If you’re not familiar with the films of Canadian filmmaker Guy Maddin, then perhaps you should take on some homework before venturing into his latest satire.
Co-directed by Maddin and recent collaborators Evan Johnson and Galen Johnson, Rumours features an ensemble cast that includes Cate Blanchett, Alicia Vikander, and Charles Dance. The film is ostensibly an apocalyptic soap opera about world leaders assembling at the G7 summit who must fight both the undead and their unwillingness to craft a joint statement on a current world crisis (one that isn’t the zombies but is never named).
Given the wildly diverging tropes and settings, cinematographer Stefan Ciupek knew he would be creatively challenged in multiple ways on this eccentric and usual project headed by three talented filmmakers.
“It’s like having three sections of a giant brain in front of you, and they all kind of have different ideas and things. But it was a very positive challenge because it’s not going left and right and backwards, but actually they all just expand the world,” Ciupek explained. “With them, it’s more world building, and it’s more in the abstract world. As a cinematographer, I add a fourth element into that world. It’s a very different, usual approach. I felt very lucky having been part of this because it’s rare that you do something so different.”
Rumours divides itself into day and night sections. The day-set sequences are filmed in idyllic, almost artificial settings reminiscent of 1950s-set films (think Douglas Sirk). Ciupek shot the film with a digital camera, but he gave the finished project a diffused, slightly glowing look. It needed to feel grounded but not in a documentary-like manner. Ciupek and the creative team looked to international cinema from the likes of Kurosawa and Bunuel as well as actual footage of real-world G7 summits (where we can safely assume no giant brains appeared).
One unique challenge during the daytime sequences was staging the actors around the G7 summit table within a gazebo. Ciupek filmed the actors approaching the gazebo in a park but relocated the set to a studio to carefully capture the conversational / discussion sequences. He also wanted to film them in close proximity to immerse the audience in the environment, so he and the production design team created the table and gazebo as a giant turn table.
“So all we did instead of reseating and moving the camera around, the camera stayed where it was, and like a revolver, we flipped the set by one click, and they played the whole scene again. The poor actors obviously were spinning around take by take, but this was the only way for us to film so quickly on a tight schedule — faster than television. They were shooting eight, nine pages a day, which is a lot. So, we needed to figure out what is the fastest way to move this thing around? Don’t move the camera, don’t move the props, just move the table and flip them in their seats.”
The nighttime sequences push the actors into a surreal environment, often highlighted with usual colors not typically seen in a forest at night. While scouting locations, Ciupek and team needed to imagine how the forests would look in the film’s atypical color palate and foggy atmosphere. The colors helped the film underscore its surrealist tone. For example, a nighttime seduction between two characters is improbably lit with purple hues, but it completely evokes a sensual mood. The fog that rolls in becomes fully green.
Ciupek relished the opportunity to work on the film and with directors would embraced his bold choices, pushing him further and further where other directors would want him to reign things in. It scratched a massive creative itch for the cinematographer.
“When I read the script first and focused on the lines and on the content, I enjoyed it so much for its surreal absurdity that I felt, visually, I can’t be below that. I have to heighten it. The script has so many incredible things that I felt I had to enhance it actually into something more. Then, you get into the mode of being actually more brave,” Ciupek shared. “By taking that surrealist approach to the lighting, you don’t worry so much about natural moonlight, right? The film is flooded with light, but it doesn’t have to look like moonlight. It can be anything you want it to be.”
Rumours is now playing in theaters.
