Best Cinematography: Matthew Libatique for 'Maestro' (The Big Picture)

Summary

Podcast Summary: Best Cinematography – Matthew Libatique for 'Maestro'

Podcast: All Of It (WNYC)
Host: Matt Katz (sitting in for Alison Stewart)
Guest: Matthew Libatique, Oscar-nominated Cinematographer for 'Maestro'
Date: March 10, 2024

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Overview

This episode of "All Of It" is part of the annual Oscar-focused series "The Big Picture." Guest Matthew Libatique—a celebrated cinematographer nominated for his work on Bradley Cooper’s Maestro—joins host Matt Katz to delve into the art and craft of cinematography, the technical and artistic decisions behind Maestro, and his approach to capturing powerful, authentic cinematic moments. They discuss collaboration with Bradley Cooper, the unique filmmaking choices made for Maestro, its visual language, and the continued vitality of cinema.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Defining the Cinematographer’s Role

[03:25 – 04:51]

• What is cinematography?
  Libatique explains that while often associated solely with camera operation, the cinematographer is chiefly responsible for a film’s visual look, including lighting, camera compositions, lens choices, and overall technical execution.

  “The cinematographer is responsible for the look of the film. ...A lot of it has to do with the light as much as the camera.”
  — Matthew Libatique (03:25)

• He clarifies that on large productions like Maestro, he did not operate the camera himself, but did on smaller films like The Whale. The decision depends on the film’s scale.

2. Early Lessons and Guiding Philosophy

[05:06 – 05:54]

• Memorable formative experience: Shooting a music video at dusk, uncertain about light levels, Libatique learned that film can mirror the human eye, often producing beauty in unexpected conditions.

  “There is a way to make film see what the human eye sees. That’s sort of been a guiding principle.”
  — Matthew Libatique (05:32)

3. Collaborating with Bradley Cooper

[05:56 – 07:14]

• Libatique describes his second collaboration with Cooper as deeper and more intense; Cooper’s unwavering focus and dedication set a high bar for the entire crew.

  “You sort of match the energy of the director. And I would say Bradley was, you know, on a scale of 1 to 10, was like a 12.”
  — Matthew Libatique (06:35)

4. Aesthetic & Technical Choices in 'Maestro'

Black and White vs. Color

[07:16 – 09:54]

• The decision to start in black and white and transition to color was both technical and thematic—evoking cinematic eras and symbolizing the passage of time in Bernstein’s life.

  “The reason that it goes from black and white to color is that it sort of exhibits a time where the world went from black and white to color.”
  — Matthew Libatique (08:06)

• Technical challenges included reverting to high-level, heat-intensive lighting for black and white film—contrasting with the low-light sensitivity of contemporary digital cameras.

  “All of a sudden we’re bringing out the big lights that we don’t use anymore... The set gets hot, people start to sweat, makeup has to powder people down. We go back in time a bit.”
  — Matthew Libatique (09:15)

Aspect Ratios and Visual Metaphor

[10:04 – 11:26]

• Libatique discusses Maestro’s use of the 1.33:1 “Academy aperture” for early scenes, eliciting a vintage feel and visually enclosing Bernstein and his wife Felicia, emphasizing their bond. The film eventually widens to a 1.85:1 aspect ratio to express loss and isolation.

  “It was almost like hugging these two people in their marriage... When she dies towards the end of the film, the film expands... showing that Lenny is alone.”
  — Matthew Libatique (11:17)

5. Iconic Ely Cathedral Sequence

[11:41 – 13:17]

• The camera starts high above, emphasizing the grandeur and gravity of the moment—Bernstein conducting in his professional prime. The sequence serves as a rare full concert moment, culminating in an emotional focus on Bernstein (Cooper).

  “Whatever I did was just capture this beautiful thing that was happening in front of us.”
  — Matthew Libatique (13:13)

• Libatique describes the profound on-set moment when the London Philharmonic and Symphony Orchestras, some of whom worked with Bernstein himself, applauded Cooper’s transformative performance.

  “Some of these people worked with Leonard Bernstein... and they’re just applauding their performance. So, like, it gave me chills.”
  — Matthew Libatique (13:27)

6. Oscar Night & Reflections on Cinema’s Vitality

[13:50 – 14:42]

• Libatique expresses excitement and gratitude for his nomination, underscoring his intention to savor the recognition amid a strong field and a “remarkable year for cinema.”

