Novembre 2002 RICHARD CONTENTS SYLBERT 8

Richard Sylbert Homage RITA RYACK Rita Ryack Focus 14 Alex McDowell The man that designed the future Danilo Donati Pinocchio: birth of an event ALEX MCDOWELL 20

32 DANILO DONATI

PUBLISHER Maria Harman. EDITOR Paolo Felici. CONTRIBUTORS: Robert Leggio. Eric Lichtenfeld. Jan Lindstrom. Gianni Terenzi. GRAPHIC DESIGN Paola Cantarini. PHOTO: Sergio Strizzi. SPECIAL THANKS: Weissman/Delson Communications, North Hollywood - CA - USA For Rita Ryack : Glow Media and Marketing New York NY For Danilo Donati : Eredi Donati. Alessandro Cotone. ©Pinocchio: Melampo Cinematografica Srl. ©Minority Report: TM and 2002 Twentieth Century Fox and Minority Report TRANSLATIONS Stefano Tordiglione. Tasmeen Monie. (Photo Francois Audouy) DISTRIBUTION: Prestige/Periodical Distributors Inc. New York An early concept design ©2002 The Scenographer Magazine (All rights reserved). by Alex McDowell Periodical. Printed in the USA The Scenographer presents a new regular column from the Art Directors Guild, an American association representing art directors and production designers in U.S. cinema and television. Murray Weissman, the Guild’s correspondent, writes on the numerous initiatives of the Art Directors Guild, boasting over 1,000 members throughout the States.

By Murray Weissman (Correspondent for the Art Directors Guild)

he Art Directors Guild, the 36-year- American Cinema Editors request that they share it for gold Hollywood based union of their editing awards that take place the next night. The Production Designers, Art Directors arrivals and reception begin. The music sways. Some of and Assistant Art Directors whose the best wine being served is Italian. Posters of the 10 members are the talented men and nominated films of 2001 are positioned throughout the women who design the look of room. There’s anticipation and electricity in the air. thousands of United States and international theatrical motion pictures And the winner for Outstanding Period/Fantasy film for and television programs, has been 2001 is announced to be Moulin Rouge, that amazing, invited by The Scenographer to write a beautiful fantasy film starring Nicole Kidman that brought column for each of the magazine’s music back to the screen with giant doses of creative editions. The editor’s goal is for us to imagination by design and story telling. The film’s relate to the designer world some of the Australian Production Designer Catherine Martin steps up interesting activities of the Guild and excitedly to accept and thanks her Supervising Art Director its members in Hollywood, New York Ian Gracie as well as Art Directors Ann-Marie Beauchamp, and throughout the United States. This Assistant Art Directors Nikki Di Falco, Jacinta Leong, is the first such column. Prisque Salvi, Sarah Light and Deborah Riley. Following the awards ceremony, Martin joins the Art Directors Guild It’s probably fitting then that we first as an active member. As most of the world knows Martin take you back a few months to Merv is also the wife of Baz Luhrmann, producer-writer-director Griffin’s Beverly Hilton Hotel in of Moulin Rouge. Beverly Hills, the venue for the Art This award is followed at the ceremony by the Directors Guild’s Sixth Annual announcement for Outstanding Production Design of a Excellence in Production Design Contemporary Film. It went to Amelie , the charming, Awards. The room is filled with the rich romantic, French-language film whose delicious designs and famous in black tie and gowns, are nothing short of a love letter to Paris. But the film’s peopled by 650 celebrities, production French Production Designer Aline Bonetto and her Art designers, art directors, industry Director Volker Schäfer are not present to accept. The executives, producers and media. The award is forwarded to them via the film’s distributor stage is so artistically designed that the Miramax. These awards were preceded by HOLLYWOOD announcements of winners in four categories of American television programs. These went to Production DESIGNERS Designer Marcia Hinds and Tom Taylor for their work on the pilot for Six Feet Under; to Production Designer Glenda ESTABLISH CENTER Rovello for her work on Will and Grace; to Production Designer William Creber and Art Director Jim Gloster for their FOR FILM & TV work on The Last Brickmaker in America and to Production Designer Roy Christopher, Art Directors Tamlyn DESIGN AS NON- Wright and Keaton Walker and Assistant Art Directors Jennifer Vogt and Marcus Catherine Martin PROFIT Brandly for their work on The 73rd accepting the award for Moulin Rouge Annual Academy Awards. for Excellence in Production Design for a Period/Fantasy Film In addition, the Guild presented two ORGANIZATION annual honorary awards. Its Cinematic Imagery Award was voted to Filmmaker The big designer news in Hollywood these Frank Oz while a Lifetime Achievement past two months is formation of a for Production Design Award was given new, non-profit Center for Film & TV to Ken Adam, whose work was Design, established by an ad hoc group of highlighted in the first edition of The 75 prominent Hollywood-based motion Scenographer. picture and television designers, illustrators, set designers, costume Peri Gilpin served as host for the designers, library professionals, business evening. The president of the Art executives and other industry creative Directors Guild is Production Designer artists. Jack de Govia. Awards Chairman is Its reach is to embrace all aspects of Production Designer Dahl Delu. motion picture and television design, Celebrity presenters were Dana Delany, including production design, art direction, Timothy Bottoms, Gary Cole, Maria illustration, set design and costume design. Conchita Alonzo and Martha Coolidge Its mission is to provide forums, preserve who is president of the Directors Guild outstanding design achievements, advance of America. understanding of design through The next Annual Art Directors Guild Ken Adam as he accepts his Lifetime publications, activities, exhibitions and Awards are set for Feburary 22, 2003, also Achievement for Production Design special events, support scholarly research, at the Beverly Hilton Hotel in Beverly Award rescue endangered film and television Hills. At that time Production Designer design history and explore new design Albert Brenner will be presented the technologies. Guild’s coveted Lifetime Achievement The Center’s immediate and future Award. Recipient of the next Cinematic ambitions are for maintaining an archive, Imagery Award will be announced in the establishing a library, conducting near future. For ticketing to the next seminars, maintaining a research facility, Awards ceremony contact the Art opening a museum, publishing texts and Directors Guild in the U.S. at 818/762- documents about design, 9995 or via the internet at producing special events and conferences, [email protected]. ■ preserving records and artifacts, establishing and producing an oral history. In addition, it plans on having a program for visiting artists, Jack De Govia: President of the Art Directors Guild, maintaining a museum shop, establishing Ken Adam, Catherine Martin and Frank Oz. Adam for Lifetime Achievement Award, Martin for student internships and cataloging over a Moulin Rouge and Oz for Outstanding Contribution to Cinematic Imagery long term all film design holdings, archives, and collections. Although the Center has Albert Brenner been established with modest initial funding, it numerous others. has ambitious plans to gather regular financial When creative support through donations and special fund- designers and writers raising events. want to review the look Center officers are Production Designer of a particular year Michael Baugh, chairman; Business these early magazines Executive Mary Ann Grasso, secretary- and books are deemed treasurer; and Production Designer Norman invaluable. Newberry, vice president. Other members of Said Center Chairman the Center’s Board of Directors are Baugh: "With the Production Designer Rene Legler, formation of our new Production Designer Harold Center for Film & Michelson, Researcher Lillian Michelson, Television Design our Harold Costume Designer Mary Rose, Production industry finally has an Michelson Designer Tom Walsh, and Set Decorator organization willing Robert Zilliox. Baugh is also the present to dedicate itself to the treasurer of the Art Directors Guild while managing and Newberry is a past president of the Guild. preserving of Rose is currently treasurer of the Motion television research Picture Costume Designers Guild. libraries and design artifacts. We must not An example of one of the more invaluable let these treasures disappear. And we now collections of Hollywood filmmaking need the full support of a caring industry to history that will become a major asset of the help us fund the ambitious goals we have Center is the Lillian Michelson Research for the Center." The Center welcomes Library, which presently contains 7,000 contributions of costume and production books, 100,000 periodicals (some dating design illustrations from Italian and all back to before the Civil War) and l.5 million other European designers.“The Center is clippings, stills and photographs. Over the interested in anything that teaches about years her library has grown through the design or enriches the understanding of addition of many private collections film crafts,” says Baugh. “Italian cinema belonging to retired and deceased has, since its earliest days, stretched the Production Designers. The Michelson boundaries of film as a visual art. Our Library has a bit of a gypsy history. It began collections would never truly represent in 1969 when Lillian Michelson, a veteran these arts without examples from Italian researcher for studios and production cinema and from other European film black-tie ceremonies presented in the companies, purchased the Samuel Goldwyn centers and we encourage that European Beverly Hilton Hotel before an industry Studios Library collection. The library has designers send us work they feel should be audience of more than 1,000. Danny traveled from the American Film archived.” Materials may be sent to the Devito presented the award to Institute where it was housed for 10 years, to temporary headquarters for the Center Michelson. Also, the Art Directors Guild Zoetrope Studios (now called Hollywood located at the Studio City offices of the Art has selected five-time Academy Award Center Studios) to a warehouse of the Los Directors Guild, 11969 Ventura Blvd, Suite nominee Production Designer Albert Angeles Public Library and then onward, in 200, Studio City, Ca., 91604, U.S.A. Brenner (“Beaches,” “2010,” “California 1987 to Paramount Studios and (818/762-9995). Other news from Suite,” “The Turning Point” and “The subsequently to Dreamworks, where it is Hollywood centers around the husband of Sunshine Boys”) to receive its Lifetime presently located and open to working Lillian Michelson, Academy Award Achievement Award at the Art Directors professionals. nominee Production Designer Harold Guild’s 7th Annual Awards ceremony on In her collection of magazines that date back Michelson (“Star Trek”), who on October Feb. 22, also originating from the to the 1920s, 30s and 40s are early editions 7 received the Richard Sylbert Outstanding Beverly Hilton Hotel. Brenner and his of “Life”, “Look”, “Fortune”, “Time”, Achievement Award in Production Design wife Susan live in Pietrasanta, Italy, “Newsweek”, “Ladies Home Journal” and from the Hollywood Film Festival at where he now works as a sculptor. ■ look.” In New York, Elia Kazan recruited

