Artistry in Balance: Fred Elmes, ASC

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​With an instinct for collaboration, the ASC’s 2020 Lifetime Achievement Award
honoree aims to serve the storytelling​.

“I have to be moved by the story, and I want to build a relationship with

the director that allows me to ask intimate questions about why the story
moves them.” — Frederick Elmes, ASC

Whereas some take a circuitous route to a life behind

the camera, the path of Frederick Elmes, ASC — this
year’s ASC Lifetime Achievement Award honoree —
At top, Fred Elmes sets a shot
was steady, straight and started at a young age, when
while filming the drama Paterson
his father gave him a 35mm Leica. Raised in Mountain (2016), directed by Jim
Lakes, N.J., Elmes immersed himself in still Jarmusch.
photography, which led to shooting 8mm and 16mm
home movies, and then to filming staged productions with friends and family.

“I grew up with movies,” he recollects, “especially Hollywood movies — musical

comedies, Buster Keaton, and Abbott and Costello. My brother and I saw The Day the
Earth Stood Still at a time when you could see two or three movies for a couple of
bucks, and I remember sitting through it twice because I really dug it.”

Elmes attended the Rochester Institute of Technology as an undergraduate; he studied

photo illustration, art history and photojournalism. His interests began to pivot toward
filmmaking during that time, and after graduating from RIT, he enrolled in the newly
established graduate-film program at New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts.
There he was taught by Czech cinematographer Beda Batka, among others, and worked
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as Batka’s teaching assistant and as a projectionist in the school’s screening room,
called “the Bijou.” Through that program, he met future collaborator Martha Coolidge
and future ASC colleague Tom Houghton.

“Fred was in the class ahead of mine, along with Martha,” Houghton recalls. “My first
week there, we had a Friday night screening of Husbands. [Director] John Cassavetes
and [actor] Ben Gazzara were there in our small screening room; Martin Scorsese was
standing in the back; and Fred was up in the booth.”

For Elmes, watching movies as a projectionist was as much an education as learning

about them in a formal classroom setting. He credits the films of Ingmar Bergman,
specifically The Seventh Seal (photographed by
Gunnar Fischer), with opening his eyes to cinema that
dealt with “bigger issues” than the typical Hollywood
fare. He notes that it was Bergman’s work with Sven
Nykvist, ASC on Persona that illuminated for him how
story and visuals could be combined to create a total
mood. “Bergman’s films convinced me the photography
was a part of the storytelling,” Elmes explains. “He tells
us something about the characters and drama through
the camera and lighting. That stuck with me as a more
interesting way to make films.”

Elmes graduated from NYU in 1972 and moved to Los

Angeles after receiving a fellowship at the American Elmes attending the ASC Awards
in Hollywood.
Film Institute’s conservatory program. He continued to
work as a projectionist there, and soon crossed paths

Ben Gazzara in The Killing of a Chinese Bookie (1976).

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“Working with John is where I learned to dive in and roll with the whole filmmaking
process, to be present and watch how a scene unfolds,” Elmes says of the famously
freeform director. “John liked the idea of a bunch of young people getting together to
make a movie. He despised anything that ‘looked like’ a Hollywood movie. He also
didn’t like to give people titles. On Killing of a Chinese Bookie, I got ‘camera operator,’
even though I did most of the lighting as well, and Don Robinson was our ‘gaffer’ — but
it was really all of us together doing everything.”

Elmes (far right) on the set of Eraserhead (1977). Behind the camera (center) is Catherine Coulson,
camera assistant and frequent actor, most notably playing The Log Lady in Lynch’s Twin Peaks.

While working on Chinese Bookie, Elmes began collaborating with fellow AFI student
David Lynch on his surrealistic student film, titled Eraserhead, a process that would
last about four years. “Eraserhead and Chinese Bookie were the first significant films for
me because they were features,” the cinematographer says, “and because of the bond
that forms during the time you spend in that constant give-and-take with the director.”

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 Actor Jack Nance in Eraserhead (1977).

Elmes has since enjoyed many such collaborations — and continues to do so. For 1983’s
Valley Girl, a Romeo-and-Juliet story about a sweet teenager from the San Fernando
Valley (played by Deborah Foreman) and a punk from Hollywood (Nicolas Cage), Elmes
was reunited with fellow NYU alum Coolidge. “The producers had bought the title
Valley Girl after Zappa’s song became a hit, and they just wanted to make an
exploitation film,” Elmes says. “The story and the charm of the film really came from
Martha.”

Randy (Nicholas Cage) and Julie (Deborah Foreman) in the mis-match romance Valley Girl (1983).

