With five ASC Award nominations, including a win in 2013 for “The North Remembers” episode of Game of Thrones, and six primetime Emmy nods for cinematography, Kramer Morgenthau, ASC finds himself once again in the awards season conversation, this time for two films, Respect (MGM, United Artists Releasing) directed by Liesl Tommy, and The Many Saints of Newark (Warner Bros.) from director Alan Taylor. Morgenthau has already earned a Camerimage Golden Frog nomination for Respect, a moving biopic about “Queen of Soul” Aretha Franklin.
Meanwhile The Many Saints of Newark, a mob drama about Tony Soprano’s coming of age–a feature prequel to the seminal HBO television hit The Sopranos–reunited Morgenthau with Taylor. The two have collaborated on such features as Thor: The Dark World and Terminator Genisys as well as the Game of Thrones series, including the aforementioned ASC-winning “The North Remembers” episode.
While Morgenthau has had a long-time working relationship with Taylor, Respect marked the cinematographer’s first go-around with director Tommy. The feature was also the first directed by Tommy whose helming pedigree had been in TV (Queen Sugar, The Walking Dead, Insecure) as well as on Broadway. Morgenthau discovered he had much in common with South African Tommy who like him grew up in Cambridge, Mass. “We knew some of the same people from there, were in the same circle. She was almost like an old friend,” said the DP who also shared with the director a great love of music and specifically Franklin.
As for what’s next, Morgenthau recently wrapped Spirited, a Christmas musical dance comedy loosely based on Charles Dickens “A Christmas Carol.” The Apple TV+ film is slated to bow come Christmas 2022. And at press time Morgenthau was headed to Atlanta to shoot Creed III, with Michael B. Jordan directing.
All this adds to an extensive credits list for Morgenthau. His other ASC Award noms also came in TV categories for The Five People You Meet in Heaven in 2005, Life on Mars in 2009, Family Limitation in 2011 and the Sleepy Hollow pilot (2014). His nominations were for The Five People You Meet in Heaven in 2005, episodes of Life on Mars in 2009, Flash Forward in 2009, Boardwalk Empire in 2011, the telefilm Too Big to Fail, also in 2011, and Fahrenheit 451 in 2018.
SHOOT connected with Morgenthau to discuss Respect and The Many Saints of Newark in greater detail. Responses have been edited for brevity and clarity.
SHOOT: What was (were) the biggest challenge(s) that Respect and The Many Saints of Newark posed to you?
Morgenthau: The music sequences (for Respect). In some ways a dialogue sequence kind of directs you to certain camera angles, certain ways of presenting an ensemble or two people on the screen. A song, though, is almost like shooting a piece of poetry, a piece of performance. We did songs almost in their entirety which is somewhat rare in a biopic, designing them visually, how to best cover them. It’s a bigger challenge than shooting a straight drama–creating for instance Aretha Franklin at Madison Square Garden in an epic concert, with thousand of extras, figuring out what resources we did and didn’t have.
At the same time, it’s one thing to shoot a concert and quite another to make it an intimate experience putting viewers inside the heads of the people in and behind the concert. We did that different times in different ways with a large number of songs….Of course Jennifer Hudson was brilliant (as Franklin).
Filling (with The Many Saints of Newark) the legacy of an incredible series that took place over 96 episodes in six years where a tremendous character and story arc could be built out in a serialized way. How are we going to do that–a prequel to the whole thing–in just two hours or so, adapting the language of TV to a cinematic experience?
And then there’s the pressure of the show itself, the high bar it set, paying homage to it while doing something different and cinematic in that same world.
SHOOT: What was your choice of camera for each picture?
Morgenthau: For The Many Saints of Newark, we wanted to honor the TV series yet open the story for widescreen cinema by shooting anamorphic. We went with the ARRI Alexa LF with Panavision T Series lenses.
For Respect, it was also ARRI Alexa LF cameras with Panavision T Series lenses. Dan Sasaki, the lens guru there (at Panavision), optimized the glass for the project. That’s why I love this guy and that place. You used to be able to do things on film, manipulate it photochemically at the lab, push it, pull it, different chemical baths. You can’t do that with a sensor. But one of the places you can be expressive is through the glass, optimized for these large concerts we were going to be shooting. It helps let you kind of feel what Aretha was feeling, what Jennifer’s character as Aretha was going through. With different LUTs, color science, the camera is a vessel you can steer the way you want.
SHOOT: What was the biggest takeaway or lessons learned from your experience on each film?
Morgenthau: One would be a broad push towards minimalism, a more ambient and environmental approach where you’re creating for lack of a better word a “vibe” for a world where these characters can exist and be believable. This (The Many Saints of Newark) existed in the North Ward and Central Ward of New Jersey. The North Ward is Italian, the Central Ward the Black neighborhood of Newark during a post-war era where lots of change is happening. The takeaway was to keep it simple and be expressive–not through broad gestures with shafts of light and making big statements photographically but through texture, color, realism, camera angles that really say something about the characters.
Similar to The Many Saints of Newark, we had very big shoes to fill for Respect, doing a biopic of an icon. We wanted to honor her legacy, to have viewers walk away feeling like they got to know this person, that they got to be part of an incredible experience. Photographically you want to do everything you can for that. I can’t believe I got to shoot this film. My biggest takeaway is that I am so grateful to have been a part of Liesl’s film, shooting Aretha’s legacy–talk about your dream job. Making this film is something I feel I worked towards my whole life.
