Cinematographer Fred Elmes, ASC creates a sensuous semblance of the 1970s for director Ang Lee's The Ice Storm
T
hough widely reviled for its excesses, the 1970s is a decade that continues to resonate. In his 1994 novel The Ice Storm, author Rick Moody detailed his observations of that period with a tale set in the suburban "utopia" of New Canaan, Connecticut revealing how the various social revolutions of the day took their toll on the Nuclear Family.Adapted for the screen by writer/producer James Schamus and directed by Ang Lee (collaborators on Pushing Hands, Eat Drink Man Woman and Sense and Sensibility), The Ice Storm presents interweaving tales of experimentation and discovery, as the Hood family and their neighbors, the Carvers, slide into a permissive nirvana. Ben and Elena Hood (Kevin Kline and Joan Allen) are at a crossroads; she is growing more fed up as he clumsily couples with the predatory Janey Carver (Sigourney Weaver). Their pubescent daughter, Wendy (Christina Ricci), seeks control in her life by toying with the hapless Mikey and Sandy Carver (Elijah Wood and Adam Hann-Byrd). Meanwhile, Paul Hood (Tobey Maguire) attempts to woo a prep-school coed, embarking on his first escapades with love and controlled substances. Ultimately, Elena and the workaholic Jim Carver (Jamey Sheridan) painfully shed their own inhibitions after they are paired off at a wife-swapping party. Lee notes, "The movie makes parallels between the parents' and the kids' behavioral patterns. Like father, like son; like mother, like daughter."
These tenuous relationships are ultimately tested as a severe winter tempest plunges New Canaan into a deep freeze, which awakens everyone to the fact that their infidelities and self-involvement must take a back seat to familial bonds. On a wry note, the director offers, "I sometimes thought of The Ice Storm as a disaster movie, except that the disaster hits home! In a way, the storm is a parallel and a metaphor for the human drama as we watch these human-nature, family and relationship disasters take place."
Notes Schamus, "The biggest hurdle in adapting the book was to create, in a visual way, the emotional effect that the book accomplished through the use of [the narrator's] voice. Without demeaning anything else Ang and I have done, I think this film is the most cinematic film he has ever made, precisely because it manages to overcome this problem in a way that's almost unnoticeable to an untrained eye."
While seeking a director of photography for The Ice Storm, Lee and Schamus met with some 20 cinematographers a procedure they had also gone through on Sense and Sensibility. After careful consideration, they chose Fred Elmes, ASC. Lee offers, "The films Fred made with David Lynch had made a strong impression on us, but The Ice Storm was very different from those pictures. There was also a need for darkness, though not so much in terms of content; we wanted to experiment with how dark things could go. Coming off Sense and Sensibility, which was very classic, saturated and almost in the style of [17th-century Dutch artist] Vermeer, I was looking for someone experimental and independent in spirit. But I also needed an experienced cinematographer who would shoot Ice Storm in a way that would benefit the film's ideas."
Elmes is well known for his contributions to some unique features. He won the National Film Critics Award for Blue Velvet, and earned IFP Spirit Awards for Wild at Heart and Night on Earth. His resumé also includes Opening Night, Eraserhead, Valley Girl and The Saint of Fort Washington. He was recently honored with an Emmy nomination for his work on first-time director Christopher Reeve's HBO telefilm In the Gloaming (see AC May '97 and item in this issue on p. 80).
"I was very pleased by Fred's willingness to experiment," Lee confirms, "especially in terms of using gels or pushing to see how dark a scene could go. There were times when Fred would say, 'Come on Ang, don't chicken out let's try it!' And it usually worked."
In preparing for the job, Elmes first read an early version of James Schamus' script. "I then went to the novel, so Ang and I could talk further about the moods and feelings we wanted to capture," the cameraman says. "It's important to go back to the roots of a story. In this case, I wanted to understand the author's sense of the Seventies in New Canaan. The novel gave us a lot to talk about in terms of back story.
"When I read a script, I always look for characters, and The Ice Storm is definitely a character-driven story," he adds. "I was also intrigued because it was set in the Seventies, when there was a great deal of turmoil in the country. The characters' process of discovery is set against a backdrop of political corruption, exemplified by Watergate. And then there is the ice storm itself, which is a distinct character in the picture. The first half of the film has an innocence about it, and then in the second half nature steps in and overwhelms everything."
Elmes was one of the last people to join The Ice Storm's creative team, giving him scant time to prepare for the project. He recalls, "Just after I was hired, Ang assembled all of the key production people for an entire day of just talking the story through. This group included James Schamus, production designer Mark Friedberg, costume designer Carol Oditz, and a researcher, Jean Castelli, who was very helpful in gathering information about what was happening around the world during the Seventies in art, fashion, pop culture and politics. The discussion helped me understand more about each character, and how Ang felt about all aspects of the production as they contributed to the story."
During this meeting, the film's visual approach was delineated in distinct halves. Schamus recalls, "Part of our discussion was Ang's fixation on doing the first half of the film in a very photo-realistic style."
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