady naked in the first shot of a movie… we were a little worried about that, but Mikey was okay with it.
We just want to observe her interactions with clients as if we were a little fly on the wall. We set up, roll the entire magazine, and then do it from the other angle, roll the entire magazine. just let [Madison] Get into character, run around and show how the ladies work.
What was the most complex or difficult scene for you to shoot?
The most challenging is the burglary because it’s immediate. The script is 28 to 30 pages, the movie is 28 minutes, and it’s all continuous time. And, you know, it’s a small movie. I don’t have huge resources. I have no power over the sun. So creating a continuous light and a continuous feeling was a real challenge for me. We shot for about 10 days straight and during those 10 days we got every kind of weather imaginable. We had to shoot on a cloudy day. On a rainy day, when the sun shines. It doesn’t look like we lit anything – the idea of the film was to feel very natural and lightless – but trust me, we did a lot.
The choreography must have been a nightmare too.
That scene was very complex and was the only scene we at least attempted to shoot. But we didn’t really do it. We spent a few days making a shot list, but we only got through about three pages. So we decided to abandon that and just figure out the basic blocking, the shape of the scene, how it starts, how it ends, and how they move from one side of the house to the other.
Visually we knew the approach we wanted, we started off very heavy and locked, moving slowly and then it moved in the middle and it went into handheld when they pulled off Annie’s wedding ring and she screamed state. It gets crazy. Then, when she’s tied up and they negotiate with her before leaving, it’s back to a very closed, heavy camera language. We come up with these general ideas beforehand, but most of the details we figure out on the day and work out with the actors.
Edelstein (left) plays the son of a Russian oligarch who falls in love with Madison.
Courtesy Neon/Everett Collection
How specific was Sean in terms of single shots and framing?
Sean usually has his own ideas about certain shots, approaches or feelings, and I’m the photo detective trying to dig them out of him. The more we filmed, the less we spoke because we became so consistent. We just know what the movie is and then it’s easy to blindly go into a scene and shoot it. I know in AnoraI would never do a crane sweep shot and then an over the shoulder matching shot. That’s not how Sean shoots movies. Its reporting is more down-to-earth, deeply human and simple.
Typically, we try to shoot scenes in a way that we never reuse footage. For example, in the bed scene, Arnie asks Ivan what he does and he jokingly says, “I’m an arms dealer.” The shot consists of a wide shot, a close-up of her, a close-up of him, and a Composed of dual lenses. But once you get into those shots, we don’t switch back and forth. We shoot in close-up for about a minute, then cut to two shots, one of which is a minute, and then to another shot. We never interrupt, it’s like ping pong, boom, boom, boom. Sean really liked this approach of always cutting to a new shot, and so did I.
We don’t always stick to it because sometimes you just can’t, especially when there’s a lot of characters in a scene, or a long scene or something, but overall, Sean really enjoyed it Do this. if you look red rocketvery similar. I really tried to dig into that and establish how we blocked, shot, and cut scenes in this way.
I think it’s very anti-Hollywood and it’s something that’s in both Sean’s and my DNA. We like independent films, we like arthouse films, we like European films. So the more anti-Hollywood and unpredictable we can be, the better.
Do you have a favorite scene in the movie?
I don’t know if I have a favorite shot, but I definitely have a favorite scene. Towards the end, Ani was smoking a joint and she handed it to Igor [Yuri Borisov] They were just talking about their names and she called him a gay asshole.
I just love that scene. This is one of the simplest scenes in the movie. It’s so simple and elegant. After the chaos of the movie, it was so nice to be able to sit in that scene alone with them and watch them talk. Their rapport with each other is playful and combative, but also a little flirtatious. There’s a lot going on in the scene, but it’s done simply. Lighting, blocking and camera angles are all very minimal. There were only three or four shots of that scene, maybe five. I felt like that scene was a real step forward for us. It felt like a very mature and confident scene, confident in the writing, confident in the filmmaking, confident in the acting.
