With The Corruptor, cinematographer Juan Ruiz-Anchía, ASC, AEC and director James Foley create a crime film that is as visually active as it is action-packed.Hayes
by Eric Rudolph

Following a spectacularly explosive gang attack on a local businessman, tensions are running high within an elite all-Asian police unit working in New York City's Chinatown. When fresh-faced Irish-American detective Danny Wallace (Mark Wahlberg) joins the squad, the internal strife escalates even further. The much-decorated leader of the unit, Nick Chen (Hong Kong action-film superstar Chow Yun-Fat), and his team are highly suspicious of their new comrade, whom they openly deride as a white man with a bad case of "yellow fever" — a trendy obsession with all things Asian.

Crime and savage violence are everywhere in The Corruptor, and the self-assured Chen navigates his treacherous ghetto turf with astonishing ease. While uncomfortable with his unlikely new charge, Chen shows Wallace the ropes — including the careful maintenance of his suspiciously chummy relationship with a powerful local businessman, Henry Lee (Ric Young).

Local gang rivalries continue to escalate, and as the depth of Chen's inappropriate involvement with Lee becomes more and more evident, Wallace begins to realize just how double-dealing his superior may be. As a deadly confrontation looms, Chen's ideas about Wallace also shift, and he begins to suspect that his partner may not be the earnest rookie he seems.

While this story has many familiar genre elements, the visual world of director James Foley's new film is remarkably unlike any "good guys versus bad guys" universe recently seen on mainstream American movie screens. This is evident early on, when Wallace first enters the offices of Chen's police unit. Daylight streaks through the windows, piercing the dark, dingy confines with thick, powerful, slanted beams of light that are four to five stops overexposed. These white shafts do not brighten the room, however; rather, they stand in stark contrast to the dark, dreary and shadowy surroundings.

Adding to the dramatic contrast of this introductory mise-en-scène, Wallace's face is sharply cut with lines of shadow and light. This schema runs throughout most of The Corruptor, and these contrasting lighting effects and face-obscuring patterns symbolize the sharp divisions between the white hats and the black hats.

For director of photography Juan Ruiz- Anchía ASC, AEC, these unusual images are completely in line with the story being told. "The lead characters are mostly in their own, very different worlds, and in continually tense situations that are also constantly changing," he notes. "The look of the film had to reflect these anxious, unsettled states. Our visual style is more driven by the internal worlds of these characters than by the look of the real, outside world."

Anchía and Foley had previously collaborated on the brooding drama At Close Range, the brilliant screen adaptation of David Mamet's Glengarry Glen Ross, and the Depression-set drama Two Bits, while the accomplished Spanish cameraman's other credits include Maria's Lovers, House of Games, Liebestraum, Dying Young (see AC Aug. 1991), A Far Off Place (AC May '93) The Jungle Book and Lorca. In 1991, Anchia earned the Goya Award for Best Cinematography for his work on Mararia. (The Goyas are the Spanish equivalent to the Academy Awards.)

Resuming their relationship for The Corruptor, Anchía and Foley added another, somewhat less story-driven element to their visual approach — a sense of near-anarchy that lends the film a distinctive, chaotic energy. "We set out to quite deliberately distort the correctness of conventional cinematography," says Anchía, who did so via turbulent camera movements, snap zooms, the aggressive use of color, mixed color temperatures, and other techniques. "The screenplay offered us the opportunity to express the uncertainty and wildness of this criminal world, and James and I decided to exploit these possibilities to the fullest."

Foley and Anchía were also motivated by a mutual desire to return to a more adventurous style of filmmaking. "Directing feature films is a strenuous exercise," Foley acknowledges. "You're getting up at five in the morning and going at it for 12 or more hours, day after day. It's physically exhausting, and it's tempting to make the safe, conservative choices to get through the day more easily. However, over the course of several films, I've learned that the threat to good filmmaking is not the danger of getting out of control; the threat to creativity is to be too much in control."

[ continued on page 2 ] © 1999 ASC