Christopher Doyle: A class apart

At the Jio MAMI 17th Film Festival, eminent cinematographer Christopher Doyle held a masterclass, where he spoke about his life and work spanning over three decades

In the world of moving images, cinematographer Christopher Doyle is an important name, and on the fifth day of Jio MAMI Film Festival the queue would have reiterated just that. Doyle had come for a masterclass along with his new film Hong Kong Trilogy: Pre-school, Preoccupation, Preposterous. After the screening, Chris came in for a two-hour long session titled Christopher Doyle C for Cinema. For many cinema lovers, this was the opportunity to get closest and take lessons from “the Asian Jack Kerouac,” as American filmmaker Gus Van Sant lovingly described him once.

Although he has collaborated with many Western filmmakers like Gus Van Sant, M Night Shyamalan, Jim Jarmusch, Christopher is most notable for his work with Hong Kong auteur Wong Kar-wai, filming arguably some of the most memorable shots in the history of cinema, be it depicting the back lanes of Hong Kong or the aerial shots of Iguazu Falls in South America.

The theatre was teeming with anticipation and enthusiasm from several aspiring filmmakers, as well as peppered with eminent faces from Indian film fraternity. He brought in his stylishly shambolic self and a cricket bat, which he kept brandishing from time to time and set the premise for the next two hours —“PPP”— a term that he admitted to have borrowed from a friend. “This is what I am going to talk about cinema in this session, elements that I believe are the most essential—personal, poetic and political,” he began.

Born in the suburbs of Sydney in 1952, he said that he was “conceived in the back of a Holden sedan at Bondi beach.” At 18, he set sail as a merchant navy cadet and left Australia. After spending considerable time in India (at Bodh Gaya), he eventually gravitated towards China. “It was in India I realised that I need to know a culture from the scratch, a culture that I had absolutely no idea about. In a way India made me what I am,” he said. “And this was possible only through language, so I enrolled myself in the Chinese University of Hong Kong for a course in literature.”

Throughout the session he kept oscillating between the personal and professional. “There are no films today, only franchises,” he continued about big budget films and genuine disinterest in studio filmmaking. “Cinema is not just entertainment but also moving images,” he floated the idea, juxtaposing it by playing a clip from Derek Jarman’s swan song Blue (a film that he often sites as his favourite).

He continued as he started explaining his method collaboration with other filmmakers. Talking about his process of collaboration, he pointed out how it is very important for him to be “friends first.” “Rather than working with a*****es, I prefer to work with people whom I like. And all of my collaborators have been friends first and then colleagues,” said the self-described Keith Richards of cinematography.

With his tongue-not-so-firmly-in-cheek, the almost-self-taught cinematographer, Christopher cites Alan Watts and recreational drugs as the two most influential factors in his life and work. “Colour is mescaline,” he quipped, as the young audience roared in unision. He shared an anecdote of how he and a few crewmembers once, while working on a music video for Sigur Ros in Iceland, went for location scouting tripping on acid consequently saw a white wall filled with colours.

Though he raised some questions on the future of cinema with “Harry Potter 75 and Youtube” echoing several filmmakers and scholars worldwide, he hardly had any answers.

To elucidate the job of a cinematographer, he shared his working experience with Kar Wai. “One day in the sets he would suddenly ask me things like ‘What does Tropic of Capricorn mean ’ or ‘Doesn’t that (Zappa) song remind you of Main Street ’ and you don’t know how to react. That is precisely the task of a cinematographer—to find meaning to the ambiguity of the director—we need to take words and give them residence. The point is to reach from point A to point B and celebrate everything in between.”

Towards the end of the session, he spoke more about his method. He dismissed the idea that his work has style. “It’s not style, I have a certain responsibility towards the spaces,” he said.

The session proceeded with clips of his body of work; he confessed his admiration for filmmakers Steve McQueen and Mark Cousin. Christopher, who calls himself an “honorary Asian”, hinted on a longer masterclass. “Next year if you guys call me, I will do a seven hour–long session,” he said, as the crowd welcomed the idea with applause.

Though the session was anything but technical, in fact, he tried hard to make us believe how he abhors the technical aspects of filmmaking, perhaps the biggest pearl of wisdom that came from the image maker was, “The point is not to make art but to become an artist.” The two-hour session showed everyone in the room that he lives by this principle only.