The Visual Style of THE ROSE
David Lyman

Special thanks to Ronni Jensen for sharing this article 


With the release of THE ROSE this month we will have an opportunity to see the second film by the team of Director Mark Rydell and Cinematographer Vilmos Zsigmond, ASC. The highly visual style of THE ROSE has its genesis in CINDERELLA LIBERTY which Rydell and Zsigmond made in 1973. It was also at that time that a mutual respect, friendship, and harmonious working relationship was established between these two professionals.

THE ROSE is a dramatic documentation of the last 8 days of a 28-year-old rock singer called The Rose and played by Bette Midler. Although it is hard not to see a parallel in the life of Janis Joplin, the intent is rather to present a character which is an amalgam of the rock stars of that era: Jimi Hendrix, Grace Slick, and Jim Morrison, as well as Joplin. As Rydell says, "THE ROSE gives an inside, intimate, smell-of-sweat look at a dynamic performer who goes through enormous emotional upheavals. She lives on the edge and pushes herself to extremes; she's tough, savage, driven, obsessive, brilliantly talented, compulsive, infantile, hungry, and loving."

THE ROSE is Bette Midler's first feature film role: and she is matched with Alan Bates and Frederick Forrest. The script is by Bill Kerby and Bo Goldberg, from a story by Kerby, and is based on the rock music world of the 60's - and told as we might remember those times. Produced for about $9 million by 20th Century Fox, the film was shot in New York and California during the summer of 1978 and completed in the 14 months which followed. The music, which plays a supporting role, was composed by Paul Rothchild, who was a record producer for Janis Joplin and Jim Morrison. Rydell also worked on the music, being himself an accomplished musician who studied piano at Julliard and performed in nightclubs before becoming an actor and eventually a director. The film was recorded in Dolby.

The friendship between Mark and Vilmos began when they worked on CINDERELLA LIBERTY, the love story of a US Navy sailor (James Caan) and a hooker (Marsha Mason). It was here that the two first came to understand one another's capabilities and skills. (Although their first meeting was actually when Vilmos was shooting Altman's THE LONG GOODBYE, in which Mark played the part of a Mafia-type meanie.

"In preparing to do CINDERELLA," says Vilmos, "we saw a lot of film together even before shooting began, just to see what each of us did and didn't like. We wanted a documentary look, but no network news. After all, this was an entertainment film. But we didn't want to make a slick Hollywood glamor film either. We decided we liked the work of Vittorio Storaro - THE CONFORMIST and LAST TANGO IN PARIS. This gave us a common ground, and a lot to talk about. Then we really began to understand one another better.

"Next we decided we wanted this film to combine reality and impressionism; that we didn't want to make a beautiful film, but rather a film that had beauty in it. We even invented a name for the look we wanted - 'poetic realism.' "

Achieving that look meant using available light, flashing to desaturate colors, and dark colors - dark reds, warm browns, and blues, as opposed to the bright colors of a normal Hollywood movie. When the first dailies came back, the studio called Mark. "Mark," the voice said, "those rushes are wonderful but the exposure is two stops too dark." "But that's what Vilmos and I want," Mark replied. "But what about the drive-ins?" countered the voice on the phone. "A third of a film's revenues is from drive-ins and the ambient light at most drive-ins will wash out what little image you have. It'll kill the film. You've got to increase the exposure!"

When Mark reported this to Vilmos the Hungarian replied that the drive-ins could go to hell. Or worse. But just to be on the safe side the two filmmakers booked a local Seattle drive-in, and during the intermission announced to the audience that they were going to screen the dailies of their film. Sure enough, horns began to blow and headlights flashed on and off: Those delicately lit faces on which Vilmos had lavished such care were mud on the screen. "After that, we did adjust some of our thinking on the matter," admits Vilmos.

While the two films look different, Mark and Vilmos used the same "poetic realism" approach for THE ROSE. "We didn't want that overlit Hollywood style," Vilmos told me. "But we also didn't want the gritty look of a 16mm independent documentary. It had to be something different, something unique, a combination of reality and fantasy."

Rydell describes this quality as: "a combination of Moulin Rouge and an abdominal operation. I wanted to deglamorize show business and give an impressionistic view of the world of rock music. I wanted to show the sweat on their faces, the cables on the stage, the technicians at work, the crowds going wild; and through all this the tremendous emotional tension that every great performer lives with. I don't think you'll find THE ROSE a beautiful film in the traditional sense. It's not another A STAR IS BORN. But it has beauty - albeit a different sort of beauty, a personal beauty based on reality and on Bette Midler's performances and the character she plays."