o In March of this Dick, who had already worked with William Cameron Menzies, the man for t year the acclaimed o Richard whom the title “production designer” was American

invented. Kazan hired Sylbert to design

t production Baby Doll . They would collaborate again on A Face in the Crowd and Splendor in

designer Richard e the Grass , for which the plains of Kansas Sylbert Sylbert passed were recreated in Long Island.

e away. During these years, Dick and Paul g Twice Oscar developed techniques for aging sets. “For years, Dick carried around what

g winner, for Who’s looked like a bag of plumber’s tools. a Afraid of Virginia They were aging tools. The phrase for aging a set became Dicking it,” says a Woolf? and Dick Paul. According to Sharmagne, Tracy, throughout “There’s nothing worse than a New m his fifty-year York tenement [set] that doesn’t have a crack in the walls, so Dick would beat m career he left his the walls with a chain. He’d drive a

o Sketches for inimitable visual wedge between the braces behind a wall Under the Cherry Moon and make it bulge a little.”

o mark on master Sylbert demonstrated his commitment projects such as H to realism on Who’s Afraid of Virginia production designer and friend of The Graduate , Woolf? , for which he won his first Sylbert’s, says, “When you think about the H Rosemary’s Baby , Academy Award. apartment in Carnal Knowledge , Sharmagne remembers Sylbert everything is windows and cages; all the Chinatown and stringing dead moths together with a doors are in the corners. It’s such a strange Reds . length of filament or fishing line and space. But somehow, it makes visual using a fan to blow them around an sense. He created plausibility. In a way, he Eric Lichtenfeld music. Sharmagne remembers that to Sylbert, outdoor lightbulb. got away with what you do on the theater Chinatown ’s Evelyn Mulwray was “‘the color Sylbert’s realism was uncluttered. He stage.” roduction Designer Richard Sylbert, of the moon,’ cold and unobtainable” (hence believed in authenticity, but also in “Our craft if not about pointing at a who once told an interviewer “we don’t do the silvers and illumination that attend the simplicity. building and saying ‘That will do,’” cthe same movie twice,” wore the same character), while Reds , for which the designer He would reduce screenplays to one or Sylbert once said. Having built an airstrip production at Paramount Pictures, a post and Prince ( Under the Cherry Moon ). He outfit every day: khaki pants and a safari built 144 sets, was “a perfect piece of 19th two ideas and then trace multiple in Mexico that stretched for over a mile he held for nearly two years. As inaugurated the 1990s with the jacket. “It was his uniform,” says his wife, century music [with] four major movements.” iterations of them through his designs. and accommodated eighteen fully Sharmagne recalls, Sylbert’s first official propulsive primary colors of Dick Tracy , Sharmagne. “When you don’t have to Indeed, the power a composer summons by For Chinatown , it was water; for operational B-25 bombers for Catch-22 , act was to have all the soundstages painted making large use of matte paintings for think about what you’re going to wear in repeating and varying a theme is the same Shampoo , it was vanity. Influenced by Sylbert frequently railed against a more the same color: beige. At Paramount, the first time in a then thirty-five year the morning, you’re free to think about power Sylbert added to each film by tonal painters, he often restricted his modern trend in production design, which Sylbert was frustrated by a backup of career, and for which he won his second other things.” What Sylbert, or “Dick,” as developing and varying its visual style. color palette to allow a single he called “rent-a-palace” movies. With his previously approved titles. In particular, Oscar. he was commonly known, thought about For Sylbert, born in Brooklyn in 1928, abstract contrasting color to jar the audience. In acidic wit, he would quip that for these he was disappointed that he was not able When Sylbert died on March 23, 2002, he was designing motion pictures. The thinking h elped him achieve a powerful realism. Chinatown , which is set against a films, for which settings are not designed, to develop two projects that he had left behind an industry that will be a little movies he designed - a roster that includes With his twin brother Paul, who would also drought, there is no green except in the but rented, the Oscars should not be given purchased for the studio: A River Runs less lively with him gone, and a body of The Manchurian Candidate, Rosemary’s become a production designer, he left art school yards of the powerful. Reds and Catch- to production designers, but to national Through It , and a book Sylbert bought work that even those he inspired are not Baby, Chinatown, Reds, Dick Tracy , My as a painter in 1950. The fifties saw the rise of 22, on the other hand, are “about registers. Says Sharmagne, “Dick doesn’t while it was still in galleys, Anne Rice’s likely to rival. He may have spent nearly Best Friend’s Wedding , and such early Stanislavsky’s school of method acting. While making room for red,” Sylbert said, rent castles; he builds castles. He doesn’t Interview with the Vampire . fifty years pointing the way for his Mike Nichols films as Who’s Afraid of Brando and Dean were introducing audiences to “red for a red flag, and [in Catch ,] red rent countries; he builds countries.” Resuming his career as a production colleagues, but when a great designer, Virginia Woolf? , and The Graduate - all a new realism in acting, the Sylberts were doing for blood.” Sylbert took a hiatus from designing to designer, Sylbert spent the 1980s artist, and fly-fisherman such as Dick reflect Sylbert’s artistic, but also elemental the same for imagery. “It was in the air,” For all of their realism, Sylbert’s designs become a studio executive. In 1975, he working with such disparate talents as Sylbert leaves the world, he takes a little thinking. remembers Paul. “Kazan and naturalism. A are surprisingly - and subtly - was installed as vice president in charge of Francis Ford Coppola ( The Cotton Club ) of its color with him. Sylbert thought in terms of metaphor and contempt for Hollywood and the Doris Day conceptual. John Muto, a former

