or actress are on a set doing a big emotional scene, and the first person they look at is the camera operator, after the director s shouted cut , orsomething, and i love that, just, again, you know, which i experienced with, again, as i said, with richard burton and john hurt in 1984 and it was just a wonderful thing to be that person. having watched a lot of your films that completely makes sense because i think it s true to say you love working on films, which focus on human beings, you know. yeah. ..on people and their stories. you have said that you actually worry that far too many films these days are being made, you know, all about the sort of action, the wham bam, the big bang, rather than telling human stories. does that mean you feel out of sync with the 21st century. i do. ..movie business? yeah, ido.
to know each other and funnily, sometimes it s the quietest set i ve ever been on. you know, itjust once you re working on a set, everything becomesjust. i don t know. it s just. i guess because you know each other so well, you know what they want, they know what you like. exactly, yeah. ..and you ve sort of gelled together. yeah, and you read one of their scripts and it s like immediately apparent where they re going. all their scripts are very different. they re very different genres and they play with different themes. but you read that you read their script and straight off, you can visualise it. you know, it s interesting, yeah. let me drill a little bit, if i may, into your own psychology because you ve said actually, you feel that you re quite a shy and introverted person. iam, yeah. ..and yet, you re working in this industry that we all feel is full of glamour and big egos and personality. yeah, it is and it isn t i mean, maybe i ve been lucky. i mean, most of the peopl
i ve worked with in films i ve worked on, it s not really been like that. and, often, where often where an actor has a reputation, when they ve come to actually the set and the director that i ve been working with, they ve acted in a different way. i tell you, one of the first films i did and one of probably my favourite films is 1984, the george orwell, and it wasjohn hurt and richard burton it was richard burton s last film and that was the moment not only i realised i was a cinematographer because i was on a set with richard burton, but i realised that people are just people. he came with such a reputation and he was such a lovely man. we would sit we were shooting down in salisbury plain, one little scene i remember sitting with him and john hurt one lunchtime and just talking, you know, about life and not about liz taylor and stuff,
the creative side that you do from the director s guidance and then it s a whole technical challenge to organise how you actually achieve what you have in your minds eye, i suppose. so to dig into this relationship with the director s vision, tell me a little bit more about the coen brothers, and because you ve made, i think, around a dozen movies with them and movies that many of us have loved over the years, i think it started with barton fink. barton fink, yes. ..and fargo, just a whole raft of great films. how does it work then between them and you? well, the first time on barton fink, we had quite a lot of prep and i sat with them for weeks and in a hotel room, working on storyboards, discussing the script and working on storyboards. but then it gradually, there was less and less discussion because as we got to know each other and funnily, sometimes it s the quietest set i ve ever been on.
often where an actor has a reputation, when they ve come to actually the set and the director that i ve been working with, they ve acted in a different way. i tell you, one of the first films i did and one of probably my favourite films is 1984, the george orwell, and it wasjohn hurt and richard burton it was richard burton s last film and that was the moment not only i realised i was a cinematographer because i was on a set with richard burton, but i realised that people are just people. he came with such a reputation and he was such a lovely man. we would sit we were shooting down in salisbury plain, one little scene i remember sitting with him and john hurt one lunchtime and just talking, you know, about life and not about liz taylor and stuff, not about that, just about life, you know, and the film and he was