The "look" for THE ROSE was decided on weeks before production began. "Vilmos was the first person I hired for THE ROSE," says Rydell. "Even before the actors. I needed a creative cinematographer, someone with a sense of art and an appreciation for music. And I knew Vilmos was the only person who could do this for me. He is a strong personality with an exceptional eye and good ideas. And most important, he is a creative collaborator. He is not only good at what he does, but he tests my leadership and pushes me to my visual limits. He makes me think."

Once they had decided to use "poetic realism" for THE ROSE, their next decision was the choice of format. Vilmos suggested they go 1:85 and not use anamorphics. "Those lenses would have been too heavy for the headheld cameras we would be using during the concert scenes," says Vilmos. "And with 8 or 10 cameras shooting each concert, we'd need flexibility. I also felt 1:85 would give us more of a documentary look. And for another thing, I'm no longer afraid to shoot 1:85 since I know 5247 is good enough to hold the quality in the projected image."

Pre-production planning between Director and DP also included discussions about Bette Midler's face and how the camera should treat her. "Bette does not have a beautiful face by Hollywood standards," says Mark. "But she is a beautiful person and a beautiful performer, and this is what we wanted to capture and show."

Having Bette on camera for nearly 95% of the film truly tested Vilmos talents as a photographer and lighting expert as he sought to bring out her better visual qualities. "It would have been a shame to hide her face," said Vilmos. "But yes, it was hard to light her and make her face look beautiful for the audience. But her performance as a singer is so powerful on screen that her appearance becomes secondary. It was hard work, but the results have been fantastic. You can really identify with her."

To work around the problem of making the most of Bette's face, Vilmos and Rydell worked out a combination of lighting, camera angles, and diffusion. While he is reluctant to discuss the actual details, Vilmos will admit he used constant diffusion throughout the film, but says, "you cannot really see the difference because we used the same diffusion all the way through the film."

Although THE ROSE is Bette's first feature film, and she has had no formal training in acting, Rydell says she is one of the best he's ever seen: "She is perhaps one of the most important people to happen to art and music in this country in a decade. She has no impediment in expressing her talent. It's staggering. She has all the range and equipment of a great actress, and an emotional reserve that is oceanic. She could write the book on acting." (Alan Bates, Bette's co-star, said he worked 30 years to do what she does automatically.)

To create the desaturated colors Vilmos used double fogs, screens, smoke in those scenes which called for it, and flashing when he was unable to use lights to fill in the shadow areas. He said their biggest problem was hiding part of the contemporary California
landscape (signs, cars) to effect a late 1960's image.

A typical Rydell working pattern would go something like this: "After an hour of blocking, where we work out some details of movement and the placement of the actors, I turn the set
over to Vilmos to light," explains Mark. "Then I take the actors into another room to rehearse their lines and discuss the dialogue. Earlier Vilmos and I have discussed the scene, the angles, the camera moves. Now he's on his own to work with his gaffers and electricians. When he's just about ready I bring the actors back so he can make the final adjustments to the lights and the balance. Then he turns the set back over to me and we shoot."

Vilmos, speaking of Rydell as a director, says, "Mark is a good actor, so he knows how to stage the action, how the actors are going to move around the set. Directors who have not been actors often have a hard time staging a scene.

"Mark is also very fast. He can sometimes stage a whole scene without the actors even being there. He will walk the scene for me and tell me exactly what the actors will do and where they'll move. We save a lot of time setting up the lights this way; and it's easier on the actors and the whole crew.

In addition to his acting experience, Mark also spent a number of years directing such TV series as "Ben Casey, "I Spy," and "Gunsmoke," and he feels it was "good training. It taught me the craft of directing and the necessary discipline."

While Mark concerns himself chiefly with the performance - which both men believe is at the center of a film's success - Vilmos deals with the crew of technicians. "My crew is important: who they are, their experience, and especially their taste," says Vilmos. "I work with about 10 men, and I handpick every one of them. But they are my personal friends as well as people who help me do my job."

The most important man in the crew, admits Vilmos, is the gaffer. "Your gaffer is your right hand. He's the person who will really help me light the picture. Today camerawork is primarily lighting, even exteriors. If he's fast and has good taste he can be a tremendous help. But a gaffer also needs a good crew."

And what about the camera? "In the old days, like when I was filming CINDERELLA LIBERTY, I didn't give the operator much freedom. I tried to handle the camera as much as possible. I guess I just wasn't too secure then. But on THE ROSE I had a fine operator and I didn't hesitate to give him the camera. Usually I saw on the screen the next day exactly what I wanted him to shoot."

"What makes a good cameraman in your estimation?" I asked Vilmos.

