would you say citizen kane had a flashy video style?
by sean clarke

09.30.02

mark romanek went from a lucrative career as a pop promo maker to direct the robin williams thriller, one hour photo. just don't ask him if this means his movie has a strong visual sense.

after about 20 minutes of mark romanek's first major feature one hour photo, it suddenly dawns that the principal character - a creepy suburban photo developer - is being played by robin williams. it's an experience akin to the sight of cameron diaz in being john malkovich: surprise that the actor has the range to become invisible, and still greater that anyone would cast them to do it. what, after all, is the point of paying for diaz if you don't get a blonde bombshell, or stumping up for williams and not getting some avuncular feelgood vibes?

romanek says he had no qualms about williams's ability to play the role. "the risk wasn't in his ability as an actor," he insists. "it was in this weird contradiction that the character was supposed to be this forgettable, nobody guy, who at the same time had to be compelling enough to carry a 100 minute movie. which is a contradiction in terms. but then you throw into that mix a big movie star. my only qualm was: are audiences going to be able to forget they're watching robin williams and be able to see sy the photo guy?"

it's one of a trio of darker roles williams has gone for in the last year, following his crazed tv presenter in death to smoochy, and his smug backwoods psychopath in insomnia. asked whether he thinks williams is trying to change direction, romanek tergiversates magnificently. "i don't think he was moving away from anything... i don't think it was so much a career reinvigoration, so much as that he'd just turned 50 and he realised he had to start finding some different sorts of roles."

one senses that romanek sees his own career at a similar turning point. an award-winning director of "thirty to forty" music videos, romanek turned 40 shortly before making one hour photo, his first film since a surreal and largely forgotten effort in his early twenties about a young man who builds a machine through which he can see heaven. he says he will carry on making videos "if there's a cool band or a cool idea," and reels off a list of bands he'd like to work with. except that none of these sound particularly cutting edge: coldplay, radiohead, u2. in a oddly fogeyish aside, he confides that he doesn't like "the music of late", that it has "got pretty vapid". he admits he knows he's getting older, "and needs bigger challenges now."

originally, i intended to ask him if he thought he was graduating, moving into the major league, now that he's making features, and whether he encountered industry snobbery as an upstart. maybe he's been asked this question too often, but when I ask - quite innocuously - if the muted soundtrack of one hour photo owes anything to a desire not to draw attention to his cv, he explodes. as much as a mild-mannered, bearded intellectual-type can.

"you know, there's a lot of generalising goes on about music video directors. but there are certain music video directors like david fincher, spike jonze, michelle gondry, and jonathan glazer who are really distinctive film-makers and you can't really pigeon hole them as music video directors, they're just great film-makers."

well we've started, so we may as well finish. does he experience snobbery? again, he does the yes-no shuffle.

"i wouldn't say there's snobbery. i would say that executives sometimes hear the phrase 'video director' and they just say 'ah well let's send them the new comic book movie', 'let's send them that action film', or 'let's send them the film with the pop soundtrack on it.'" he insists on the directorial abilities of his fellow graduates, before humbly concluding, "i'm excited to be occasionally mentioned in that group."

i suggest that the background in music videos makes these directors visually distinctive: certainly one hour photo is a very visual film, contrasting the bleached-out, colourless world of sy the photo guy with the rich, warm tones of the family he stalks. romanek bristles again. "movies should be visual. that just takes the fullest advantage of the medium. You wouldn't speak in pejorative terms about orson welles's style or martin scorsese's style. i'm not comparing myself to those people, but if they had done music videos before welles made citizen kane or scorsese made mean streets i suppose some journalists would say 'well, it's flashy video visual style'."

romanek may not be comparing himself to the cinematic greats, but throughout our talk he continually gives the impression that he's trying to break into the masterclass. one hour photo is an incredibly dark film, with undercurrents of violence and ever-present, but ambiguous, suggestions of paedophilia, but it never descends into the violent explicitness of seven. was this nervousness, a worry that to be too graphic would risk scuppering the film's box office potential?

"at one point in writing the script, i did take things a lot further. But then I felt like i'd seen that movie in the 20th century and it's the 21st century now, time to find some surprising paths. i never really wanted to make a thriller thriller." he wanted, he says, to challenge "the way these sorts of genre films play out."

before I go, i want to know if the stylistic use of photographic techniques and references in the film is autobiographical, if he's a keen still photographer. romanek says yes, he had a darkroom in his house since he was 12, and starts to compare the photographer's art to the film-maker's, in the broadest sense, bringing in costume and sound. he pauses, before reaching for a completely different metaphor: "you know, it's like you're a chef, and you've got all these ingredients, and then you have to find the balance."

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