  “No, I’m not nervous at all. I’m just, I’m excited to be there... It’s been an amazing year for cinema beyond Barbenheimer.”
  — Matthew Libatique (14:01)

• He remarks on the sense of community among filmmakers striving to keep cinema thriving.

  “It feels like there’s a lot of people of like mind all working really hard to make sure cinema lives.”
  — Matthew Libatique (14:33)

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Notable Quotes

• “There is a way to make film see what the human eye sees.”
  — Matthew Libatique (05:32)

• “You sort of match the energy of the director. And I would say Bradley was, you know, on a scale of 1 to 10, was like a 12.”
  — Matthew Libatique (06:35)

• “It was almost like hugging these two people in their marriage... When she dies towards the end of the film, the film expands... showing that Lenny is alone.”
  — Matthew Libatique (11:17)

• “Whatever I did was just capture this beautiful thing that was happening in front of us.”
  — Matthew Libatique (13:13)

• “It feels like there’s a lot of people of like mind all working really hard to make sure cinema lives.”
  — Matthew Libatique (14:33)

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Key Timestamps

• 03:25 — Matthew Libatique defines the role of a cinematographer.
• 05:32 — Guiding principle: Making film see what the human eye sees.
• 06:35 — On Bradley Cooper’s creative intensity.
• 08:06 — On the use of black and white and color to indicate time.
• 09:15 — Technical challenges and vintage lighting for film.
• 11:17 — Aspect ratio as metaphor for intimacy and loss.
• 13:13 — On capturing the cathartic Ely Cathedral sequence.
• 14:33 — On the communal spirit to sustain cinema.

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Conclusion

This candid, enthusiastic conversation showcases not just the complex craft of cinematic storytelling, but also Matthew Libatique’s passion for his art. His insights illuminate the deliberate choices and emotional resonance behind Maestro's acclaimed visuals. The episode closes with a celebration of collaboration and a reaffirmation of cinema’s enduring magic.

Transcript

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[Matt Katz]

You're listening to all of it on wnyc. I'm Matt Katz and I'm sitting in for Alison Stewart today. We continue now with our annual series the Big Picture where we speak with some of the Oscar nominated creatives who worked behind the scenes to make movie Magic in 2023. Our next guest had to juggle a lot while working as the cinematographer for Maestro. Mat Labatique was working with director Bradley Cooper who also had to dedicate a lot of his time to his performance as famed conductor Leonard Bernstein. Matthew also had to work both in black and white and color and in Two different aspect ratios. Plus he had to capture the magic of conducting. His work on Maestro, which focuses on Bernstein's relationship with his wife Felicia, earned him an Oscar nomination for Best cinematography. And he joins me now to discuss. Matthew Libatique. Welcome to all of it.

[Matthew Libatique]

Hey, thank you. Nice to meet you. Matt.

[Matt Katz]

Nice to meet you. And congratulations on the nomination. Very exciting. I want to get into the movie. Obviously, we're going to talk about the film, but I feel like I need to start here. For those of us who aren't necessarily familiar with the ins and outs of moviemaking and think we might know what cinematography is, can you just give me a basic rundown on what a cinematographer on a set actually does. Does and how you would describe your. Your role in making movies?

[Matthew Libatique]

Well, I mean, I think the camera that everybody is familiar with is kind of a shared object between the director and the cinematographer. Sometimes the cinematographer is responsible for the compositions of every shot, but generally speaking, the cinematographer is responsible for the look of the film. And that encompasses lighting and camera and optics and all things technical, but a lot of creative choices to go try to articulate a director's vision. So you're basically the old term for a cinematographer was the cameraman. But, you know, a lot of it has to do with the light as much as the camera.

[Matt Katz]

I imagine you're not physically operating a camera. You are moving around and looking at how the shot looks on a screen and giving some sort of direction in terms of, like, angles and all the rest of the technical aspects that go along with it.

[Matthew Libatique]

I mean, generally speaking, it's. When you're a cinematographer, you. You can operate depending on the film. It depends on the film. Sometimes something is much smaller where you're operating. For example, on the whale, I operated the film, and on Maestro, I did it. You know, I had operators. So typically, the film and the sort of style of the film and the size of the film dictates whether or not you are on the camera. But, you know, you still. You're still connected to it.

[Matt Katz]

Sure.

[Matthew Libatique]

By the lens choices and how you use the aperture on those lenses to create the looks that you want.

[Matt Katz]

Do you remember anything from your first ever cinematography job that maybe you've taken with you through the years? Is there anything you learned from one early project that you continue to think about and maybe incorporate in your work?