8 9 Conceptual sketches for Dick Tracy . Charcoal and ink. Courtesy of Richard Sylbert Estate. All rights reserved. Conceptual sketches for Dick Tracy . Charcoal and ink. Courtesy of Richard Sylbert Estate. All rights reserved. Conceptual sketches for Dick Tracy . Charcoal and ink. Courtesy of Richard Sylbert Estate. All rights reserved. Conceptual sketches for Dick Tracy . Charcoal and ink. Courtesy of Richard Sylbert Estate. All rights reserved. A Beautiful Mind is such a compelling film. Was the project as challenging as its subject matter? I really found it a very, very difficult film to do. That really is, I suppose, because of some of the actors. Setting up the period was great fun, actually, as was the research of Princeton and research on the shock treatments. It’s the environment in which I grew up. I grew up in Boston, with an East Coast Ivy League background and family in medicine and the sciences. So I had a pretty good grasp of that. However, I find that some modern actors are not very receptive to period authenticity. I’m not particularly interested in doing archival pieces, but I think there has to be at least a good nod to the period. The film spanned several decades. How did your recollections of those years and your research influence your design choices? The film begins around ‘47 or ‘48. And a great hunk of the picture took place in ‘54, in Princeton and in the mental hospital where the privileged would go in Boston. And MIT. It was during the ‘50s and the Cold War. The Cold War ambiance was one we really wanted to set up in the film. So there was a lot of restriction in the clothing? Yes, we wanted to do it in a very minimal way, to have that kind of coldness. I recall that period pretty well, even though I was very young. Since I associate just about everything with color, I remember that period as feeling very steely gray. Not necessarily fabrics, but the whole color mood. For me, everything becomes a kinesthetic experience. And I do associate colors with sounds and smells and memories. Whether or not a color was actually present, it’s a color to reflect the state of mind of a character. And that was a very steely, gray, colorless time. In the beginning of the film, the young bucks of the math world had a certain arrogance about them. They were mentally sparring, and that comes across in the clothes. Was that intentional on your part? Yes, we did tons of research of real mathematicians during that time. They were a little bit nerdy. Josh Lucas’ character Hansen was supposed to be seen as a rich kid. He was the antagonist at the beginning, but he turns out to be Nash’s friend and sponsor at MIT. There’s a real friendship between those guys. And an undercurrent of homosexuality, according to some of the press reports. A Conversation Well, we did want to get a little homoerotic thing going. And they cast an extremely handsome actor in the role of Hansen. His clothes were supposed to be a little bit “fuck you,” for lack of a better expression. Expensive, classic tailoring, worn in a haphazard way. Very, “But I don’t have to tie my necktie or iron my shirt because I have the security of old money. I can wear with Rita Ryack expensive clothes that are very worn out to show their quality, but I don’t have to take especially good care of them. I can replace them, but these old ones are really serviceable and comfortable and I want to show that they’re old.” And it’s very by Jan Lindstrom much a class sort of thing. These costumes were all made and they were really chosen in opposition to the stuff that Nash and the other guys were wearing. First of all, math students were certainly not the most stylish dressers in the academic community. They were much more occupied with loftier thoughts. And they didn’t have that buttoned-down look that some of the other departments might have. ostume designer Rita Ryack began preparing for her career as soon as she could pick up a pencil. Her parents took Vher to the theatre and ice-skating shows, where the glittering costumes ignited her imagination. She began sketching Did you have the budget to make a lot of the clothes? outfits as a child, dreaming of the day when she would wear a red suit with a peplum and ankle-strap shoes like her mother. Budget-wise, we weren’t in great shape, but it was critical to make the clothes because very, very few actors can wear off-the- When she grasped the language of clothing, its semiotic, storytelling value, she began to think like a costume designer. A rack in ‘40s and ‘50s clothes. Men are just bigger now -- taller, longer. They work out. They have biceps and chests and quads. career in theatre costuming followed. Ryack’s success on Broadway led to an introduction to director Martin Scorsese. Their connection was immediate and long lasting. The 1985 comedy After Hours was their first collaboration, followed How do you work around the new physiques? by Cape Fear in 1991, Casino in 1995 and Bringing Out the Dead in 1999. She made six pictures with actor/director We have to accommodate it. If a guy wears a period suit and he can’t move his arms because the sleeves are too tight, we really Robert De Niro, proving as adept at designing charismatic men on-screen as she was at interpreting their cinematic do have to build suits. The same with the women. They’re all coming in 5’10’’, size 0s. It was a completely different silhouette visions. As skilled at drama as she is at comedy, the films Wag the Dog, How the Grinch Stole Christmas and Rush Hour in the ‘40s and ‘50s. It was more of an hourglass, it was busty, it was corseted, there were hips. It was a much more feminine, 2 showed how her witty wardrobe choices could become punch lines. Ryack barely had time to savor the success of her less androgynous shape. Modern actresses resist it. work on the Oscar-winning film A Beautiful Mind before flying off to Montreal, Canada to begin production on The They think that their waists are somewhere around their hip bones. And they immediately push the skirts down. And Human Stain. Between wardrobe fittings for Anthony Hopkins, Nicole Kidman, Gary Sinise and Ed Harris, The there are, of course, the foundation garments, the waist cinchers and the padded bras. Pointy bras are one area where I Scenographer spoke with her about dressing math geeks and mobsters. tend to cave a little.

