A couple of months ago, cinematographer Paul Guilhaume, AFC earned a Bronze Frog at Camerimage in recognition of his work on Emilia Pérez (Netflix). He and writer-director Paul Audiard were also nominated for the Golden Frog for their collaboration on the film.
The recognition adds to assorted plaudits this awards season, such as this week’s four Golden Globes–including for best comedy or musical feature, and best non-English language film–and a DGA Award nomination for Audiard for Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Feature Film.
Emilia Pérez is a musical, a crime thriller, comedy and drama rolled into one. It introduces us to a talented but undervalued lawyer named Rita (portrayed by Zoe Saldana) who receives a lucrative offer out of the blue from a feared drug cartel boss, Manitas Del Monte, who’s looking to retire from his sordid business and disappear forever by becoming the woman he’s always dreamt of being (Karla Sofía Gascón in a dual role as Del Monte/Emilia Pérez). Rita helps pull this off, orchestrating the faked death of Del Monte who leaves behind a widow (Jessi, played by Selena Gomez) and kids. While living comfortably and contently in her/their new identity, Pérez misses the children. Pérez once again enlists Rita–-this time to return to family life, reuniting with the kids by pretending to be their aunt, the sister of Del Monte. Now as an aunt, Pérez winds up adopting a more altruistic bent professionally, spearheading a nonprofit/charity for those who have lost loved ones due to foul play or other dire, mysterious circumstances. Along the way Pérez meets one such surviving victim (Adriana Paz) and a romance develops between them. Eventually, though, trouble enters the narrative when Jessi falls in love with a man, sparking Perez’s jealous, dark side.
The hybrid feature required a delicate balancing act for Guilhaume whose cinematography had to bring varied genres (musical, drama, suspense, comedy) together as one unified story. The DP found his experience on two fronts particularly helpful–an already established collaborative rapport with Audiard spanning episodes of the TV series The Bureau (Le Bureau des Legendes) as well as the feature Paris, 13th District; and select music video work for other directors which helped immeasurably in Guilhaume taking on his first full-length feature musical.
On the former score, Guilhaume shared that he came to understand Audiard’s aesthetic progressively throughout the different projects on which they teamed. Guilhaume said of Audiard, “He needs the movie to be in movement, in motion. He has an obsession for movement” which dovetails nicely with “truly the real meaning of cinematography–writing through movement, writing with light. Through photography, the world takes on its meaning, every day, every shot.” Even in a fixed frame–with, let’s say Gascón and Saldana in the foreground–there is movement in the background. “And if the movement doesn’t come from the camera or the characters, then the movement can come from the light.”
In prep and scouting, Guilhaume spent extended stretches of time with Audiard. They would imagine the shots, the film’s blocking. “Then we’d arrive on set and reinvent most of the things we had imagined….But we have this process of bringing it together,” resulting in what Guilhaume described as “a visual language to translate the emotions of whatever needs to be conveyed. The first step [in pre-pro and scouting] of trying to find the solution makes us so much sharper and faster on the [shoot] day to be able to react to the reality.”
Helping to guide the imagining and re-imagining of shots, continued Guilhaume, was he and Audiard asking themselves what is the emotion of a sequence. Identifying the emotion and concept helps to define the shots, thinking about “what visual memory will the audience keep from the sequence. We need to define it and work on it for each sequence.”
As for his music video experience, Guilhaume found that of great value in taking on a musical, giving him a better sense of choreography and rhythm–and fashioning the cinematography to capture and do justice to those elements. Guillaume’s music video work includes Rosalia’s “Saoko,” which garnered Best Music Video distinction at UKMVA 2022; Beabadoobe’s “Last Day On Earth,” named UKMVA 2021 Best Rock Video-UK; Headie One’s “Gang” for which Arnaud Bresson won UKMVA 2020 Best New Director; and Ye’s (formerly Kanye West) “Heaven and Hell” (for which Guilhaume served as co-cinematographer with Julien Poupard).
Rosalia’s “Saoko” also afforded Guilhaume the opportunity to work with Steadicam operator Sacha Naceri who was then recruited for Emilia Pérez. Guillaume described Naceri as “a rock star” of music videos and films whose strength of Steadicam movements brought a new dimension and energy to key sequences of Emilia Pérez.
The prime camera of choice for Emilia Pérez was the Sony VENICE paired with Blackwing7 lenses from Tribe. Guilhaume cited the light sensitivity of the digital VENICE camera and the texture delivered by the Blackwing7 lenses–not too digital, not too sharp, not too perfect, lending a feel of magical realism, particularly to the musical sequences. At times two VENICE cameras were deployed at the same time to great effect.
Guilhaume said that his experience on Emilia Pérez reaffirmed for him that the most challenging, ambitious project can be realized if you assemble the right people who are committed to the story.
As for what’s next, Guilhaume’s exploits include a film from director Arnaud Desplechin with a cast that includes Charlotte Rampling.
This is the 11th installment of our weekly 16-part The Road To Oscar Series of feature stories. Nominations for the 97th Academy Awards will be announced on Sunday, January 19. The 97th Oscars will be held on Sunday, March 2.
