Stanley Kubrick asks Robert Altman about McCabe & Mrs. Miller's Opening Scene

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McCabe & Mrs. Miller (1971)

[jthood]

I love how this simple conversation shows a crucial difference between two great filmmakers.

[sebastianbarbera]

In technical terms, Kubrick is asking him how he exposed for the cigar. This is a time before video monitors [for film cameras], let alone a digital viewfinder. Precise exposure was accomplished with a light meter. You only watched your footage after it was chemically processed into dailies, often a day later. So Kubrick is asking how he knew he had it in the moment, when he couldn't actually see the final result.

Optical viewfinders can really fool you. And a source as small and dim as a cigar is difficult if not impossible to measure with a light meter too. So if your goal as a cinematographer is to expose for the glow of the cigar you need to create conditions that allow you to make the cigar seem brighter. This means you want to shoot wide open (widest possible aperture). To do that while not over exposing, you need to shoot at dusk so that when you open up, you're going to maximize the ambient light without blowing everything out. This is extra difficult if you can't use additional lighting. The only film lighting in this scene is at the end where the left side of his face receives a kick from a light off to the right of the camera.

Without this technical context Kubrick sounds neurotic, or almost foolish. Really Kubrick is asking something very specific. He's about to go shoot a whole film lit by candles, and he's scrounging around for tips and tricks. The fact that Altman shot it himself further explains the conversation as well. If it was a cinematographer's job to get this shot, he would probably not have winged it. Because if it didn't get the shot he would have been responsible for wasting resources and would look incompetent. But as director Altman didn't have that burden, his level of effort reflected the level of importance he put on the intended effect, which clearly was relatively small. It was a little touch, not a big deal.

This shows Kubrick's level of hands on technical experience and hunger for knowledge, not neurosis. This is a magician asking another magician how he did a trick, in this case Altman is basically saying "I improvised and lucked out."

[fiarandompenaltygeneratorm]

How much money would you pay to eavesdrop on a phone conversation between Stanley Kubrick and Robert Altman?

[vivekanand]

Kubrick was a control freak, and Altman was more 'whimsical'. So, obviously Kubrick had a hard time understanding how Altman could just leave things to chance without knowing for sure they got the shot.

The truth is, this shot looks so beautiful in this film because it is an Altman film where some other shots (and even sounds) do not seem so perfect.

In a film like 'Barry Lyndon', that kind of a shot would hardly have stood out, since every shot in that film is like a painting.

[fredrik]

One of my favorite films ever! Shot outside the town where I now live.
I have a custom made wooden bench made by the son to one of the set builders who helped build the in-film town and sets.
I figured that relationship out after I got the bench made, from videos and articles on the inet. All based around the location of the Maplewood mud Flats on the Vancouver north shore.

[MisterWilliamss]

When Altman told Kubrick he just shot the scene without knowing what the lighting was going to look like until the film was developed, Kubrick said, “That’s not good enough, ” and spent the next year designing and building his patented light-sensing Kubrick-O-Meter, and the rest is Cinematic History…

[oeynvik]

Very cool analysis between two of the ultimates.

[hookywookywithmalarkyman]

The late lamented leonard cohen didnt want payment when they used his songs to add that mellow sort of sadness to this superb flick.

[Johnconno]

HeyBob, Stanleyhere.Howd'youknowthatshotofWarrenonthebridgewasgood?Whoshotit?Youshotit?Wow!Notbad!Soyoucanoperateacamera?

[kristjan]

Where is this commentary from? Is it from the criterion special features?

[madahad]

I've read many books about Kubrick and they never really delved into his obsessiveness on doing an absurd number of takes and this comment by Robert Altman makes me wonder if the theories that he might have had some neurological disorder that would cause this sort of behavior. I only started hearing these rumors recently and they are unsubstantiated by any real evidence, but for him to marvel at this simple sequence and unable to understand that it can be achieved with relative ease seems to suggest that he suffered from something. Being a very reclusive person I imagine few saw him at home and how he behaved. Was he this obsessive in his personal life? He was a complicated man who left his mark in the history of cinema.

[asielnorton]

i dont necessarily believe this story. obviously at this point film stocks and lenses were "slower." which means it was more difficult to get an exposure in low light situations. this is probably what kubrick was asking about. particularly given what he did in barry lyndon, shooting in low light situations was of interest to kubrick. but even then, your light meter would tell you if you were gonna get an exposure or not.

[sportsmediaamerica]

Looks like an iMovie incompatibility issue.

[Orgotheonemancult]

In other words, Kubrick should have called the film's cinematographer instead.

[krisscanlon]

Hmmm Altman got it with relative ease and Kubrick choked the life out of the art...two different auteurs...Kubrick was in disbelief that it could be done quickly and perhaps without so much obsession.