14 15 Did the actresses in A Beautiful Mind resist the period silhouette? Wha telse can you tell us about the Nash character? That was something very difficult to push with Miss Connelly. The options were just so much more limited at the time. Girls He was a geek, that’s for sure. We had the actual John Nash occasionally, but we had lots of photographs from the Nash family, wore white blouses, Shetland and/or cashmere sweaters, depending on what they could afford, and wool skirts. Generally plaid from the book, from various publications. in a limited variety. Pleated. A real schoolgirl look. And there were rules. You couldn’t go beyond the rules if you were a nice white girl. Some of the other cultures would have pierced ears, but never, never a nice white girl. That was just not on until How do you make a leading man into a geek without risking losing his appeal? the ‘60s when everything broke through. It was very modest, virginal dressing. Girls wore stockings and flat shoes, pumps, Costume design is part of the writing of the film. Costumes are what you see and what illuminates characters first. It’s your loafers, saddle shoes, dirty Keds. It was not the sexy look for the daytime. You would wear a little wool dress. All of the first visual impression and it shouldn’t be about vanity, it should be about character. glamorous stuff that we see in the movies, that’s cocktail and nightclubs, it’s just not what we see on the streets and certainly not in Princeton. Girls go to the fashion magazines and don’t really realize that what they see is runway stuff. It’s fashion stuff. As the Nash character is overtaken by mental illness, how did you relay that through the costumes? It’s not real stuff. Russell wanted to swim in his clothes and appear smaller and smaller in the clothing, so that’s what we did. He wanted to be shown wasting a little bit after those treatments (in the mental hospital). If I’m not mistaken, one of the side effects of a lot of So their reference point is very different from yours, which is based on research of real people from the time period? the anti-psychotics is a lot of weight gain, but we didn’t really want to deal with that. But you know, I think it worked OK. Yes. Someone will see a picture of a girl with a peasant blouse and a cigarette in her mouth and they say, “Oh, everybody wore peasant blouses with cigarettes,” and it’s just not so. How did schizophrenia play into your designs? I tried to de-emphasize that. The real Nash did wear miss-matched plaids. But if you put that in a movie, it just looks stupid. So you had to expend a great deal of energy convincing people. You can’t really put in some of the wild outfits. He would go into places naked and terrorize people, or shirtless. Maybe not I’d explain that we can bend the period but I think it’s not a good idea for you to be in hip-hugger stretch pants and a tiny little completely naked. He was really out there, an extremist. But any of that kind of stuff really is too much in a dramatic film. It T-shirt. It’s really, really not accurate at all. We have to tell the story. would have made him less likable. Less sympathetic and more cartoonish. Russell wanted to keep the attention on the acting. You certainly couldn’t have the clothes call attention to themselves. How can an actor get into character for a time period wearing contemporary clothes? Well, I feel that way, but their reference is so contemporary. And they always want to do something different. They’ll say, "Oh, Tell us about that beautiful black evening dress Jennifer Connelly wore when she and the Nash character had their first I’m bohemian." If you look at news photographs of bohemians in Greenwich Village, the girls are wearing wool skirts, white formal date? shirts with the sleeves rolled up, and if they’re very daring, jeans and men’s white shirts,loafers and soaks, and a little later in She looked so beautiful in that. It was a vintage dress. No label. the ‘50s came the black tights and ballet flats and black turtlenecks. Even then, it was always a uniform. Just one of those dresses. It was kind of a Madame X dress (from the John Singer Sargent painting), and I love Sargent anyway. That painting is such a dominant image from my childhood. And that dress just presented itself to me from a vintage collection. Do you mostly reference newspapers for your research? And it was startling black, but the minute she turned around it had the swath of red and pink, which made it no longer just a Yes, and catalogues of the period, because I think that shows you the baseline of the period, what existed. If it’s not in a plain black evening gown, but something very exciting and individual. If you could have seen more of the other women in the catalogue, it probably didn’t exist in the mainstream. We go to stores on every level, from Brooks Brothers to Sears , and of room, they were kind of old money women in sort of dumpy dresses. Their bra straps show and their dresses don’t fit and course I always go to the photojournalists, magazines and books. I used a lot of yearbooks. I went to the schools and looked they’re a mess. But she really looked stunning and artistic. That dress was a bit in your face. And those wonderful points in at their yearbooks to really get a good picture of the students. All the Ivy League yearbooks, high school yearbooks, New York the front, those angles. If you really want to get intellectual and analytical about the subtext, I thought there was something University yearbooks, and whatever photographic research is available. There are some great research facilities at the studios significant about those points. She’s got those points, they’re strong, and the dress is black and red. When something’s right, in Los Angeles. The picture collection in New York, and then there are the actual clothes, which I really like to have around, you know it intuitively. and prototypes. There’s so much reference material available. Let’s go back a bit and talk about your earlier films. You’ve worked with Martin Scorsese on several projects, So it’s just a matter of narrowing it down? beginning with After Hours . What were some memorable moments working on that film? It’s finding an archetypal silhouette. We did that movie on a piece of a shoestring. There was just no money, it was like doing off-Broadway theatre. It looks like you pulled together a lot of great vintage pieces for that film. Yes, New York was really rich in vintage resources Ed Harris’ CIA agent was so archetypal. then, and they’re not there anymore. But we made things. Teri Garr’s little yellow dress was made for her. The plastic raincoat Well, Ron (Howard) just said G-man, and we know what the G-man looked like. Black suit, goofy black hat, almost a cartoon was made for her. We used a lot of yellow and black. There were taxi colors throughout the film, because that taxi takes him silhouette. This was the later ‘50s into the ‘60s. Everything had narrowed into the Ivy League, the Kennedy silhouette. Thin into hell. And he just wanted to get laid! It’s the ultimate paranoia of the way New York was at the time. And being new in ties. Things had really changed from the big draped suits and wide ties to the very slim. New York myself at that time, I had a lot of those experiences making that film. I had a cab experience. Right at the end of That was all Kennedy inspired, starting a little earlier than that with the Rat Pack and all. But this was all a Kennedy prep, we had to choose a suit that we could get in multiples and yet could afford for Griffin Dunne. We just wanted him to be generation. the straightest character in the world in a khaki suit and a Brooks Brothers shirt. So I narrowed it down to two suits, and I was taking them to Marty’s loft in Tribeca. I had to be there by 6:00. I got into a cab and something happened. When we stopped And Ed Harris’ character stayed the same throughout the film. at the head of a line of cars to go out into traffic, a truck driver came up to the window of the cab and started abusing the cab Yes, because he wasn’t a real character. And we wanted the imaginary characters to be very much the stereotype that the Nash driver, who then, leaving the cab in drive, got out, and the two of them start fighting in the middle of the street. The cab starts character would have had in mind, because he wanted to be a G-man. It was a little fantasy of his. rolling into traffic, and I’m in the back thinking, "Oh my god, the suits!" Luckily there was no plastic panel in the cab and I jump over the seat and slam on the brakes. And then I sit there with my foot on the brake thinking, "I guess I could have been So he created these characters because he couldn’t be them in real life? killed." But I was much more concerned about the suits and Marty. It’s my first job with Marty and he’s going to fire me for Yes. They were a very good outlet for his terrible psychosis and paranoia. being late. The cab driver gets in and says, "You’re such a brave lady, thank you for saving my cab." I felt sorry for him because he was playing classical music. Not only did I pay the fare, but I tipped him! And by the time I got up to Marty’s I was kind Give them cardboard and glitter and macaroni and put them to work. And the stuff came back a little bit over the top. I have of giddy. But when I explained to him why I was so late, we kind of bonded. During that film, I would get stuck in elevators. to say, they love that glitter. But we did dress the kids at the Whobilation out of the stuff the kids had made. I wanted the whole It was just one thing after another, but it was very funny in context. picture to look a little bit like a school play. And of course it was about Jim Carrey as The Grinch . I thoroughly enjoyed his cave. And I liked his clothes. His Hugh Hefner bathrobe. With all his feelings of inadequacy, he was a little vain. He had a Is Martin Scorsese a good director to collaborate with? little playboy thing going on. There was a dressing montage at one point. I think all that remained of that was the tablecloth Yes, he’s very interested in clothing and characters. And he is visionary and visual. He’s one of the world’s greats by far. His kilt. We had constructed some wild stuff. attention to detail is just impeccable. He’s very inspirational. Will there be a Grinch II ? What is your favorite film, in terms of your work? There’s going to be a Cat in the Hat. I’ll be working on that. Casino. You made some very stylish clothing for that film, especially for Sharon Stone. I loved working with her. She has a great personal style and she has just the best instincts about the character and how the clothes would affect her portrayal of the Do you enjoy working humorous elements into your costumes? character and work on her body. And she was very excited about making them increasingly ill-fitting as she disintegrated. I It’s one of my favorite things to do. It’s pretty hard for me to hold back. I can’t help it. I was an animator. I am a cartoonist. always thought there was something so fractured and funny about her dying in those Pucci pajamas, which recalled her glory, And when I can editorialize, that’s when I’m happiest. I’m much less interested in fashion, except for its semiotic value and but there was something so demented about the print. The whole idea of her being wasted in that formerly glorious costume. how it defines the wearer. It’s never just a tie and it’s never just a T-shirt and jeans, whether the wearers are aware of it or not. It’s one of the things she still had, her Pucci pajamas, in this seedy hallway. Sharon and I shared a sense of what was appropriate and what was ironic. I thought we got to do some very witty stuff. You used a great deal of humor in Wag the Dog . That film was one of those great gifts, because I had Robert DeNiro, who was certainly dressed differently from any film he And the men’s costumes were incredible as well. What time period was that? did before. We just had a ball putting him in the red sweater, the turtleneck and those Brooks Brothers jeans. My god, they just It was set over 10 years, starting in the ‘60s. For Bob’s clothes, he starts off in Chicago where things are much more say it. And the famous hat. A duffel coat. There’s great joy. I really like things to be a celebration. But with Bob, he is so open conservative and conventional, then gets more and more audacious as he gains power in Vegas. The colors get more frenzied to everything. Doing him as a Washington spin doctor was really fun. He’s such a transforming actor. The greatest thing is to and bold and “in your face”. Boy, that was a fun wardrobe to do. Everything for him was built, including the shoes. have an actor who really appreciates the details. And to have wonderful dialogue with an actor. I really enjoy doing the same things that he would do to develop a character. Thinking like him and doing the same types of research. He likes to have a And isn’t that the film where you invented the monochromatic shirt and tie? prototype. I really did. I can assure you there was nothing in monochromatic woven ties at the time. Boy did that take hold. Everybody stole it. We made every shirt and tie together. And the ring and the watch. Everything was so important. And there’s no actor Give an example of what that means. other than Bob DeNiro who could have pulled off that wardrobe and still appear dangerous, with authority. Many other actors Well, if he’s doing a bus driver, get a bus driver from that time. When he’s doing a mobster, let’s just have a mobster there. On would have just been buffoons in those clothes, but with Bob it was just great. We actually had gotten ties from the real guy A Bronx Tale, we’d have a technical adviser at our fittings to say, “No that’s not the necktie knot, yes that’s the necktie knot. who was the prototype for that character, who had a pretty outrageous wardrobe himself. We went to him, we looked through I just had the most amazing group of characters around. Real wise guys who had done hard time. The same on Casino. I had his closet and looked at his family photographs. He lent me quite a few of his ties, those watercolor, atrocious, dark ties, but to fit a great number of them. Every extra on that film was a real street guy. It was quite an experience. Some of the things I when Bob put them on, he looked like he was working on Wall Street. heard on those sets! We had a big scene in a boxing ring and my friend “Beansie” would sit in as the extras came out, basically so he could look at the girls. And he’d say, “Oh, we wouldn’t have brought her, because there would have been a fight over What about the other actors in that film? You had some real talent. her.” He just had something to say about every dress. And if Beansie says it’s right, that is the ultimate confirmation. One day Jimmy Woods is another one I had a ball doing. He really loved wearing those clothes. Bob and James Woods and Don Rickles, he says, “We should have a fur.” I say, “OK, I have a white fox.” He says, “A white fox! We’re getting a white fox!” And when these guys were just a pleasure, and Alan King. Every time one of them would appear in a new costume, everybody would just the fur arrives, he grabs the white fox out of my hands and says, “I know how to drape this.” Because they’ve bought a million flip. It was the most fun ever. They all worked their clothes very well. It was a major part of the writing, I think. of them. Let’s talk about some other films. What about comedy? Rush Hour 2 and The Grinch ? What is the most enjoyable part of your job? I really liked the way Rush Hour 2 looked. There’s Chris Tucker’s very special faux croc suit. A three-piece suit. It’s just awful. The social research is really the greatest fun. Storytelling and writing with clothes. And when the set designer and the costume That’s a pretty iconic costume. And Zhang Ziyi from Crouching Tiger, she’s the leader of the Chinese gang. We wanted her to designer and the lighting designer work together, so that every frame becomes a beautiful composition with the right touches look like one of the guys, so she’s wearing pantsuits, but they’re very high style. She looks very good. And those guys in China of color. When it’s successful, you get a Casino. just head right for Versace. They love it. The Versace shiny suits and Dolce and Gabbana. So it’s very fun to put them in that stuff. The other actress wears quite a bit of Gucci actually, and it really fits. You just know what it’s all about -- label awareness. And what misconceptions do people have about your work? She looks great, but it’s also pretty funny. We used quite a bit of Dolce and Gucci and Versace. That was fun. On contemporary films, people say you’re just shopping. But every choice you make is design. Sometimes even the choice to do nothing is design. Everything is a choice and should be significant. If somebody’s not wearing a belt, well, that’s And The Grinch? deliberate. All the stuff that looks the least designed has tremendous consideration. But unless you’re doing a really The Grinch was enormous fun. We did all kinds of crazy stuff on The Grinch . I enlisted a second-grade class to make costumes. stylized movie like Casino, you don’t want the clothes to wear the actor. You might be working with just jeans and T- Part of my feelings about the Whos in Whoville was that they were very much into handicrafts. They spent all year preparing shirts, but it really has to be the right thing. I really believe you have to try on 50 before you find one. It has to be stretched for their big Christmas festival. out properly. It has to hang right. It’s never, “Oh just put him in a T-shirt.” We stone-wash them and over-dye them and stretch them and over-dye them again. The aging is a very major part of working in costume. They’re put through all kinds I wanted it to be very childlike, so I thought, why not use real children? of treatments before they get to the screen. THE MAN THAT Photo:James Clyne DESIGNED THE

