''Dil Chahta Hai'' changed camerawork in our films

Ayananka Bose,  the cinematographer of films like Dostana, Kites and I Hate Luv Storys, talks of five films that had outstanding cinematography.

Apocalypse Now
Apocalypse Now was shot by Vittorio Storaro, one of the legendary cinematographers of all time. What made Apocalypse Now’s cinematography remarkable was that in 1976-77, Storaro managed to achieve fantastic results without the aid of the modern equipments available today. Yet, cameramen in later years consider Storaro’s work in the film as a textbook in cinematography. The war sequences, especially the ones shot at night, had a certain finesse no one’s been able to replicate later. The way Storaro used lighting within the frame is a benchmark for many of us practitioners of the art to live up to.

Inception
What is remarkable about Inception is that its cinematographer Wally Pfister manages to leave his own stamp in spite of the fact that a lot of CGI (computer generated imagery) was involved. To light a room, that is rotating at 360 degrees, to make it look weightless, and then to make it look so stunning is no child’s play. Given the times that we make movies in, outstanding results can be achieved with the help of teamwork between everyone involved. Sound design, CGI and good cinematography come together to make Inception as effective as it is. Pfister could gone easily overboard with all those special effects at his disposal, but focused on telling the story, which worked for the film.

Sleepy Hollow
Sleepy Hollow was shot almost entirely indoors, and is well known for the results its cinematographer, Emmanuel Lubezki, attained with his lighting. To achieve shadowless lighting over a large space is difficult; there are so many light sources to mix and make it look like one. Also, the film had a number of scenes with smoke in them, and smoke usually gives away the lighting source in a scene. The production designer and cameraman of Sleep Hollow came together to achieve amazing results with the tools they had at hand, making the set look like some village in the outskirts of a city.

Dil Chahta Hai
Dil Chahta Hai, in many ways, changed the way people looked at Hindi films. Good production design, neat sound design, cutting-edge cinematography by Ravi K Chandran — it was the perfect example of teamwork. Any film before that was more or less shot similarly. A heroine was always shot in the same manner: extreme close up, with heavy backlight. So if you had Madhuri Dixit in the frame, everything behind her would be overtly vibrant, yet the long shot was not as brightly lit, bringing about inconsistencies. But in recent times, there’s a certain sense of consistency in how our cinematographers light their films, something that begun with DCH.

Charulata
Subrata Mitra is not just one of the most iconic Indian cinematographers, but also among the best in the world. The work he did in Satyajit Ray’s films is outstanding. You can see Charulata any time and you’ll be wowed by its inherent beauty. It was black and white cinema at its best. Mitra had tremendous control over his light sources and a lot of effort seems to have gone into it. Even though art direction wasn’t as polished in those days, Mitra had a visionary like Satyajit Ray guiding him.