Cinematographer Roger Deakins, ASC, BSC, production/costume designer Dante Ferretti and a multinational crew go on location in Morocco to capture the spiritual essence of KUNDUN.
The year is 1959; high up in the frigid reaches of the Himalayan mountains, a bone-weary traveler on horseback slowly approaches an Indian border crossing, surrounded by a small phalanx of fellow riders. As he dismounts, this forlorn figure is stopped by sentries, who quickly realize the significance of the moment: the man standing before them is none other than the Dalai Lama. Expelled from his Tibetan homeland by Chinese invaders, the deposed deity has nowhere else to turn for sanctuary.
Today, 39 years after his ouster, the Dalai Lama has yet to return to Tibet, which remains a near-mythical realm in the minds of most Westerners. Situated on a high plateau in southwest China, at an average altitude of 16,000 feet, this storied land is known as the cradle of Buddhism, a religion with millions of followers the world over. Since it was forcibly assimilated by the Chinese (who promptly rechristened it Xizang), Tibet has been shrouded in the melancholy aura of a lost civilization. Due to the persistent efforts of its spiritual leader, however, the region has remained alive in the public consciousness as the focus of an enduring political controversy. Thus far, the Chinese government has scorned the Dalai Lama's attempts to rally worldwide support and restore Tibet's independence.
Martin Scorsese's latest film, Kundun (a term meaning "Ocean of Wisdom"), traces the life of the Dalai Lama from infancy to adulthood. The tale begins in 1937 at a small farmhouse in rural Tibet, where precocious, two-year-old Tenzin Gyatso has enjoyed an idyllic childhood with his loving family. The clan's peaceful existence is forever changed, however, when a group of Tibetan scholars arrive at their door. Intent on locating the 14th reincarnation of the Buddha, the scholars soon determine, through a series of tests, that Tenzin is the new Dalai Lama. The boy and his dumbfounded family are immediately escorted to Lhasa, where little Tenzin is enthroned as the country's spiritual leader.
While adjusting to his new life, Tenzin is tutored by the best Tibetan scholars; in 1950, during his 15th year, these teachings are put to the test when the Chinese communist army of Chairman Mao Zedong invades the country, claiming it as part of China. The Dalai Lama's attempts to resolve the situation through nonviolent diplomacy fail, and he is forced into exile nine years later, at the youthful age of 24.
In bringing this story of personal struggle to life, Scorsese and his crew faced an array of artistic, technical and logistical difficulties. Determined to lend their intimate film an emotional resonance, the director and producer Barbara De Fina cast the film with native Tibetans, none of whom were professional actors. The part of the Dalai Lama was played by four different boys (aged 2, 5, 12 and 18), and other key roles were assigned to actual members of the Tibetan leader's family. In fact, the Dalai Lama himself served as a consultant on the project, working closely with script-writer Melissa Mathison and the filmmakers.
Scorsese's insistence upon picturesque locations presented further challenges. Denied permission to shoot in India, the production headed for Ouarzazate, Morocco. Over the years, this small municipality has developed into a staging post for tourists headed into the Sahara Desert; it also offers a motion picture facility, the Atlas Film Studio, located just 15 minutes from the center of town. But as director of photography Roger Deakins, ASC, BSC notes, the working conditions in Morocco were a far cry from the luxuries of a Hollywood studio. "I went to Morocco for about 10 days with Marty sometime in June of 1996," recalls Deakins. "It was a bit of a scramble to find the locations we needed. We saw some locations we knew we weren't going to use, and we also saw the Atlas Film Studio, which was built years ago when a James Bond picture shot there. The studio 'entrance' consisted of a mud wall with this door in the middle, and when you went through, there was one small 'stage' really just a warehouse surrounded by an expanse of desert. It was really surreal."
The rough working conditions did little to deter Deakins, who has earned the admiration of both critics and his peers with outstanding work on such features as The Shawshank Redemption (which earned him both an ASC Award and an Academy Award nomination see AC June 1995), 1984, Courage Under Fire and Dead Man Walking. The cinematographer is probably best known for his collaborations with the Coen brothers: the ASC- and Academy-nominated Fargo (AC Mar. '96), as well as The Hudsucker Proxy (AC April '94), Barton Fink and the upcoming feature The Big Lebowski. However, it was his impressive photography on the scenic dramas Pascali's Island and Mountains of the Moon (see Scorsese interview on page 58) which actually caught the director's eye.
To ease his burden a bit, Deakins brought some of his key crew members from the United States: gaffer Billy O'Leary, dolly grip Bruce Hamme and camera assistant Andy Harris. "The key grip, Tommaso Mele, came from Italy, and he was wonderful," Deakins enthuses. "The rest of the grip crew was also Italian, as were the balance of the electricians. They were all really helpful. We also had a great English operator named Peter Cavaciuti, who handled the B-camera and Steadicam work."
The cinematographer says that careful planning and his detailed discussions with Scorsese helped prepare him for the arduous nature of the show. "Marty had the script very clearly in his mind, and he had a very definite concept about how he wanted the film to feel. Even before going to the location during prep, he had broken down each scene into a specific style. If he wanted a particular scene to be a long, moving camera shot on dialogue, he would have that down, maybe along with a couple of close-ups he wanted to use to heighten specific parts of the sequence. On another scene, he might have things broken down into a much more conventional series of close-ups on dialogue. He did this even before locking down the locations or actually seeing the final sets!
"Those sketches were what we primarily worked from," he continues. "The day before we shot a scene, we might have a brief conversation about the next day's work, but we basically worked from his initial conception. Of course, sometimes, given the practical realities of a set or location, we couldn't achieve the precise shots that Marty wanted; if I saw that something wasn't going to happen the way we'd planned it, I'd talk to Marty and we'd come up with an alternative.
"I don't know if that's the way he's worked before, but for me it was great," he maintains. "Generally, I was surprised at how often I was left to my own devices in terms of lighting the shots and choosing a lens. After seeing the sets and locations, I would take Marty's script notes and transform them into little diagrams showing where the camera would be for each shot, which order to shoot things in, and so on. Overall, I felt as if I had a lot of input; Marty gave me quite a bit of his trust, and I did the best I could to get what he really wanted."
The cinematographer says that his earliest strategy sessions with Scorsese revolved around their use of the Super 35 format for widescreen compositions. "I shot Air America in Super 35, so I was familiar with it," he notes. "I feel that there are good and bad aspects to the format. Tech-nically, it's pretty good these days, though there is a definite loss of color intensity because the whole Super 35 process involves an optical. On balance, though, I think Super 35 was the best way to go on this film; the slightly less saturated colors actually add to the naturalism we sought. Most of the interiors take place at night, and our only practical sources in those scenes were butter lamps little wicks in bowls of butter fat. In general, I like to make a light source look as if it's really working, instead of overpowering it with an artificial source. I do use gag lights, but I like the sources themselves to be very bright within the scene. In this particular respect, the Super 35 format has the advantage over anamorphic, because it allows you to use faster spherical lenses."
Deakins opted to shoot most of Kundun with Zeiss Superspeed and standard-speed lenses. For closer shots, his favored lenses were the 40mm and 50mm in keeping with the cinematographer's oft-stated preference for focal lengths which simulate a human eye's actual field of view. "A lot of times, though, I put on a wider lens than Marty had imagined," he admits. "We were occasionally shooting with a 14mm to see the scale of some of our sets often because we couldn't float the walls. Even if we could, the 'stage' wall might only be a few feet behind the set wall."
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