He remembers the production as being incredibly challenging, with only a 20-day

schedule and 60,000' of 35mm film at his disposal. “We’d work all through the night
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and then stay up to shoot the sunrise,” he says. But the myriad difficulties were beside
the point. “What was exciting was taking a story from the writing to something you
could share visually.”

“Valley Girl was a cheap film done with great artistry,” says Coolidge. “Fred wanted to
go further with color than just controlling it. All the way through, we had a unique color
design for each location, and characters even had their own colors. That movie is like
bubblegum — very pop.”

River’s Edge (1986), directed by Tim Hunter, was inspired by a true story about a group
of small-town teenagers coping with one friend’s murder of another. “We had an
amazing cast, and Tim was working from a great script [by Neal Jimenez],” Elmes
recalls. “It’s a gruesome story, but it happened. So, together we created the world where
these events could unfold, and that process was quite satisfying.”

Amateur investigator Jeffrey Beaumont (Kyle MacLachlan) finds a human ear — setting in motion
the twisted small-town crime drama of Blue Velvet (1986).

A similar underbelly lies beneath the small-town setting of Blue Velvet (1986), Elmes’
second feature with Lynch. “Creating a world with that dichotomy was wonderful,”
Elmes relates. He describes Lynch’s creative process as meticulous, noting that the
film’s opening scene — a slow-motion sequence featuring white picket fences, children
crossing the street, and firefighters waving from a red fire truck passing by — was
conceptualized and plotted out long before the cameras started rolling. “David’s process
was holistic; the camera movement, the light and the mood on the set were all
integrated with the way he directed the actors. It all became of the piece.”

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Elmes stands by over the camera as director David Lynch takes a look at their frame while shooting
Blue Velvet on location in North Carolina.

He and Lynch, who were honored with Camerimage’s Duo Award in 2000, continued
their exploration of light and darkness with Wild at Heart (1990), an erotic thriller,
road movie and berserk homage to The Wizard of Oz. Elmes’ photography sets the
screen ablaze. “The fascination with fire, the flames, the lighting of a cigarette — all of
that was in the script,” he says. “I did some early camera tests to see how dramatic a
close-up we could make of a match striking and lighting a cigarette. We made a massive
outdoor bonfire for the opening-title sequence against the wall of flame. It was a major
undertaking, and it reflects the enthusiasm we had for making our vision a reality.”

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 Working a crane shot, Elmes examines the camera as Lynch (left) observes the scene while filming
Wild at Heart (1990). The surreal picture would win the Cannes Palme d’Or.

Technical aspects aside, it’s the story at the core of the film — pure love vs. pure evil —
that continues to fascinate Elmes. He points to the memorable scene in which Lula
(Laura Dern) and Sailor (Nicolas Cage) are driving in rural Texas, broke, on the run,
and unable to find anything but bad news on the radio. Suddenly, Sailor finds a speed-
metal station. Their car screeches to a halt, and the camera cranes up to a wide, high
angle of the couple dancing on the side of the road as the burning sun sets dramatically
in the background:

“I still find the scene moving when I watch it now,” the cinematographer says. “The
funny thing is that it was all filmed in just a few minutes. The sun was really setting, and
there was no time to discuss the shots. We just went with our instincts.”

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Elmes confers with director Christopher Reeve while shooting the HBO telefilm In The Gloaming
(1997), for which both filmmakers earned Emmy nominations for their work.

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Elmes and his Gloaming crew set up an array of gels to simulate sunset as costars Glenn Close and
Robert Sean Leonard stand by.

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 Elmes and director And Lee on the set of The Ice Storm (1997).

A world away, in New Canaan, Conn., Ang Lee’s The Ice Storm (1997) follows two
dysfunctional families as they struggle to cope with thawing social norms in the early
1970s. Lee was just coming off the success of Sense and Sensibility, his first English-
language film, and Elmes went into their first meeting impressed by how different the
Taiwanese director’s films were from one another. “I had a great deal of confidence in
Ang’s ability to tackle a story about that pivotal moment in this country, even though he
had not experienced it firsthand,” Elmes says. “The human drama is what he fully
understood.”

Elmes’ art-history education came into play on the project. He and Lee drew their visual
inspiration from the Photorealist Movement of the late 1960s and early ’70s, specifically
the work of Ralph Goings and Richard Estes. “It was a painting style that grew out of
abstract expressionism and minimalist art. It tried to simplify the detail in things and
use architecture and light differently. Ang and I really connected on that.”

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 Lee and Elmes re-teamed for the Civil War drama Ride with the Devil (1999).

