a pop image maker ponders the snapshot
by david hochman

08.18.02

to fully appreciate mark romanek's work as a film and music video director, it helps to see the photographs he keeps around the house. the walls of his home in the hills above brentwood, calif., are dotted with originals by diane arbus, robert frank, richard avedon and joel-peter witkin. he has sepia-tinged daguerreotypes from the civil war and an impressive array of vintage stereographs.

but it is the box of personal snapshots on mr. romanek's coffee table that says the most about his visual style. michael stipe of r.e.m. once said of mr. romanek that if you stand shoulder to shoulder with him and take the same picture he's taking, mr. romanek's will inevitably turn out better. indeed, the black and white candids of his famous friends and collaborators are small masterworks: mick jagger's reptilian mug emerges specterlike from a shadowy background. gwyneth paltrow looks like the human embodiment of sunshine. with his arms stretched out for a hug, the director spike jonze is re-imagined as a savior for the mtv generation.

mr. romanek's eye for images has helped him become one of the most influential and accomplished music-video directors in mtv history. his audacious videos for madonna, nine inch nails, janet jackson, beck and others are often more memorable than the songs themselves. now, with his first serious feature film, a thriller, he hopes to make a lasting impression on the big screen.

fittingly, his subject is photography. "one hour photo," which stars robin williams in an unusually understated dramatic role, tells the story of sy parrish, a solitary clerk at a photo lab, who becomes obsessed by a suburban family after years of processing its film. the movie, which opens on wednesday, is partly a homage to the "lonely man" films of the 1970's like "the conversation" and "the tenant," which mr. romanek was captivated by while growing up in chicago. but "one hour photo," which he wrote and directed, is also a meditation on how images — in this case, hundreds of snapshots of one family — stir emotions and ultimately distort reality.

"i've always been interested in how images communicate ideas," mr. romanek, 42, said during an interview in the sleek modernist house (designed by the architect a. quincy jones) that he shares with his fiancée, brigette mcwilliams, an r & b singer whose albums include "too much woman." "strong images have a dreamlike quality that lets the message seep in, right brain first."

whenever he begins a project, mr. romanek carefully selects photographs to inspire the work at hand. the grotesque medical laboratory look he created for nine inch nails's controversial video for "closer" (1997), complete with crucified monkey, was straight out of man ray, joel-peter witkin and the brothers quay. janet jackson's video "got til it's gone" (1997) recreated the luminous grime of 1960's south africa as seen in the pages of drum magazine.

for "one hour photo," mr. romanek returned time and again to a photograph by philip-lorca dicorcia of a mother and child bathed in sunlight in an outdoor shower. "i showed the picture to robin," he said, "and told him, `this is everything in terms of warmth and connectedness that your character can never have but desperately would want.' "

"i got it immediately," mr. williams said in a telephone interview. "mark has such a keen visual sense that photography's almost a separate language for him. a picture like that said so much more than if he had simply said, `o.k., do it again, but this time with more feeling.' "

the idea for "one hour photo" came to mr. romanek while he was browsing for photography books one afternoon two years ago. he suddenly recalled a character he had encountered at an all-night pharmacy near his first los angeles apartment in west hollywood. "he was this nerdy guy who sold nose-hair trimmers and ran the one-hour film department," mr. romanek said. "i wondered how he felt being inundated by images of people's lives that on the surface probably seemed much richer and happier than his own. it suggested a dramatic conflict i couldn't ignore."

for mr. romanek, who had struggled for years to find a viable feature-length movie idea, it was as if a creative dam had burst. he wrote the script in three weeks and, 10 months later, with financing from fox searchlight in place, was shooting the movie. the process unfolded so quickly, he said, that he barely knew what to think when mr. williams agreed to be the star. he said he had never expected to land such a big-name actor for a film with a modest budget of $13 million. (for comparison, the five-minute, spaceship-themed "scream" video that mr. romanek made in 1995 with michael and janet jackson cost $7 million.)

"i was never apprehensive about robin's acting ability," he said. "i knew it would bring a lot more attention to the movie, make the studio relax and be a subversive choice in its own way. the only hesitation was, since it is a small movie focusing on a bland, almost forgettable man, i knew robin williams the movie star would have to disappear."

mr. williams said he had no problem with that. "so much about this character is what's beneath the surface," he said. "mark knew what he wanted and i was happy to do whatever he needed me to do."

taking a cue from another favorite visual stylist, stanley kubrick, mr. romanek used stark lighting and close-up angles to capture every twitch and furl in mr. williams's face. "it's in-your-pores moviemaking," mr. williams said. "with that kind of intimacy, you really learn to trust your director."

that deference to mr. romanek's vision has been essential to his success as a music video director. the illusion the record industry likes to maintain is that artists create their image. the fact is, it's someone like mr. romanek who is largely responsible for the ever-changing look of a madonna or a david bowie. "musicians are usually really busy around the time a video is made," said mr. romanek, who is soft-spoken and dresses far more conservatively than the leather-clad rock stars of his videos. "they're planning a tour or putting a band together or in europe doing press. they're happy to put it in the hands of someone who will do all the work."

as mr. romanek's friend and fellow director david fincher said: "nothing is ever too much trouble for mark. he's relentless in thinking up new ways to make his work interesting, even if it makes his task extremely difficult."

for a recent video called "god gave me everything," mr. romanek strapped a 20-pound camera harness to mick jagger's rear end to "connect to that nonstop energy," as the director put it. striving for a perpetual flash effect in fiona apple's video for "criminal" (1996), he attached an $11 halogen lamp to the top of a camera — an idea "so dumb it worked," he said.

the son of a prominent chicago real estate developer, mr. romanek learned early to take chances with his lens. at new trier east, a progressive public high school on chicago's north shore, mr. romanek enrolled in an unusual four-year cinema production and theory program led by instructors from the chicago art institute. "they taught us non-narrative, independent experimental cinema," he said. he studied the films of michael snow, jonas mekas, stan brakhage, jean cocteau, kenneth anger and andy warhol. "i became a total film geek because on the weekends, i'd go see `jaws' or `godfather ii' or `nashville.' i saw `barry lyndon' 16 times. my parents started saying, `what's with this kid?' "

a film mr. romanek made a few years later at ithaca college in upstate new york was nominated for a student academy award. after graduation, he moved to manhattan, where he directed a low-budget independent film called "static" (1985), starring amanda plummer. at the time, the music video sensation was growing, and mr. romanek discovered he had a knack for it.

while other directors churned out dozens of videos a year, mr. romanek took his time, pushing the form to new levels of quality with videos like madonna's "rain" (1992) and lenny kravitz's "are you gonna go my way?" (1993).

even with his successes, mr. romanek sometimes feels the burden of his past. "a lot of studio executives hear `hot video director,' and without thinking they'll send me the action comic book movies or the 70's tv show movies," he said. "sometimes i think if martin scorsese was a video director, all the things we regard as his exciting and aggressive cinematic technique would be derided by half the critics as video flash."

but that state of affairs is changing. mr. romanek has seen his favorite music video directors, who also happened to be his friends, make the leap into movies. spike jonze ("being john malkovich"), roman coppola ("cq"), jonathan glazer ("sexy beast") and mr. fincher ("seven") all got their start on mtv.

the project mr. romanek most wants to do is a biographical film about the life and suicide of diane arbus. he has already written a script but says the studios aren't interested.

"i'm really eager to do another movie," he said. "i made so many mistakes from my inexperience, i'm eager to do the next one better."

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