Vehicles that move vertically, zipping and darting through the chaotic city traffic, billboards that greet us by name, advising us strongly in his work (his designs for the visions and drug-induced transformations of the hallucinogenic Fear what to buy, “ophthalmic” microchips that strip us of our privacy and which track our every move, optical gloves for scanning and Loathing in Las Vegas are unforgettable); possibly because he was born in Borneo (his father was an wicked thoughts. The near future? Yes and no. We are in Washington in the year 2054, created by Alex McDowell, production engineer for Shell Oil) and has lived in close contact with oriental cultures linked to Karma and Nirvana. These designer on Minority Report, the science fiction blockbuster directed by Steven Spielberg. Thanks to him the amazing (and at are probably just mere suppositions even though he so skilfully reperesented the virile and the fistfighter times alarming) technological innovations dreamed up by Philip K. Dick (author of Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, aspects of the unconscious in Fight Club and the nineteenth-century interiors of The Affair of the Necklace. But the book behind Blade Runner) have sprung to life, transporting us into a future which is by no means impossible, including in each case his set designs were, in a manner of speaking, for a “possible” world. With Minority Report, the “Temple” (the pool, brain and prison in which the Pre-cogs float, able to “see” crimes before they are committed). Seeing however, he has been able to give full vent to his artistic impulse, so much so that the settings in which Tom is believing. It is the first time in which Alex McDowell has worked on a “real world” science fiction production and with Cruise is on the run and in search of the truth appear convincingly real. The future does not however seem to Steven Spielberg. For previous features he imagined a dark, shadowy city for both episodes of The Crow and prior to that the be the finishing point, not least because he is currently finalizing the sets (stretching over several lots) for The cybernetic “present day” of The Lawnmower Man (which infuriated Stephen King for having totally re-arranged the storyline). Cat in the Hat, based on the famous children’s book by Dr. Seuss, creator of the dastardly Grinch. The future But if it hadn’t been for those sets “coloured by the unconscious”, McDowell’s creative talent would have remained immersed (that of McDowell) so recently completed is still paramount in his thoughts, and it is precisely on that subject in the then liberating (yet not particularly remunerative) world of music videos. Music and the unconscious realm figure which he prefers to talk. Let’s hear what he has to say.

