Spike’s Gotta Have It
While Lee granted Kuras autonomy to explore her cinematography in a creative fashion, there were a few instances in which the director called for some "signature Spike shots." One entailed shooting scenes with anamorphic lenses with the intent of leaving the resulting image "squeezed." Lee had previously utilized this technique on Crooklyn (photographed by Arthur "A.J." Jafa) for a 20-minute sequence set in Martha’s Vineyard. In that film, the elongated imagery indicated the young female protagonist’s unease with her new suburban surroundings after leaving her hometown of Brooklyn for the summer.
In Summer of Sam, this tactic is used twice. In the first shot, the tormented Berkowitz is seen crouched over, howling for the "demonic" dog to cease its endless barking; the squeezed footage implies that the canine tormentor is a figment of the killer’s demented imagination. Squeezed images are also used in a quick-cutting montage of Ritchie playing "air guitar" in his garage to the Who’s "Baba O’Riley" and then strutting across the stage at Male World, a strip joint for homosexual hustlers.
During this sequence, the shots in Ritchie’s garage alternate between reversal stock and standard negative; more often than not, negative was used for shots that pushed the narrative forward, whereas reversal was employed for interludes that revealed Ritchie in quiet, personal moments. Kuras designed Ritchie’s living space with rather wild lighting (a mixture of bug lights, cool white fluorescents, practical globes, and golden-gelled spotlights) that resulted in rather radical color shifts on the reversal stock. She explains, "Ritchie is a very controversial figure who’s become a suspect just because he’s gone through a transformation from Bronx neighborhood kid to wannabee rocker in the punk scene. To me, his inner life takes place in the garage, where he allows himself to be vulnerable, so I wanted to mix the color temperatures of the practical lights to convey a sense of inner complexity."
Kuras notes that she owes an immense debt of gratitude to Joe Violante, vice president of Producer Services at Technicolor New York, who did all of Summer of Sam’s negative processing, as well as Steve Blakely at DuArt, the lab that handled all of the reversal work.
Of course, no "Spike Lee joint" would be complete without the director’s trademark moving dolly shot, which makes it appear as if a character is "floating" in the air, typically when he or she is supposed to be walking down a street. An interesting application of this technique occurs as Vinny’s life hits rock bottom: his long-neglected wife has left him after finally tiring of his infidelities, and he’s turned to cocaine for relief. In his crazed state of desperation, he is finally convinced that the nonconformist Ritchie must be the .44-Caliber Killer; while looking at a Son of Sam police sketch in a local tabloid, Vinny drifts down the street as the camera peers up at him. The perspective then slowly shifts until Vinny seems to be upside-down.
Kuras notes that this shot benefitted immensely from the expert handling of dolly grip Lamonte Crawford and key grips Bob Andres and Chris Skutch. "Obviously, Vinny is going through personal turmoil, so it could be said that the camera move is Spike’s interpretation of the character at that point," she expounds. "To do the shot, we put a camera on one end of a sled dolly and John at the other end. We then rigged the camera on a three-axis Weaver/Steadman head that enabled it to circle 360 degrees on the lens axis." During the timing stage, Kuras opted to print this shot up slightly; the blown-out tones further convey the depths of Vinny’s disorientation.
Another technique carried over from Lee’s prior movies is the use of hot, overhead sources that envelop actors in halos of glowing light (a style popularized by Robert Richardson, ASC). Used in counterpoint to the cross-processed reversal’s unusual tonalities, these "auras" often signify the comfort of a familiar environment. In Marie’s Salon, for instance, a narrow spot Par can was used to provide a flattering accent amid the space’s warm, egg-cream-like haze. The technique is particularly apparent during a raunchy sex scene involving Vinny and hairstylist Gloria (Bebe Neuwirth); during the duo’s tryst, hot light traces the contours of the beautician’s milky skin, lending literal meaning to the phrase "sexual afterglow." Kuras also employed similar tactics for scenes set in a local burger joint and in the pizza parlor owned by Dionna’s father.
These auras were sometimes applied to more extreme effect as well. At one point in the story, Vinny and Dionna find themselves outside the velvet ropes at the infamous hotspot Studio 54. Cruising past a long line of hopeful clubgoers, the pair saunter under an awning through several hot pools of light (generated by 12K Pars). Given that the sequence is shot on reversal, Dionna almost becomes a beam of incandescent white light as the hard ambience gleams off of her platinum wig and silver lamé ensemble. "That ’Bob Richardson hard light’—downlight from overhead that’s four to five stops overexposed—is something that Spike called for specifically," Kuras says. "Because it’s non-motivated, there were times when I wouldn’t even have thought to put it in. Spike likes to use these particular hotspots to punctuate a dramatic effect. There’s definitely an emotional impact as a person walks through this very hot light, burns out and loses detail. Theoretically, one might not be able to explain it. When I was studying in France, I took a lot of classes about the ’theory’ and ’meaning’ of the image, but one can’t always provide a theoretical basis for everything."
In the months since last summer’s Sam shoot, Kuras and Lee have spent some time collaborating on commercials. At press time, the pair were prepping for Lee’s 14th, as-yet-untitled feature film, which has an August start date. After three feature-film collaborations together, it’s obvious that Kuras revels in the experimental nature of Lee’s directorial style. "It’s a pleasure to find a director who is willing to take risks in exploring radically visual ideas," she agrees. "Spike was very flexible and innovative in his approach on all of the films that he and I have worked on together. On Summer of Sam, we weren’t held back by what convention dictates. We followed a more personal interpretation, if you will, and I was more than willing to go along with Spike on that."
