Christopher Doyle working with ‘In the Mood for Love’, ‘Chungqing Express’ and Wong Kar-wai

A married man and a married woman living in rented rooms of neighboring apartments realize the infidelity of their respective partners. They look into each other’s eyes whenever they meet, in cramped spaces and dark alleys.

His repressed sexual desire is brought to the fore in a way that is both provocative and sensual in his seminal feature by master Hong Kong filmmaker Wong Kar-wai, in the mood for Love (2000). But the man responsible for the lush visuals to capture the intimacy and emotional state that the characters share is Australian-born cinematographer Christopher Doyle.

Doyle first arrived in Hong Kong in 1971 at the age of 19. It was a city he fell in love with and would often be the subject of his on-camera sight for the next 50 years. He says that it was at this time that he first met with Chinese cinema; Doyle recalls the time he was fascinated by Taiwanese actor Hsu Feng, “I think all I’ve done since then is to try and celebrate such women,” Doyle said in a statement. Kar-y as part of Wong’s MUBI India retrospective, says in email interview.

Doyle’s first collaboration with Kar-Wai was for the 19991 film, wild days, but he was Chungqing Express (1994) which put him on the map, gaining international fame and recognition. Doyle is best known for his experimental approach to cinematography, while Kar-Wai has earned a reputation for filming haphazardly; They share eight movies together. It’s a relationship, Doyle admits, that’s as intimate as the one his characters share on screen. Edited excerpt:

You have always said that you are a control freak on the sets. What kind of psychic are you when you’re behind the camera?

Excitement. Magic. I’m like a kid in a candy store. How does a space enclose us; As an actor moves within space, light is reflected off faces and surfaces. It totally traps me, pulls me in and then we dance.

Some of your landmark films have come along with your iconic collaboration with Wong Kar-wai. Can you tell us how the connection happened?

I guess we have to blame production designer, costume and makeup guru, and later genius editor William Cheung Shu Ping. William and I had already worked on five films together, and then he suggested to Kar-Wai that the three of us work together. Our three personalities are so diverse that I think William was hoping for some kind of “creative fragmentation” between the three of us. I’m not sure how it became Fusion instead of Frisson.

But I do know that our individuality and our total commitment to our space is the reason why movies feel and look and resonate the way they still look.

Your collaboration with Kar-Wai has resulted in two masterpieces, Chungqing Express and In the Mood for Love. Both these films have been mostly shot in cramped apartments and dark alleys. How do you use the space in the movies you work in?

What you see is what other people call style. The spaces are real so the actors have to respond in the space. This is not a story world, these places live and breathe the story. Thoughts, feelings, and relationships are defined by the space in which they play out.

Our big challenge and the miracle of our collaborative instinct is to find the right place and make it suggest the texture and mood of the film. I think we make up stories to fill in the blanks in our minds and in our Hong Kong.

It’s been 22 years since In the Mood for Love was released. Essays are written on the film’s evocative images and precise camera movements. You, in fact, mentioned how Kar-vai cinema has always had variations of an idea…

, Laughing) how should I know? We never talk, we don’t need to. I want to carry forward what is at hand. William [editor], me and our team need to be engaged subjectively, doing practical work so that tax-waiting can be purposeful enough. As he has said, ‘Maybe I don’t know what I want. But I know what I don’t want’.

So the work is like a sculpture; We take a piece of rock/idea and try to remove what is extraneous or distracting. Anything that doesn’t resonate is of no use. Of course how this resonates is really a changing sand of possibilities.

Still from ‘Chungqing Express’ | photo credit: special arrangement

Hero is one of my favorite movies. It’s completely different from the car-y world and plays with colors. As a cinematographer, is there a switch for every filmmaker within you?

Of course you’ll need other ‘engages’ in your life if you want to grow. I am the gigolo of cinema. I’ve made five films in Japan (including the “Pink” film and an extravagant expressionist film with Alejandro Jodorowsky in Chile). What am I proud of religiously? rabbit Proof Fence means tribal integrity and so on.

Each film is about its time, place and the people who share it. It’s not about this movie or that topic; This is life that we all need to share in the biggest possible way.

Christopher Doyle | Photo Credit: MUBI India

This year you will be 70 years old. Do you have a sense of accomplishment, or contentment, both as an artist and as a person?

I am very proud that my name and the way I work and the energy we have to share often helps to make a film. I have 100 more films to make with young, first time and often female directors. If I didn’t stay in shape and wear tight clothes, don’t go to work on time and work out faster than anyone else, they would all call me a grandpa.

I’m not a grandfather. I’m Super Doo-Ke Fang, [the nickname he was given] which is like the wind.