That’s surprising, because I always think of Bob Towne as being a writer who can always find the mythological cord in a story. And in its finished form, I find the film to be wonderful. In subsequent versions of the script, he obviously found the sense of drama you describe.
Hall: He did. Later, while I was in New York helping Piotr Sobocinski with some additional photography on Marvin’s Room while he was busy shooting Ransom, a new draft of the script [for Without Limits] arrived on a Sunday morning. I then got a call from Bob, who asked me to read it one more time. Well, 20 pages from the end, I stopped reading because I had to call and tell him that he had written exactly what I needed for the story, and I wanted to be involved.
For me, Steve Prefontaine was an unlikable character. What’s remarkable about the film is that while he comes off as being brash and unappealing, by the end of the movie you’re in love with the guy. He ends up losing races because of his principles, because of the way he wants to win, and because he has to be true to himself and his abilities.
Hall: The idea of winning a race by laying back until the last lap and then pulling ahead was absolutely contrary to his philosophical ideas about winning. He had to test himself by always being out front. But he isn’t likable [as a character]. I wish I could articulate what it was about Robert’s revised script that made me want to do this film, but it did have all of the human elements I was looking for.
Well, I think the big thing for me was the relationship Prefontaine had with his coach, Bill Bowerman. Both were strong people with strong opinions who weren’t willing to give in to each other. Those are qualities that you find in Greek myths, where you have characters who come in conflict for their very different ideals and the story ends with no real resolution, but with a mutual respect.
Now, after you’ve read a script and started talking with a director, when and how do you start deciding on an overall visual style and determining how you’re going to bring that to the movie?
Hall: I usually try to think of some aspect of the story which represents its ’soul,’ so to speak something I can hang my hat on. Using my latest film [A Civil Action] as an example, maybe it will be something about ’truth’ and how lawyers will get together to divert people from knowing what it really is. How can I help represent that visually? I also use references books, magazines, or even philosophical ideas that come to me. For Without Limits, I watched some films about the Olympics and found one absolutely stunning documentary, Tokyo Olympiad [a.k.a. Tokyo Orimpikku, 1965], which is about the 1964 Summer Games held in Japan. It was shot in anamorphic widescreen, and while watching it, I knew then that my film would have to equally use the big screen to be larger than life.
I’d like to talk about the various elements which were important in developing the style for this film, and how you knitted them together. There’s lighting, lens choices, camera movement these are all different elements that resulted from decisions that you made.
Hall: I work somewhat organically and try not make decisions in advance. This begins with facing the material of the day, which often changes. Then I want to see how the actors are dealing with the material and what the location brings to the scene. But because schedules change so often, I try not to pin things down so much. For example, there’s a scene in which the coach [Bill Bowerman] is lecturing his team about haircuts. This was originally to be shot in a certain building [on the University of Oregon campus], but on the shooting day we couldn’t get access to the location. Suddenly everything changed and we had to find someplace else to shoot. Well, they chose the sunny side of the track stadium, which ran east and west, and that meant we had to figure out how to get the scene done before the sun came around and smashed right in there. But we couldn’t, and it became a survival situation where we were blacking out large areas to keep our lighting consistent. It was a nightmare, but I can’t get too philosophical about it because it would kill me!
I’m glad to hear you confess to the realities of filmmaking! [Both laugh.] So many people are self-serving about these things and try to suggest that everything was designed in advance and went according to plan. We all try to have influence over the situation, but there are always the times when the sun is setting and you’re running around like crazy just trying to get an exposure to shoot.
Hall: Sometimes it still comes out wonderfully, and even if it doesn’t, the story can occasionally carry you through the rough areas.
But you bring a lot of the history and experience to a show, and when you’re good at something, even your worst [work] is going to be pretty good. Nonetheless, the process of making a particular film all of those situations like the one you describe add up to create a certain visual unity which makes this film look different from Tequila Sunrise, Marathon Man, and all of your other films. Each one has its distinct visual elements, which define what people think of as ’Connie Hall’ photography. I’m sure a lot of that comes, as you’ve said, at the spur of the moment, but it’s interesting to me to try to discover a cameraman’s specific visual style within a body of work, and understand how it’s being applied to those different stories.
Hall: Well, what I try to do is understand the material, and then understand how the director sees it as well. On Without Limits, I was a bit confounded; I had a vision of the script, but as we got into the process of making the film, we also had a lot of advisors working with us Pre’s friends and coaches — who knew his story first hand.
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