mark romanek
by shari roman

08.02

mark romanek has culled armloads of awards and praise for his work with the likes of beck, madonna, the eels, david bowie, and nine inch nails. "even so, it's still weird for me when people view me as this slick hotshot music video director," he says, biting into his muffin, then brushing the crumbs off his blue jeans. "and when they send me these scripts to look at, loopy adaptations of manga graphic novels, musical revivals, i know they can't really be looking at my work."

it may have all begun, romanek says, when he was a teenager in a progressive public high school which offered a four year film program, courtesy of the nearby art institute of chicago. this being the late '70s, they screened acres of wild 'n' wiggly experimental non-narrative short cinema. then one day, they showed a four-minute film by stan brakhage and romanek's view on the architecture of life–of shape, light, and sound–was forever altered.

"It was this piece called 'mothlight' (1963)," he recalls. he comfortably folds himself deeper into a corner couch inside a darkened sunset strip coffee house and gazes out into the hot, shiny street. "there was no camera used. brakhage took all the light fixtures around his house and emptied them of all the detritus inside; leaves, buglegs, wings, parts of butterflies. He then glued them directly onto a strip of unexposed film and made this amazing kind of textured pattern, a rayogram of shapes. ever since, i've always tried to appreciate that film is a very hands-on, pliant entity. Even though we digitize, edit on a computer...in the back of my head, as i'm shooting, I'm very much aware of its physicality. that in capturing the light, the film process is causing impressions on these images on layers and layers of emulsion. somehow, seeing that short film has had an impact on everything i do. And especially on 'one hour photo'."

in this long-awaited follow-up to his static (1985)–in which an eccentric worker at a bible belt crucifix factory (played by cowriter/actor keith gordon) invents a device he claims can show pictures of heaven–romanek gifts robin williams with his most challenging character work to date. And williams delivers brilliantly in kind. part thriller, part psychological drama, part dark love story, the actor checks his usual tricks and disappears headlong into sy parrish–possibly the most fastidious one hour photo developer in the entire savmart discount store chain. flawlessly lensed by cinematographer jeff cronenweth, wound into a tasty electronic score by reinhold heil and johnny klimek (run lola run), sy is one of the invisible multitudes of minimum-wage forgettables. pale as a formica counter, hair thinned down to an obsequious fringe, with a trembling smile, he melts as one into the plastic shelving, the lawn equipment, the florescent lights. the only thing that sets him apart from the tupperware is his unstinting pride in his work and his obsessional adoration for the affluent, beautiful yorkin family: nina (connie nielsen), will (michael vartan) and nine-year-old jake (dylan smith), whose hundreds of "perfect" suburban upper-middle class moments he has printed and surreptitiously copied for his own collection over the years. it's no wonder he has come to think of them as his "family."

"I'm a long-time fan of those paranoid lonely man movies from the 1970s, like 'the conversation,' 'taxi driver,' 'the tenant,'" explains romanek. "And I've also always been fascinated by those ubiquitous 24-hour discount emporiums. It is the perfect banal place to set an american film–scarily overlit and always overstocked with muzak, which never ever stops playing. And who gets the most interesting job there?" he offers triumphantly, "the photo clerk, of course. all three acts just flooded into my brain. here's a guy with no family, and not a lot of money. He is always going to be inundated with people's lives, lives that seem richer, more joyful than his. And in that way, the film is structured almost like a bolero. It starts very slowly, states a theme, and then builds, layer upon layer. The tension mounts...more and more passion comes into the film and swells...until everything reaches the breaking point.

romanek confesses that even at his stage of writing/directing "expertise," the learning arc was massive. He laughs, "I've been wanting to do this since i was around 14 years old, but i was still shocked at how hard it was, and still is. videos are big and flashy, but they are only a five week commitment. And even though 'one hour photo' is kind of a minimalist piece, the work involved is going on three years of my life." romanek unconsciously arches his hands into the air; they make a dark, spidery silhouette pushing against the morning light. "It was such a vote of confidence for me that robin did this movie. maybe it's taken so long, because i feel a tremendous responsibility that we do right by him and pull together the most exquisitely detailed film that we could. i think he's learned a few things as well. He went and spent three days at the agfa headquarters in burbank. he's so good, he's probably able to go and work the one hour photo counter now."

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