20 21 by Roberto Leggio

ne could easily imagine the future depicted in Minority Report as one that could come about in the not too bdistant future, without too many drastic changes taking place. It almost seems that the “signage” of our present time (advertising, cars, clothing) are in some way modified to fit the period in which the film is set. From where did you draw inspiration for the future that awaits us? From my first meeting with Steven Spielberg, it was clear that he wanted the setting of Minority Report to allow the audience of today to relate as intuitively as possible to the future world of 2054. He wanted us to create a world that resembled a Washington DC today but moved forward with a historic and architectural logic, that appeared to be flourishing economically, that was ecologically responsible, clean and healthy - on the surface more utopian than distopian. The storytelling also required that our design of the city portrayed a consumer and technology driven society much like today, only more integrated, efficient and pervasive. The audience had to feel a familiarity with the society portrayed in the film so that the social implications of the story implicate the audience as much as the film’s characters. We wanted to create a future reality, rather than a science fiction film. People today live in buildings 100 or 200 years old, why wouldn’t they in fifty years. The objects we surround ourselves with that are the most current are technological - our cell phones, cars and refrigerators, and media. It was the mix of historical, contemporary and future elements that would most effectively draw the audience into the world of Minority Report . In order to achieve this level of reality, we first researched contemporary architecture and consumer products and how they have changed, and how social and media

Photo: Mark Goerner

trends have developed in the past few years. Then we applied that research to concept art that we presented to a group of scientists, sociologists, architects and other futurists who were asked to envision the future within the constraints of the story and our visual context. Finally we brought into the art department a full time science advisor who helped to develop the scientific and technological details. It was apparent from our research that in fifty years many technological advances would have pushed so far forward as to be unrecognizable, and Spielberg would pull those images back to a not so distant future in order to keep the present day audience engaged. For some of the audience the film’s portrayal of this consumer society would be a utopian extension of today’s attraction to all things technological, for others it represents a nightmarish development of the most invasive trends of today. The political setting of the film revolves around civil liberty, and to what degree we are prepared to let go of personal freedom in order to feel safe. Spielberg wanted to achieve a similar division in the audience between those who were attracted to this future without murder or serious crime and those who were instantly repelled by the idea of a police force that could arrest people before they could commit a crime. Among the most striking things to hit the imagination are the vertical roads on which the cars of the future race in a kind of orderly high-speed dodgem. How much truth could there lie in these sequences? In your opinion, will the problem of alternative sources of energy be resolved fifty years from now? Once we had conceived of a vertical city around historic Washington DC, that had developed high in the air into horizontally connected malls, we needed to come up with a 3-dimensional transportation system to service these mall cities. The idea of both the Maglev system and the vehicles it carries stemmed from the logical combination of several trends. Present day building heights are restricted by the number of elevators that are needed to service the number of floors (beyond a certain height, the building would contain nothing but elevator shafts) - new designs envision elevators that can travel horizontally as well as vertically. The idea of a personal taxi that would pick you up on command and take you automatically where you want to go in a computer controlled transportation system - there are varying studies of this idea for freeway systems. The old science of magnetically elevated vehicles that could travel economically and efficiently on a cushion of air - currently feasible but generally too expensive. We imagined this technology not only propelling the vehicles but also attaching them to the vertical roadway surfaces. As part of the ecologically advanced future, we looked at the current trends toward electric and hydrogen fuel cell- propelled vehicles, which seem very likely to be in place within the next fifty years. We also loved the idea that your vehicle would become an extension of your living space - when not traveling it becomes through deep research and the collaboration of my design team. The design and look of the film ultimately come from a couch and entertainment center in your living room. However, our Maglev system, along with the science of the Pre- the direction we steer the details within the set parameters of the story’s frame. Although my own views will permeate cogs themselves, are probably the most sci-fi ideas in the film, unlikely to happen by 2050. any film I design they are first sublimated to the needs of the script. Contrary to Blade Runner , in which the setting was decidedly gloomy, rainy and one of decay, the atmosphere of An early twentieth-century Italian architect (Santelia) designed and exhibited projects for a future city Minority Report is rather luminous, under a milky-coloured sky. How come there is so much difference given that constructed on different levels, though none of these projects were ever built. How far are we still from this the damaging effects of pollution in our cities (leaden skies, high humidity, smog) are already plainly visible? possibility and what merits and defects could we face in consequence? It was refreshing as a designer to be asked for once not to portray a ‘ Blade Runne r’ future, and to have a chance instead I am very interested in the Futurist vision of cities comprising different levels. For Minority Report we imagined the to look at science and technology in the most realistic way as a source for the film’s design. By setting a large portion of future city of Washington DC to be truly three-dimensional, divided into stratified levels that represented social as well the film in a clean environment, but then following the Tom Cruise character into the depths the film allowed me to as architectural hierarchies. First we looked at contemporary Washington DC, which is zoned to maintain its historical explore an enormous range of textures as well as a stratified color palette. Narratively, we also chose to take a more ‘skin’ (even when buildings are pulled down, the new development has to be attached to the historic façade) and where optimistic route because it supports the story. The utopian overlay included an environmentally conscious society. no building can be built taller than the Capitol building. It appeared this would not change, and would most likely be the How much has Spielberg influenced your vision of the future? part of the city where the politically powerful and the old money would choose to reside. Here residents would have the My vision of the future in MR was driven by both Spielberg’s vision and that of the script, which is then interpreted money to afford not to be advertised to. We researched several architectural trends both in increasingly tall buildings, and Cont. on page 30

