The Meaning of Light for Luca Bigazzi

How would you describe the role of a director of photography?

That’s what can cause the whole crew and the whole film to waste time unnecessarily, because the director of photography works with something as insubstantial and imperceptible as light, so you can do completely absurd things – nobody will notice anyway. When I’m shooting adverts, I sometimes set up lights that are completely pointless just to keep the agency happy – lights that are aimed at areas I don’t even frame. And in the spot I’m actually filming, I might just put a single light bulb.

Did you always want to do this job?

Of course not – in the sense that I do it by chance, because I haven’t attended any film school. I’ve never worked as a lighting assistant (editor’s note: assistant cameraman) for anyone, nor as a camera operator, except for myself. I started out because Silvio Soldini and I were schoolmates at sixth form, sat next to each other in class and were friends. And when he came back from New York, after doing a film course, we decided to make a film together because I was into photography. It was a stroke of luck. I hadn’t even thought of becoming a photographer: I didn’t know what I wanted to do. I was studying history and philosophy at university, perhaps to follow in my brother’s footsteps, as he’d studied history. I liked photography, I liked architecture, and perhaps my obsession with the geometry of image composition and camera positioning stems from that. For me, it’s more important to be a camera operator than a director of photography. I’m a camera operator; then, unfortunately, I have to set up the lights as well.

But did he realise earlier on that he had a particular sensitivity to light?

No, of course I was obsessed with the cinema. I used to go to the cinema every day, and even every morning when I was at secondary school. Because there was a cinema, the Rubino, which opened at 11, so instead of going to school, I’d go to the cinema. I was interested in cinema not so much from the point of view of lighting – certainly from a photographic perspective – but also as a means of telling stories, including social and political ones, because those were the late 1970s. The New American Cinema and the New German Cinema were just beginning. In short, cinema was beginning to be made that was much more closely tied to reality than what had been known as Italian Neorealist cinema – which, in truth, wasn’t all that realistic. What emerged in the 1970s was a cinema that was much more political, much more personal, and much more in tune with the times. My cinematic influences weren’t those of the past, but those of the 1970s, a period undergoing radical change thanks in part to the portability of the new cameras and the more sensitive film stock available, which allowed us to make films more grounded in reality, with a more documentary-like style. The other day, Silvio (Soldini, ed.) sent me two photos from when we were shooting our first film...

He shows one to the writer: there is a car, presumably an old Cinquecento, with a boy hanging from the back, his legs dangling over the edge. That boy is Luca Bigazzi...

This here is Silvio, hanging from a car connected to the camera, which was in turn attached by a rope. This is me hanging above the car with someone holding me up: that’s the sort of slapdash job it was. A film shot amongst friends: Silvio’s brother was the assistant cameraman, a very skinny friend of mine was the stagehand, I was the director of photography, and the production company we set up was called Bilico Film because everything we hung up ended up collapsing. Later, our company joined forces with other small independent production companies from Milan and Turin, including Daniele Segre’s, who is sadly no longer with us. I started working with them, then with others, and then I was lucky enough to meet Mario Martone on *i* *Morte di un matematico napoletano* . And then… I ended up doing this job without ever having studied anything, but perhaps thinking that, in fact, what matters most isn’t the technique, but what you read, what you listen to, what you see in reality, what you think, and the politics you engage in. When a director talks to you about a film, or when you analyse a film, you have to understand the social, political and cultural context in which it is set.

Have you ever found that, after a film had been printed, the result was different from what you expected?

No, because I do the printing myself. It so happened that in Death of a Neapolitan Mathematician, a very low-budget but period-piece film, I tried to create a certain atmosphere by giving some of the colour scenes a yellowed look, applying a yellow filter to both the black-and-white and colour footage. When we sent the test print to the Roman processing lab, where Storaro’s printer was based, he rang the production team to ask who this idiot was who’d put a yellow filter and black-and-white effects on the colour footage. Well, in short, I’ve always done things that are a bit odd, shall we say… There’s a scene I really love in Sorrentino’s *i* *Divo* , in which Servillo, who plays Andreotti, is locked inside a car; it’s raining outside and the car door won’t open. We’d set up the whole scene with orange lighting and fake rain: the light illuminates the bar, the rain, the scene and everything around it. Toni Servillo gets into the car and I realise I hadn’t put any lights inside, because I’d only thought about the exterior. Since I couldn’t say, ‘Sorry, I forgot to light the interior’, I stuck two Chinese LEDs – which cost 2 euros each and had a bluish-greenish glow – to the car’s ceiling. I thought to myself: ‘Oh God, this is going to be a disaster’ – but instead, that very different light inside the car actually emphasised the character’s isolation even more. So mistakes aren’t necessarily a source of innovation, but they can be surprising.

His work as a director of photography has changed significantly with the advent of new technologies. He is a great fan of digital cameras...

