Henri Alekan

“In my experience as a cameraman, it was quite exceptional to have to light up a surface and volumes that were so immense as those in the Berlin library. I was both very impressed and also worried when the decision was made to shoot in that location.

My general philosophy is never to argue with the director. I have only done so very rarely. I can't remember ever refusing to shoot any given scene - as certain of my colleagues had. Whatever difficulties were involved, I told myself: "Actually, I'm here to try to effectuate the thought of the director. So let's try to acquiesce to his vision." And Wim wanted this fabulous decor. But with respect to technical matters, it required a lot of equipment. And it was my good fortune to be working for a company that could finance my own needs, which were enormous. Since there was a lot of current needed, a lot of lights, a lot of gaffers to do the installations. Since everything had to be hidden. And in fact, you don't see a single light, despite the fact that there were scores of them set up at the location.

And it was difficult because we filmed in the daytime - but since it was winter, at three or four o'clock in the afternoon, it looks light night - we had to take whatever measures we could to prolong the day, even if we continued filming in the same direction as at the start. It was then decided - and this is one of the nice things about working with Wim - that as long as the daylight lasted, we would film in one direction, and when night came, we would change direction, and return a week later (since we could only film there one day a week: on Sunday). So there were in fact immense difficulties.

And in the end, I found that these were beneficial constraints, because something good always comes from having constraints. The same is true of painting. Painters who have no constraints don't produce anything extraordinary. I think that in all the arts, these constraints are present. And there are plenty of them in the art of cinema. So I acquiesced to these difficult conditions for shooting, and in the end I was rather happy with the situation.”
― Henri Alekan