"A good camera operator is one who can handle the wheels on a gear head without thinking and make it move like it's a fluid head. He can follow the action without being aware he's making the camera move with those wheels. And a good cameraman has taste, he can compose well. Often the cameraman has to follow a fast action and then end on a still composition, which means he must be quick, alert, skilled, and able to improvise. But most of all he must have good taste. If he ends up with a sloppy composition, the whole scene will have to be re-shot. And make no mistake about it, this combination of qualities is rare. There are very few truly good operators."

There were few production problems on THE ROSE, according to Vilmos, but there were "problems from the studio. They fought me all the time because of all the lights I was using. (An odd conflict for Vilmos to be embroiled in since he is noted for being a minimal lighting cameraman.) "I had a lot of fights with them about maintaining quality because they had never seen a film done like this. They even tried to fire my gaffer because they claimed he was using too many lights. But I said that if he went I would go too." To which Rydell added, "If Vilmos goes, I go." Needless to say, nobody went -and in the end the film used $1,000,000 worth of lights.

"There is a way you remember the 60's," Vilmos continued. "For instance the audience is important in this picture. Most rock films don't include the audience because they can't light them. But we felt we had to light them. And I also wanted them lit as if the light was really coming from the stage - because that's what it should really look like. But that requires a tremendous amount of light. We used over 1000 units alone for the stadium concert. But it works. There's a real excitement in the air when The Rose arrives by helicopter in the midst of 10,000 cheering fans. And it's the crowd that makes the scene."

There are two large concert scenes in the picture, one at the Wilton Theater and the final scene at Long Beach Memorial Stadium. It took Vilmos, his gaffer, and the lighting crew a solid week to rig the lights for the 2-day shoot at the Stadium. In fact Vilmos was still up a ladder adjusting lights when the 10,000 hired extras filling the Stadium were whipped into a frenzy by Rydell. Mark sent word aloft to Vilmos: "Shoot! To hell with the lights! Shoot before we lose this!" And shoot he did - along with 5 of his closest friends, who also just happen to be 5 of Hollywood's top cinematographers - eventually exposing 33 miles of film between the 6 of them.

For the Stadium and the Wiltern shoots Vilmos had enlisted the aid of such cameramen as Conrad Hall, Laszlo Kovacs, Haskell Wexler, Bobby Burns, and Owen Roizman. "I needed top professionals for the shoot," says Vilmos. "We had planned the camera positions as much as possible, but this was both a live concert and a dramatic scene. I couldn't control every camera, so I had to use operators who knew how to move and compose and work with what was happening. I needed people who could shoot and shoot and shoot. And shoot they did!" (At the Wilton concert the same camera crew used seven Panaflexes with an additional seven waiting at each location, complete with loaded magazines.)

The creation of a film involves the talents of many people interacting harmoniously, and it would be unfair - to say nothing of inaccurate - to credit the look of an entire motion picture solely to the Director and the DP. But if THE ROSE lives up to its promise, there is every reason to believe that more films will follow bearing the Rydell-Zsimond credit line. And that future film critics will carve out a terminology to describe the works by this team.


DAVID H. LYMAN is founder and director of The Maine Photographic Workshop, a major center for photographic and film learning located in Rockport, Maine. David occasionally writes about photography, film, and sailing for a variety of publications.

The friendship between Mark Rydell and Vilmos Zsigmond is an important factor in considering the visual style of THE ROSE, for the film is a product of two men who know and like each other - on and off the set. And the result is an outgrowth of this multi-level understanding which exists between them.

Shortly after shooting was complete on THE ROSE and before editing began. Mark and Vilmos joined me in Rockport, Maine, at my photography / cinematography school. The Maine Photographic Workshop, to conduct separate one-week workshops in their respective crafts.

Mark had just concluded his week-long workshop in film directing and Vilmos was to begin a week's workshop on cinematography. The overlapping day. Sunday, would be a seminar on the relation between the cinematographer and the director using their films -CINDERELLA LIBERTY and THE ROSE - as the basis for the
discussion.

Mark and I picked up Vilmos that afternoon at the nearby airport, and as we drove back to Rockport the two men were soon immersed in a discussion about THE ROSE: the last batch of dailies Vilmos had missed: the problems with the studio concerning Vilmos' cost overruns: and a hundred other topics you might find two professional compatriots discussing after the completion of a project on which they had just been working.

But during supper that evening the men appeared more like brothers than members of a guild: they discussed Vilmos' TV commercials and how his daughters were doing, the workshop Mark had completed, various Hollywood personalities, the film business, even the weather in Maine. It was clear this was a reunion of two good friends who cared about each other and each other's lives.

By DAVID LYMAN