"We did everything possible to demystify the process of shooting, and do without all the equipment, camera gear and lights that many people think they have to have these days. We asked ourselves, 'How can we approach this film if we don't have all those things?' That created another kind of aesthetic that could be applied to the storytelling approach, and it was so successful for us that we shot Erin Brockovich the same way—and that was a $55-million studio picture.
"In terms of the crew, I was fortunate to have my preferred team— the same gaffer I always work with, John DeBlau, the same first assistant, Mike Hall, and a very good operator, Ray de la Motte, who was very familiar with how films were shot in the 1970s and innovative about how we could do certain things.
"Steven also cast The Limey with icons of the '70s, which is an interesting extension of what we were trying to do with the cinematography. It became thematically intriguing."
Added to this stripped-down production approach was an unconventional narrative style that makes use of both flashbacks and flashforwards, which inform the audience where certain characters are from, and also hint at where they may be going. "We discussed different storytelling styles, and Steven wanted to suggest the characters' interior world," Lachman describes. "Film is able to show locations very easily, while in a novel it may take several paragraphs to describe the place and setting. But it's much more difficult for a filmmaker to enter a character's interior world than it is for a novelist.
"In Out of Sight, Steven experimented with this idea by using changes of voice and story perspective, which was something I'd also seen in films by the French director Alain Resnais. In The Limey, for instance, we'd shoot the same dialogue scene between Terence Stamp and Leslie Ann Warren in three different locations, and then Steven would cut this footage together as one continuous dialogue. He would then go one step further and run the dialogue over a reaction shot of the character who is supposed to be speaking. That breaks up the traditional narrative flow, and the audience gets an impression of the character's interior world.
"In a sense, the footage we shot was treated almost like 'found' images. This editing plan was something that Steven was thinking about before we began shooting, and we discussed getting the coverage he needed, but it really came together in the editing room. This kind of manipulation of time and space is sometimes done in fantasy films like The Matrix, but not often in a real human drama."
In one recurring introspective sequence, we see a more youthful Wilson of 30 years ago as he serenades some gals with his guitar at a party. "He's seen as a budding young criminal," Lachman relates with a laugh, explaining that much of this footage was borrowed from the 1967 film Poor Cow, a Ken Loach picture about working-class loners in which Stamp starred as a character not coincidentally named Wilson. "I had to match the look of that footage for certain cutaways we needed as flashbacks, consisting of shots of Wilson's daughter as a little girl," Lachman says. "The difficult thing was that we didn't have the footage from Poor Cow at that point, and I only saw it on VHS toward the end of our shoot. I therefore had to try to re-create that style based on that reference. I was pleasantly surprised that our footage matched as well as it did when we obtained the dupe negative to make our final print.
"We also needed material to suggest the present-day Wilson's mental image of Jenny and her life leading up to her death, so we had to find a visual way to suggest that concept. What we ended up doing was throwing the shutter out of sync, which creates a vertical streaking effect in the footage, especially with strong highlights.
"I ended up using a strong Krypton-bulb flashlight, which we move across the actors' faces and bodies to help create a creepy, interrogative effect. Clairmont Camera was very helpful in working with us to create the effect we were seeking.
With his nearly impenetrable English accent, the gruff Wilson "is very dislocated and misplaced," Lachman says. "He's never been out of East London, let's say. He's also been in prison for a number of years, so images of him needed to have that sense of being out of place and uncomfortable, and we tried to suggest that with the lighting. For example, in some scenes we'd use very intense lighting in certain areas, forcing Wilson to readjust himself because of the brightness."
One example of this technique is a recurring shot in which the surly character meditates in his seat aboard an airliner bringing him to Los Angeles. While shooting on the aircraft interior set, "Steven wanted to continue with our naturalistic style by having the windows burning out and the light pouring in," Lachman says. "To do that, we put an incredible amount of light into a cyc that surrounded the set. We then had a complicated rig, consisting of three 20Ks on a crane arm, that simulated the way sunbeams move around inside a plane interior as the aircraft changes direction. We kept the lighting inside the plane very low, which allowed the cyc to burn out and bleed a bit, and the 20Ks to project these very strong shafts inside at about four stops over key. Then, specifically on Terence Stamp, I bounced a 6K Par into a mirror and though his window to further burn out the left side of his face. That way, the light became an intrusion on him." This pattern is repeated throughout the film, as the pasty Wilson visibly cringes from sunshine and bright sources.
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