[Matthew Libatique]

I once was shooting a music video, and I was shooting. At the end of the day, we were out of light, and I thought we didn't really have enough light to expose the film. But when we got the dailies back. It was absolutely gorgeous. It was the best looking stuff of the whole, whole project. And I, I realized that, you know, there is a way to make the film see what the human eye see. And that's sort of been a guiding principle.

[Matt Katz]

Say that one more time. You can make the film see what the human eye sees.

[Matthew Libatique]

I realized that, you know, we were shooting at dusk.

[Matt Katz]

Yeah.

[Matthew Libatique]

With a woman walking down some train tracks. I didn't really think I had enough light, but we kept shooting any.

[Interviewer]

Right.

[Matthew Libatique]

And it ended up becoming the most beautiful image in the entire piece. And I realized that there is a way to make film see what the human eye sees.

[Interviewer]

Wow. Wow.

[Matt Katz]

You, you worked with Bradley Cooper before in A Star Is Born. Was there something different about working and collaborating with him on this project? I mean, he, it seemed like there was a lot more involved in really transforming into a real life Leonard Bernstein. It was there something about this collaboration that was deeper or different from A Star Is Born?

[Matthew Libatique]

I mean, it was, it was deeper just because it was our second film together and, you know, we had sort of a shorthand going in. But there was an intensity to it that was amplified because, you know, he really had to undergo a physical transformation.

[Interviewer]

Yeah.

[Matthew Libatique]

And that was, you know, played a part in his energy. It played a part and it also motivated him. He was very. He was extremely. I wouldn't say intense, but he was extremely focused and. But he was of a creative high level. Such a creative high level that, you know, everybody on set had to kind of bring it, you know, you sort of match the energy of the director. And I would say Bradley was, you know, on a scale of 1 to 10, was like a 12.

[Interviewer]

Right, right.

[Matt Katz]

I mean, this was really one of those films where you forget you're watching an A list actor. You feel like you're watching the, the real person that he has. He has basically become. It's really remarkable. Really remarkable.

[Matthew Libatique]

Yeah, I agree with you there. I agree with you there.

[Matt Katz]

What, what strikes the, the lay person about this, this film in terms of how it was shot is that the, the first half of this film is in, in black and white, and then, then you go to color. What, what was the thought process behind that and what kind of challenges might that have presented?

[Matthew Libatique]

I think, you know, we, we, Bradley and I tested a lot preceding our actual shooting of the film. You know, we did some tests of different formats, digital, different digital cameras, film stocks, and we, when we landed on black and white film, it just. Something spoke to us about it and especially spoke to him. You know, he's told me it's transported him. You know, when we shot, it transported him into the time. And the reason that it goes from black and white to color is that it sort of exhibits a time where the world went from black and white to color.

[Interviewer]

Right.

[Matthew Libatique]

So that's sort of the motivation behind the choices. But really, the black and white was. It's. It was just transformative in terms of space and time for us and really put us in the place where Felicia and Lenny meet for the first time.

[Interviewer]

Right, right.

[Matt Katz]

Is it. What. What is. Can you give us a little bit of the. The technical challenges involved with shooting black and white in a way we might understand how that works.

[Matthew Libatique]

Well, yeah. Well, you know, I'll start here. If you shoot with your iPhone, you. You don't really need a lot of light.

[Interviewer]

Yeah.

[Matthew Libatique]

Even at night, it'll shoot the sensitivity. So imagine having none of that sensitivity, and you're. You're starting with something that you actually have to bring a lot of light into to get an image. So, you know, because we're shooting. Because we've been shooting digital for the, you know, past whatever, 15, 20 years, we've been accustomed to less light levels, softer light, things that don't even get hot. And then now when we were shooting, you know, if we're shooting film, all of a sudden we're bringing out the big lights that we don't use anymore, and we're. We're having to bring the light level up so high that the set gets hot. And, you know, people start to sweat and make up. You know, we go back to makeup, having to powder people down. You know, we. We go back to. We go back in time a bit, and we're. And people are wearing gloves again on set, hot lamps around.

[Interviewer]

Wow.

[Matthew Libatique]

So it's. And, you know, there's. There's also a quality of light that changes because, you know, films look the way they look back in time because the lighting that was necessary to expose the film dictated what the films look like. And now we could do it on a digital camera. And again, you could walk into a mall and not need any light. You could walk into a restaurant and not need any light.

[Interviewer]

Right.

