DIFF RECAP: ‘Memento’ and Cinematographer Wally Pfister Q & A

‘Memento’, the film that launched the career of Chris Nolan, turns 10 this year. Dallas International Film Festival held a 10th Anniversary Screening of the film, along with a Q & A with Wally Pfister, who has served as the Director of Photography for all of Nolan’s films since. There was also an exclusive preview of the extended, 3:30 trailer for Chris Nolan’s new film ‘Inception’ which hits theaters this summer.

D.P. Wally Pfister and DIFF Chairman Michael Cain during the 'Memento' Q&A

‘Memento’ has held up incredibly well over the last ten years. Even knowing how the film ends — or begins — didn’t spoil the journey of watching Leonard Shelby (played by Guy Pearce), unable to create new short-term memories because of a head injury sustained while his wife was raped and killed, try to piece together clues of his life, his days, and his revenge.

Recording devices weren’t allowed to be used in the theaters. Here are some of the highlights of the Q & A with Wally Pfister:

• Pfister’s father worked for ABC News, so he grew up around studios and cameras. As a child, he would shoot Super-8 movies. As a cinematographer, he was impressed and inspired visually by the work of Stanley Kubrick, Roger Deakins, Vittorio Storaro, and Gordon Willis.
• Nolan’s second film ‘Memento’ was Pfister’s first major film as D.P. Pfister joked that he got the job after Chris Nolan’s first five choices were unavailable. Before ‘Memento’, he honed his craft on a lot of low-budget films. He photographed the low-budget indie film ‘The Hi-Line’, which created a buzz at the Sundance Film Festival and caught the eye of director Steven Spielberg, who then talked Pfister up around Hollywood.
• One of the things that impressed him initially about Chris Nolan is his knowledge of cameras and composition. He told a story about shooting a hotel scene in ‘Memento’. They were in a studio in Burbank and the set looked pretty bad. Wally asked Chris if they could tear out a wall so he could use a long lens to shoot the scene, narrowing the depth of field and making the set look “pretty”. He said they argued about it for a few minutes when Nolan said that he really wanted the camera to be in the room with him (Guy Pearce). The audience is smart enough to recognize that shooting long would distance them from the scene.
• Ten years later, there is nothing he would shoot differently in ‘Memento’.
• Chris Nolan hates storyboards. While the script is pretty much locked down when he begins shooting, Nolan prefers a visually freeform set with little predetermined blocking. The notable exceptions are for stunts and effects, where visuals need to be coordinated.
• He doesn’t like 3D and thinks it’s a fad. He hasn’t seen Avatar yet, but was told it’s more about the imagery than about original storytelling. He prefers IMAX, saying that the larger film frame provides the best sharpness and clarity and the huge screen size provides the best visual experience.
• There is a lot of pressure in Hollywood to use digital equipment, including RED Digital Cimema Cameras. He prefers to use film, saying that film is more forgiving. He’s able to overexpose a frame several f-stops at the top and underexpose several f-stops at the bottom (referring to light dynamic range) and still get his shot, which he’s unable to do at this time with current digital technology. He feels that in order to deliver the best looking picture, film is the best medium to shoot in.

The audience was also treated to an exclusive preview of ‘Inception’. The new, longer trailer contained a lot of footage not seen in the current trailer, as well as giving us a few more tidbits of plot. We learn that Cobb (played by Leonardo DiCaprio) is the best “Snatcher” — someone capable of “hacking” and stealing a person’s dreams. There are some cool visuals in a Matrix-lite vein, a lot of realistic sequences which suddenly took on very dreamlike qualities, as well as a very impressive dreamscape showing miles of cliffs, composed of city buildings, falling into the ocean.

The new trailer should hit theaters in a few weeks.