The duo began their own collaborative relationship on Denis' noteworthy 1988 directorial debut, Chocolat, a French Colonial-era piece shot in the West African nation of Cameroon. On both this film and the later No Fear, No Die, however, Godard served solely as camera operator. Since then, she has also assumed lighting duties on Denis' documentaries, TV work and features, including Jacques Rivette: Le Veilleur; Keep it for Yourself; I Can't Sleep (which won a Special Jury Prize at the Image Festival at Chalon-sur-Saône); and U.S. Go Home (which earned Best Photography honors at Italy's 1994 Turin Festival). Godard's other feature credits include Chambre 666, Jacquot de Nantes (with Patrick Blossier and Georges Strouve), L'Absence, La Vis, Jeunesse Sans Dieu and L'Arriere Pays.
Godard filmed Nénette and Boni in Super 16 with an Arri III-SR; the lighter camera aided the speed and mobility of her intimate, handheld shooting style. The finished film, however, would be blown up to 35mm, so Godard utilized Zeiss T2.1 lenses sized for 35mm photography — primarily the 40mm and 100mm — because such long lenses have greater focal depth in the Super 16 format. "Cinematography is more difficult with Super 16, because the negative is smaller," notes Godard. "There's also the problem of grain, which I wanted to avoid in order to maintain the idea of being so close to people's skin. What's funny about a 35mm blowup is that you gain the detail and brilliant transparency missing from a Super 16 positive, which is always dull."
Adds Denis, "I didn't want the film to fade. We could not work with low lights, because we needed contrast and density of color after the blowup; a dense, contrasty blowup requires a very contrasty negative. We therefore avoided soft lighting, [since it would wash out when blown up]. Instead, we used a lot of direct sources."
In her mind's eye, the director envisioned Nénette and Boni as a series of images chock full of vibrant colors which would accentuate surface textures, particularly when coupled with the intimate compositions and 35mm blowup. In formulating a base palette, Denis instructed set designer Arnaud de Moléron to contrast blue and pink, shades traditionally indicative of, respectively, masculinity and femininity. Blue hues are apparent in the film's opening shot — an overhead vista of Nénette's head floating lazily along the surface of an indoor swimming pool — and can also be seen in various areas within the siblings' home. Says Godard, "The kitchen was already blue when we entered this house, and we decided to keep it. As for other spaces, like the mother's room, Claire had a precise idea of what color she wanted. The house was supposed to have been owned by Boni's mother, who was young in the Seventies, so Claire wanted the kind of saturated colors belonging to this period."
Conversely, shades of fuchsia, red and pink overwhelm the bakery, and the baker's wife, to create an inviting ambiance that alternates between the brother's fantasy world and reality. "Boni's mind is always switching between being a teenager and an adult," explains Denis, "but I didn't want his dreams to be designed one way and his reality another. Let's say that the bakery is reality: the fact that it's so pink could also make it a very sweet vision of the baker's wife, like in the films of [New Wave pioneer] Jacques Demy [Umbrellas of Cherbourg]."
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