Illustration: Rick Buoen Photo: David James Left, illustration: Derek Gogol Photo: David James Illustration:James Clyne Cont. from Page 25 in horizontal connections between buildings in the upper levels. With the PreCrime experiment based in DC, it seemed advances in architectural and product design using purely traditional set design tools. The way that I am currently using reasonable to imagine that people would flock to the newly safe city and rapid development would occur outside the set designers relies on the integration of those with traditional pencil/analogue skills and designers using 2D and 3D zoning restrictions of the old city. The new Mall city would be the focus for the most consumer-based portion of society architectural, animation and modeling tools. Film puts such varied demands on the design process - there may be no and the new rich and would become an architectural network of nodes of housing, consumer space, entertainment and reason to use 3D tools for a period film, or a film with minimal effects - and there will certainly continue be a place for workspace. The Maglev system and the corporate fabric would be primarily woven into this layer of the city. We imagined the traditional set designers, particularly those who know enough of the language of 3D to interact with it. Mall City development rising over the existing architecture to leave behind (literally) an inner city that would contain low cost housing and the more makeshift technology - the ideal place to hide from police and consumer tracking devices. A thorny question. Do you think it is still possible to make a film from a traditional “hands-on” approach, without an excessive use of special effects? From the architectural viewpoint, what would you consider your ideal city? I think many films will continue to be made with little or no special effects - a good story, a good director and a good In many ways Los Angeles is my ideal city. It has a reputation as an architectural disaster with no apparent center and cast are the reasons most of us entered this field, and are the elements that will continue to satisfy the audience. Design with a different style every direction you turn. It’s a hybrid city made up of a hundred towns of different ethnicity strung will continue to be the best job in film with or without the presence of special or visual effects. together, but it seems to be more vibrant and to hold more possibility because of it. The films that are effects laden become so complex for a designer that often too much energy is spent dealing with the In contrast, the European cities that I grew up in seem stultifying and creatively repressive. In LA, anything is possible complexities and not enough on pure design to support the emotional content of the film. and the future is always around the next corner. In an effects heavy film, the only way to counter that is to become increasingly familiar with the effects language, surround oneself with a design team that is networked and sophisticated and leave the largest portion of your time free It is becoming ever more common to use digital images for set design. Apart from generally being considered as for design, without losing control over the design of the film as a whole. Ideally we as production designers can help to far more cost effective, do you think that, due to the advances in such technology, there is a real danger of steer all the films we work on back to the quality of craft and emotional framework by concentrating on supporting the production designers soon finding themselves out of work? Digital technology applied to set design allows a look of the entire film and preventing the post-production and effects design becoming separated from the overall look greater freedom in the manipulation and morphing of images. What can we expect from the art of production of the film. design in the near future? There is no danger of production designers finding themselves out of work. It has always been our job as designers to Could you tell us something about the Cat in the Hat project that you are currently working on? stay on the cutting edge of tools and technology and to make best use of those tools. In the end every technical advance When I have a choice of a new film I try to choose a genre or director that gives me an opportunity not to repeat myself just puts more varied and efficient tools at our disposal, and tools is all they are. Pure design is a cerebral thing, and as a designer. The Cat in the Hat was doubly enticing - a children’s film from a classic source, and an opportunity to work designers will become only more valuable provided they remain open to and embrace change. with one of the great production designers, Bo Welch, on his first directing gig. For Minority Report we set up really the first fully integrated digital art department. It’s clear that a director can give you For those who know Dr. Seuss, his stories are very succinct with a distinct style of writing and illustration that has brought the most useful feedback when presented with the most fully realized images, and by combining digital location images up children in the US for the past 50 years. The challenge has been to capture the essence of the book without copying with photoshop artwork, or laying fully rendered and lit digital art over 3D images of sets we could show Spielberg very the illustrations directly, and to create a child-centric world with a very bold palette and style. The narrative takes place accurately the environments he would be filming, long before they were built. As well as conventional white models, we in one day and within a very distinctive geography. In order to separate the Cat from his surrounding and maintain a use previz extensively in the art department to first allow the director to explore the set (built in to previz from the 3D graphic simplicity, we’ve eliminated from the palette red, white and black (except in the Cat’s colors). To avoid children’s set designs), second to populate it as a 3D storyboard with the director’s decisions overlaid, third as a planning tool with film clichés, we’ve also eliminated primary and pastel colors. analysis of the specific lenses and camera movement, finally as part of the data that goes to motion control and to the The architecture and set dressing is based on children’s drawings made architectural. We’ve built a suburban animation and post houses. We used rapid prototyping techniques to grow prototypes of sets, props, vehicles, etc to give neighborhood of 22 houses in an irrigated pastureland and 2 blocks of a small town with giant sculptural icons for signs. director and crew a completely accurate model of parts not yet built. The same data was then used to build the full size Most of the film takes place inside a house with an interior twice larger than its exterior that transforms into a huge cars that were cast from CNC-cut molds, and also for the virtual Maglev cars built in 3D by ILM for their animation of organic version of its original architecture at the end of the film. We’ve been using a developed version of the digital art the Maglev sequence. Props were not only cast from digitally cut molds, but rapid prototyping could also be used to create department to design the film - traditional set designers passing on to networked 3D designers, animation experienced one-off props overnight. In order for the digital art department to function it had to be networked so that designers could concept artists working from the 3D, internal previz of all major sets and VFX sequences, the design palette networked pass on and access large digital files and share in a common library of images that grew exponentially as the film’s design from art to set dressing and props, construction, paint and sculptors, cinematography (Emmanuel Lubezki, amazing) progressed. Digital photography of locations, research, storyboards were archived to the networked library which as well costume (Rita Ryack, a joy to work with), VFX, editorial, and now to Universal/ Dreamworks/ Imagine marketing and as being a constant resource during production became the basis of material for the DVD and marketing of the film. interactive gaming divisions. It’s a good script with a great crew and very enjoyable. How important are digital effects for traditional set design? With which filmmaker would you particularly like to work? Digital technology is allowing designers to design sets that could not have been built a few years ago. For example, In Any director with intelligence and taste who pushes themselves and their crew to make work that surpasses their best. Minority Report the Precog chamber was designed entirely in a 3D animation platform called Maya. The 3D files were I’ve been extraordinarily lucky to work with the directors that I have. then sent directly to a company specializing in cutting foam with computer controlled CNC drill heads. These completed panels were hard coated and attached to a framework also cut from the same digital data, and the whole was assembled If you had had the opportunity, for which past film would you have liked to design the sets, and for what reason? like a kit of parts on set. The final set was a complex interlocking of wave patterns on a compound surface that Of the films in the past that have most influenced me - Andrei Rublev , My Name is Ivan , Stalker , The Conversation , The represented a kind of echo chamber for the minds of the Pre-cogs, and could not have been conceived, designed or Conformist , ... - they are so close to perfect as to be completely inspiring, and I would have no desire to change anything. executed without digital tools. We have reached a point in film design where we can no longer emulate the real world The films I aspire to design have not yet been made.

