A scene from Dancer in the Dark
(Lars von Trier), a film shot with about 100 digital cameras.
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All filmmakers can profit from
new technology, says Egyptian director Yousri Nasrallah. The only trouble is that
it may turn distribution networks upside down
 I made my fourth and latest feature film, El Medina, in digital
video on the streets of Cairo and in Paris. I was the first Egyptian director to
make a fiction film using this new technique. After the talkies, colour and the advent
of television, many people see digital video as the fourth revolution in the history
of cinema.
It already has talented aficionados such as Lars von Trier and the other Danish directors
who support his Dogma statement of film principles. Their watchwords: shoot with
a camera on your shoulder, use no artificial lighting to be as true to life as possible.
Such a doctrine could only come from a rich country, where creative people need self-imposed
restrictions to flower. We on the other hand have to cope with authoritarian regimes
and the dead hand of censorship. I’ve given up 35mm cameras not out of principle,
but for practical reasons. My budgets won’t allow me to do otherwise.
No easy images
Pragmatism means first of all not going on
about the film you might have made. Just do it, with every resource you can lay your
hands on. I have only one rule: I must keep my independence. For my first feature,
Vols d’Été (Summer Flights), made in 1988, I wanted a star from the
Egyptian big-studio system to play the wife of a landowner living in the 1950s who
hated [former Egyptian president, Gamal Abdel] Nasser. But she just wouldn’t accept
the part. Her fans wouldn’t understand, she said. Changing the script would be to
lose my independence. So I shot the film with non-professionals—an architect, a tourist
guide and a journalist.
Whether it’s amateur actors or digital video, once I’ve accepted the limitations
that I haven’t chosen, I have to sort out the problems they bring. And that’s what
I like. That’s where creation starts.
Technique is never an artist’s enemy. A painter will try goache, oil or wash drawing
techniques. You and the cinematographer on a film simply want the most out of the
camera. Unlike 35mm film, video doesn’t have depth of field: right close up or very
far off, you get the same sharp image. To give the shots depth, we tried to add as
much colour as possible, using painted walls and brightly-coloured clothing. And
we established the film’s visual style to suit the story of these people who watch
each other from their balconies.
When a new technology appears, we often start by asking the wrong questions. Digital
video is cheaper, so will it lower artistic standards? Not at all. The invention
of the pencil didn’t lead to standardized literature. Young directors have to understand
that there are no such things as easy images, only a less costly way to tackle problems.
But the fear that new techniques will make things uniform is understandable. Digital
video has given rise to a fashion that says because the cameras are light, you ought
to run all over the place. But do you remember Julien Duvivier’s film The Great Waltz?
The camera was big as a wardrobe, but it spun round with the greatest of ease because
the film required it to. Likewise, a video film sometimes requires fixed shots.
Doubts about new technology tend to centre on distribution, because there is talk
of cinemas showing films beamed in by satellite. For big films, shown in thousands
of cinemas, this method is justified. But the telecommunications giants are trying
to secure a monopoly. So what will happen then to all the “little” films produced
in poor countries?
The power of technology, however, always reaches a limit. For many years, we were
cut off from each other by television and its production methods. All of us: viewers,
producers and scriptwriters. But look at the credits of Fellini’s or Youssef Chahine’s
films from the 1950s. There were many authors—people who wanted to meet each other
and talk about life and films. It was wonderful. Today young filmmakers are rubbing
shoulders, working together and fighting against such isolation. The same desire
is there. And that goes for me too. Every film I make, I want to get as many people
together as I can.
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