[Matthew Libatique]

But when you're shooting on film, it becomes a different story. And you bring things in and you're creating a reality through an artifice of movie lighting.

[Interviewer]

Yeah, right.

[Matt Katz]

I mean, the other technical, unique element of this, from what I understand, is that you shot in different aspect ratios. Can you explain what that means and how that works?

[Matthew Libatique]

The aspect ratio Speaks to the shape of the frame, the composition. You know, what you see in widescreen is called 2, 4, 0 or 2, 3, 5. That's a. That's a. It's a mathematical aspect ratio that relates to the horizontal and the vertical. Some films are 185, so that's actually not as wide, but taller. What we shot was 133, which is the original Academy aperture. It was the original Academy aspect ratio before films went widescreen. So we. It's a. Basically a square. For the longest time before HD, you know, TVs were 133 because that was the industry standard. So we framed that way again, just to sort of transport us in the. Into a time where that's how people saw the world. And then, as you know what I love about that, it sort of metaphorically felt like kind of an embrace of these two people within their sort of. Their sort of inner sphere, like these. It was almost like hugging these two people in their marriage.

[Interviewer]

Right.

[Matthew Libatique]

And when she dies towards the end of the film, the film expands to a 1-85-frame, which is wider. And there's more negative space showing that Lenny is alone.

[Interviewer]

Right.

[Matt Katz]

Oh, it's so interesting. Another. That's. That's an amazing scene. Another scene I wanted to ask you about that's been getting a lot of attention is a sequence at the Ely Cathedral where Leonard is conducting and just seems totally enraptured in the moment.

[Interviewer]

It.

[Matt Katz]

This. The shot begins from way up high and then it comes down. Why did you start with overhead view? And. And what were you trying to achieve just in general, in that whole scene?

[Matthew Libatique]

I just. There is serving two masters. I mean, actually serving one. It's not showing, like, his. We don't show him conducting that much in the film. Yeah, you see him at the very beginning, but you don't see a whole piece. And this is really the one time you see the entire piece. So it was about, you know, you're talking about a culmination of this man's working life. It's not even a culmination. He was right in the middle. It was his prime. And you're showing the sheer scale of this cathedral and the depth of it and the amount of people, the size of the orchestra. But at the end of the day, the camera moves in so you can sort of see this, like you say, his intensity. I think that the challenge in that scene really was that Bradley had transformed each and every day to Leonard Bernstein. But to conduct like Leonard Bernstein was the search. That was the. And he found it, he really found it. He. I think that what Pete, what resonates is that he really, he, I think he really felt like you're watching Leonard Bernstein. When you look at old YouTube clips of the man, his passion and his joy, I feel like you feel that in his performance in that particular scene is you feel that passion, you feel that joy. And you know, I think that's what the strength of it is. Whatever I did was just capture this beautiful thing that was happening in front of us.

[Interviewer]

Right. Wow.

[Matt Katz]

It must have been quite the experience to be on, on set and feel like you were maybe watching Leonard conduct in, in real time.

[Matthew Libatique]

The most amazing thing is of London Philharmonic was there and London Symphony Orchestra was there and they, they applauded him after that take. I mean these are people, some of these people worked with Leonard Bernstein. It's like, you know, they studied him, they played his music and you know, you're basically one of the best orchestras in the entire world and they're just applauding their performance. So it's like it gave me chills.

[Matt Katz]

Matthew, as I mentioned, you have been nominated for an Oscar for best cinematography. Are you nervous? Are you looking forward to Oscar tonight? Like, where's your head at?

[Matthew Libatique]

I excited, told myself I'm just going to have fun with this award season, you know, so no, I'm not nervous at all. I'm just, I'm excited to be there. I think it's an amazing class of cinematographers and films that have been nominated for my category and also for best picture category. I think it's a, it's an amazing year for cinema beyond Barbenheimer. I think it's been an amazing year for cinema.

[Interviewer]

Right? Right.

[Matt Katz]

Yeah. Cinema is not dead. Far from dead.

[Interviewer]

Right?

[Matthew Libatique]

Yeah, 100%. You know what it feels like? It feels like there's a lot of people of like mind all working really hard to make sure cinema lives.

[Matt Katz]

We're gonna leave it there. Perfect way to leave it. Matthew Libatique is nominated for best Cinematography for his work on Maestro. The Oscars are coming up next month. We wish you the best of luck and thanks for joining us on all of it.

[Matthew Libatique]

Nice to meet you. Thank you for having me.

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[Matthew Libatique]

All right, unc.

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