30 31 ONCE UPON A TIME THERE WAS A PIECE OF

WOOD ... birth of an event: from PtheI NskeOtchC tCo tHheI sOet

“I believed him to be immortal... I always saw him as a kind of demigod, perched on his seat ordering colours, dimensions, perspectives and splendours. A marvellous, extraordinary man. I really loved that guy. He dedicated his life to the service of Beauty!” Ciao Danilo. Roberto Benigni Photo: Sergio Strizzi Set design: Danilo Donati Francesco, what was it like working with Donati? He governed and managed rather like a fifteenth-century maestro, by supervising and instructing. I remember him telling me that “...the film is a purely scientific affair..” and I have to admit that at frst it was pretty difficult to understand precisely what that meant; then I gradually learned that designing the sets, choosing the right colours, designing the costumes and selecting the colour tones allows you to establish with precision the final result, even before shooting begins. This was a characteristic that distinguished Donati, being a combined production designer and costume designer. His sets had an impact because they were the offspring of an elegant, well-balanced sense of style coupled with historical research while his costumes, through a mix of fabrics and colours, seemed drawn from a book of fables. During the shoot it all came together, each element integrated perfectly without dominating the scene and was perfectly balanced with its counterpart, almost as if it had come from a painting or rather, as if it represented a painting. It is for these reasons that it is right to declare that throughout his entire life and on every project the Maestro did none other than...paint Italian cinema! Peter Brook once said ...”Every performance finds its own space and needs its own place...” Is that how it was with Pinocchio , shot in the film studios at Papigno, in the province of Terni? “...It is only here that my Pinocchio can be made...”, these were the words I recall Danilo Donati saying while scouting the location at Papigno, though he was already aware of its potentiality having previously there designed the sets for the extermination camp for the film La vita è bella (Life is Beautiful). This, perhaps, will be one of the many secrets which will accompany the film: the fact of having built a structure capable of satisfying the production’s every requirement, but chiefly because it was given over exclusively to the Benigni project. How was the “Village” in Pinocchio created? The principle idea was that of constructing a village which did not exist, a totally imagined townscape, one which would not be recognised by the public. A village that would represent every Italian town and its architecture prior to 1870. Each building constructed has four architecturally different façades, so as to be able to create infinite solutions. All we needed to do was shift the order of the buildings to create a new sequence of façades. By rotating and re-arranging the various elements we created new alleyways, main streets and piazzas, different settings. In the film appear four situations linked to their corresponding sites; from the piazza setting with the entrance into the village in perspective with the lateral tower and the baptistery, for the opening scene with the arrival of the horse and cart and for the mass scenes and those Francesco Cotone and Danilo Donati on the set of Pinocchio of the marketplace; to the longitudinal placement for the escape towards the arch and the descent, for the scenes in which Pinocchio takes off on a discovery of the town; to the arrangement of streets leading off from the church and the school; finally, for the little town by the sea, with a completely different style of architecture and with the camera framing a marine background. by Gianni Terenzi Photo Sergio Strizzi And the other settings of the film? The exterior of the Fairy’s house represents the most magical and mystical setting of the entire production... It’s a reference to Nordic fairy tales in which, as in all fables, the fairy had to live in a castle deep in the woods in order rancesco Cotone, a young architect-set designer, accompanies us through the birth of an event: Pinocchio to increase the sense of mystery. Ydirected by Roberto Benigni. A journey that begins with the transformation of a disused industrial complex into This demonstrates how often the iconography represents an integral part of the characterization of the various characters, a centre for film production and ends with a selection of the various key locations of the film; an account based though the elements can be transformed or re-shaped. on the personal experience of those who, like Francesco, have had the opportunity to work on the making of In Donati’s “theatrical” set design the house is represented on a smaller scale in contrast to the enormous, very much richer interiors as it serves to amplify the magical concept linked to the figure of the Fairy. There was a very careful this film-event, one which will remain in the annals of cinema history, in honour of a grand maestro...a great choice of location as we needed to find a wood that was suitable both for the set design then for the production itself. artisan of the motion picture industry...a master of that most authentic tradition of Italian figurative art...that of The choice fell on Manziana Wood (close to Rome) where the vegetation gave an image similar to that thought up by the crafting of materials applied to the cinema... Danilo Donati. Donati and because it also corresponded in some way to very precise morphological characteristics such as the orography of the terrain and the vegetation, especially the trees. As the film developed the wood represents the first real exterior, though the initial idea was to reconstruct the environment in the studio; here we needed to create a different, more realistic atmosphere. The marked disproportion in create something which surprised, dimensions between interior and which belonged to the world of exterior, was that a planned choice? dreams; it’s the Fairy’s means of Yes, as long as it amplified that transport so it had to be unique, it had particular element of surprise, of to look magic. Each element, from the greatness...of magic. The interiors of structure to the decorations was the Fairy’s house were constructed in designed and then made (from solid the studios. The basic choice was that wood) with considerable care right of creating a fantastic, inexistent down to the tiniest detail. environment which, above all It had to represent the Light! Hence represented the idea of Donati. the colours and the hundreds of tiny For these reasons the inspiration mirrors that decorate its surface. The behind the choice of stylistic and fish, for example, are detachable architectural elements leaned towards sculptures used to transform the the Neogothic. We studied the base carriage for the scene in which the elements and, once assimilated, we Fairy rescues Pinocchio (the ass) from re-proposed them in an original, the bottom of the sea. So, it was a personalised way. painstaking exercise as regards A simple layout, yet enriched by establishing the period, with the furnishings which had been studied in difference in that the final result is one every detail for their proportions and of perfect harmony and not simply of decorations, made by skilled a rather tedious attractiveness. This is carpenters, real artisans “when art another aspect of Donati’s great makes art” (the decorations were all ability which he often stressed: “to sculptured by hand!). astound with art!”. The set also incorporates a range of small, ornamental objects which are And the Puppet Theatre... often either purchased or hired The Theatre was really constructed in according to necessity. Given the its entirety, following a thorough film’s peculiarity, every visible documentation of puppet theatres of element was the object of study and that period, a real phenomenon of planning. In particular, here we have enormous proportions in that time; examples of ceramic tableware from research it was discovered that specially designed and hand painted in 1884 there were over four hundred according to a precise design. Not puppet theatres that toured Italy only objects but also, surprisingly staging their repertoires. In Donati’s enough, the food compositions were sketches, in just a few outlines the designed. In particular the cakes, theatre’s architecture is already moulds of polystyrene covered with evident. The front of the theatre was real pastry-shop confectionery...little built as a mobile structure, allowing it works of art, fruit of an unbridled to be positioned among the Village imagination and cleverness. structures or placed in front of the entire construction whenever The most artistic element of the required. Every backdrop was painted production design is instead on canvas depicting period imagery represented by the Fairy’s for the sets featuring the puppets. Carriage... Above the stage a real structure was The Carriage came from the need to Each building costructed has four architecturally different façades, so as to be able to create infinite solutions made which incorporated a system of runners on which glided the curtains, the backdrops and the strings connected to the actor- puppets. The entire structure was fashioned with untreated boards on which were painted perspective panoramas and the cover is an assemblage of pieces of jute stitched together. For each character the costumes were made The interior of the Fairy’s house according to the tradition of that period in history then skilfully retouched by Donati. Here too, for some of the scenes it was necessary to use digital special effects, which at times involved the reconstruction of objects on a larger scale or of referents for the actors during the dialogues. In the Circus... one is immersed in an atmosphere full of childhood memories.. . There are colours, lights, sounds and smells skilfully blended together and capable of enfolding us magically. Danilo Donati recreated that wonderful, faintly melancholic atmosphere with just a few sketched outlines. A pen, a sheet of paper and a hand guided by a vision, fruit of culture and cleverness, fixes the image of what will be, what has to be the circus...his circus...the circus of Pinocchio. In his sketches the layout, the sections and the prospects are briefly outlined yet already contain all those architectural elements. As with the puppet theatre, the whole structure was built in its entirety. The choice was made as it responds to two quite different needs: the first being the desire to amaze whoever enters it (a peculiarity of Donati’s character and his sets), enfolding you in that particular atmosphere which is capable of making you forget reality; the second being to facilitate the shoot, so that the action can unfold with continuity for the whole take. As for the decorative elements, a pure Liberty [Italian art nouveau] style was chosen as being the only style capable of giving that rather garish beauty which a place like the Circus needs. Here too, documentation was instrumental in determining the choice of decoration. The Fairy’s house G D A

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