Lee and Elmes examine the lighting on a large-scale maquette of their titular star while making the
superhero drama Hulk (2003). The statue would not appear on screen, but serves as an invaluable
tool for the filmmakers, as well as a reference for visual effects supervisor Dennis Muren, ASC while
overseeing the creation of the film's CG star.

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 Elmes and camera operator Dan Gold line up a mirror shot with actor Eric Bana — playing Hulk's
human alter ego, Dr. Bruce Banner.

Another filmmaker with whom Elmes has enjoyed multiple collaborations is Jim
Jarmusch. Their latest feature together, The Dead Don’t Die, opened the 2019 Cannes
Film Festival, and they have teamed on several others, beginning with 1991’s Night on
Earth. Prior to that, Jarmusch had made a number of pictures with cinematographers
Tom DiCillo and Robby Müller, NSC, BVK. “Robby wasn’t able to shoot Night on Earth,
and I was a bit freaked out by that,” Jarmusch admits. “I wanted to meet Fred based on
what I knew about his films and the people who worked with him, so we met in L.A.
Afterwards, I heard that he told some people he felt I didn’t like him, which was funny
because I got the feeling he didn’t like me!”

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As director Jim Jarmusch walks along with (right), Elmes works out a shot with Steadicam operator
Mark Schmidt during the filming of the poetic drama Paterson (2016).

In fact, Elmes had been extremely impressed by Jarmusch’s Stranger Than

Paradise and was keen to work with him. “Jim asked if I wanted to do a feature film
made up of five short stories in several different languages, all taking place at night in
taxicabs in five different cities during the winter,” Elmes recalls. “I said ‘yes’ because I
thought it would be an adventure, and I liked his films. I’ve been fortunate to work with
him ever since.”

Jarmusch characterizes Night on Earth’s production as extremely complicated and says

Elmes’ indefatigable grit was instrumental throughout the shoot. “In Helsinki, Fred had
a variable-speed motor built to control the panning of our lights while we were driving,”
the director recalls. “Then we had the engine removed from one of the cars so we could
put Fred and the camera in the engine cavity. It was about 20 below zero, at night, in
the winter. Fred is just very tough and strong. Even if I want to call it, he’s ready to get
another setup. You almost have to pull him off the set sometimes!” Jarmusch notes
that Night on Earth co-star Gena Rowlands called Elmes “Young Freddie,” as they had
worked together 20 years earlier on A Woman Under the Influence. The director also
fondly recalls shopping for silk diffusions with Elmes in the lingerie boutiques of Paris.

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 Elmes during the production of the horror-comedy The Dead Don't Die (2019), directed by Jim
Jarmusch.

“Fred’s aesthetic sense is highly sophisticated, but he also has a very technical mind,
and those two things are in perfect balance,” Jarmusch notes. “One of my Native
American friends calls it ‘going down the river with your feet in different canoes.’”

Dead Don't Die ghoul hunters Chief Cliff Robertson (Bill Murray)), Officer Minerva "Mindy"
Morrison (Chloë Sevigny) and Officer Ronald "Ronnie" Peterson (Adam Driver).

Elmes has worked long enough and widely enough that there are regular crewmembers
he can call on just about anywhere in the United States or Canada. He cites New York
gaffers Jonathan Lumley and John Raugalis and L.A. gaffer Mike Katz as particularly
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invaluable. “They always know the right way to approach me with a solution,” he notes.
“The fewer words I have to use, the better.”

With recommendations from Haskell Wexler, Caleb Deschanel and Steven Poster,
Elmes was invited into the ASC in 1993. He has since been elected to multiple terms on
the Society’s Board of Governors, and is a current Board member.

Teaching an ASC Master Class session held at AbelCine in New York, Elmes checks his shot on a
model. A frequent instructor in the Society's program, he has also taught in Toronto and Beijing.

Elmes’ cinematography has so far garnered a Primetime Emmy Award (for the
“Ordinary Death” episode of The Night Of) and two Film Independent Spirit Awards
(for Night on Earth and Wild at Heart). He was also honored in 2017 by the American
Film Institute with their Franklin J. Schaffner Alumni Medal.

But as someone who sees his creative process as inextricably linked to that of his
collaborators, recognition for his own work takes a little getting used to. “When I start a
film,” Elmes says, “my hope is that I don’t repeat myself with an identifiable style, that

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my process helps the director see his or her film a little better, and that as a team, we
can get there together.”

Introduced by director Lisa Cholodenko — with whom he collaborated on the HBO

series Olive Kitteridge — you can watch Elmes accept the ASC Lifetime Achievement
Award here:

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