I’m also a mobile phone enthusiast. I’ve had enough of this bureaucratic and expensive obsession with lenses, not to mention the hatred I feel for those who still shoot on film. Even today, I see my colleagues spending weeks testing to work out which lenses and cameras to use, but they’re just wasting their time. During the colour grading stage, you can sort it all out. It’s very difficult to film with a mobile phone – much more complicated than with a normal camera – in the sense that there are various issues with focus, lighting and reflections from streetlights. But there’s a film, My Family in Taipei by Shih-Ching Tsou, which clearly illustrates the advantage of using a mobile phone as a camera. The film follows a young girl as she runs and spends the whole night in the Taipei market: the night-time scenes were shot with an iPhone 15, primarily due to budget constraints, and secondly because of the advantage of it being an inconspicuous device. You need to adapt it with a few tweaks: you have to add some equipment, namely two handles on either side of a hard drive that expands the memory, as the mobile phone cannot accommodate an extra battery. Filters are also required because, when filming outdoors, it’s better to use a filter rather than adjust the shutter (shutter editor’s note). This kit costs 500 euros, on top of the cost of the phone. With the hard drive added, you can film as much as you like.

This is a highly progressive stance...

I think it’s a political issue. At this particularly difficult time, both politically and economically, for those who want to make films – and especially for young people. I think we need to forge new, independent paths, and this can be done much more easily than when I started out in the 1980s. Back in Silvio Soldini’s day, it was incredibly hard to get hold of a 16mm film reel – the quality was appalling and it cost a fortune. Of all the hardships young people face today in our country – and, indeed, around the world – this is one advantage that my generation didn’t have. One of the main problems in our country is the lack of regard for young people: they aren’t paid and aren’t truly valued. I repeat: it is a political problem and an economic one, in the sense that the younger generations are far more intelligent than ours, far better educated and far more curious, and they must free themselves from these shackles. At the very least, those who want to make films must free themselves from the shackles of prehistory, archaeology and technical knowledge that are no longer of any use.

What do you teach your young film students?

Often at film schools, such as the Civica in Milan where I teach, students are obsessed with techniques, camera angles and lenses. I believe they should learn to use them whilst being aware that there is always the option of throwing it all away. We’ve shot some short films together using mobile phones. A documentary about the Vele di Scampia, filmed amongst the real residents, was shot using two mobile phones, and the people weren’t the least bit self-conscious. But this also happens in small fiction films. We shot one such fictional film at Spintime, the recreational and residential centre in Rome, which has now been cleared: in the film, an actor mugged an actress and the people around him wanted to beat him up, which just goes to show how invisible the mobile phone is as a camera. With a mobile phone, you can’t achieve a result that’s absolutely equivalent to what you get with traditional cameras, but it’s still very effective. With Milano Film Network, we shot a documentary on the plight of young people. I divided 18 young people into three groups of six and gave each group a mobile phone; they then filmed interviews about young people’s lives and the difficulties they face, entirely on their own, without my involvement. It’s wonderful and very intimate because it removes some of the pretence. Those being interviewed feel much more at ease because the spaces are smaller, without the bulk of a camera. We all go about our lives with our mobiles glued to our faces; we’re constantly making videos, and if you’re filming with a mobile, there’s absolutely no awkwardness.

I explain to my students that regardless of the quality of the light, it is the position of the camera and the actors that makes any light interesting. In other words, the camera’s position makes the light interesting, regardless of what that light is like.

Does this happen in your professional life as well?

We made a documentary with Luca Lucini on The Last Supper by Leonardo. Inside the Last Supper, I used a professional camera, whilst the interviews in London and Milan were filmed handheld using three mobile phones. They’re perfect – indistinguishable from the footage shot with the Red, our professional camera. Being able to work with three mobile phones capturing three different angles simultaneously means the interviews can be edited together much more seamlessly. The cost savings are also enormous: just think of the difference compared to using three cameras with assistants, a tripod, lighting…

For the film I’m currently shooting in New York, which has a very lavish production, I made the advert (a short video to promote the film and attract audiences to cinemas or streaming platforms – Ed. ) using my iPhone. It had to be shot before filming began. I said, ‘But why do we have to shoot it with a camera and the whole crew?’ They listened to me, we went to Central Park with four people eating fried chicken, and it went really well. The production team were quite taken aback, but they agreed with me.

What is it like to work abroad?

I find it a bit of a struggle to make films abroad; and now, this film in New York makes me feel a bit self-conscious, partly because of the language. The set is a marvellous, incredible collective cultural endeavour, a collective artistic creation, and it’s a place where it’s very important to listen to everyone at the same time – even someone speaking in English ten metres away from you. I speak English, but I can only really listen to one person at a time, and not being able to take in the whole picture causes me a great deal of distress. So I’ll try to do things differently from what they expect. They’re already asking me where we’ll put the lights; I reply that I don’t know, that I don’t even know if we’ll switch on a light at all – all I need is a single light bulb. They look at me a bit bewildered.

Have you ever found yourself reading a screenplay, accepted the job, and then realised that the film doesn’t work?

It’s difficult to generalise, though; let’s just say that it’s very unlikely that an unconvincing screenplay will become a good film simply because it’s been well shot: if the screenplay doesn’t convince you, it’s almost certain that the film won’t work, even if you make it with great formal elegance. I continue to see wonderful Italian films, made on shoestring budgets, such as Ciao bambino by Edgardo Pistone from 2024, a beautiful Neapolitan film in black and white, shot on 16 mm. There are many worthy Italian films which, unfortunately, do not receive the recognition they deserve. There is a new generation of Italian directors who are producing some very interesting work.