Оюутны имэйлээс Роберт Ричардсоны тухай баримтат кино төржээ

Robert Richardson has spent decades answering questions about how he makes movies look the way they do. The legendary cinematographer is a regular collaborator of Martin Scorsese, Oliver Stone, and Quentin Tarantino, with three Oscars to his name — for “JFK,” “The Aviator,” and “Hugo.” But something caught his attention when a film student from the Czech Republic emailed him in 2016: Jana Hojdová wanted to know about everything else.

“I get a number of requests for this kind of work and I am not really interested,” Richardson told IndieWire. “There wasn’t one that was technical. It was who are you? Where do you come from? What’s your life like?”

Richardson started writing Hojdová back, and a decade later, their correspondence has grown into a friendship and Hojdová’s feature directorial debut, “Robert Richardson: The White Devil.” They’ve also got an ongoing book project, which aims to organize and share even more of the film’s underlying research: an intellectual arsenal backed by the vast archives from Richardson’s house in Massachusetts.

“350 pages and we are not done,” Hojdová said, sitting next to Richardson for a Q&A after a private screening of her film at Soho House West Hollywood on October 29. “This is our homework in Los Angeles,” she said. “That we need to finish our book.” Richardson smiled.

“No is not in her vocabulary. It’s a lifetime achievement here.”

Hojdová originally approached Richardson in support of her master’s thesis at Prague’s FAMU film school. The daughter of a director and cinematographer herself, she told IndieWire she also grew up watching Richardson’s films with her family in the Czech Republic. Richardson’s first response felt “life-changing” for Hojdová and, by the time she traveled to New Zealand to meet him in 2017 on the production of Baltasar Kormákur’s “Adrift,” she said she thought she really knew the man behind the movies. In person, it became apparent just how much Hojdová still had to ask.

“I started to capture everything that he’s doing,” she said. “He’s driving [his] car to the set, his eating, everything.” Watching Richardson work and go about his daily life felt like an obvious film to Hojdová, but Richardson was less convinced. “My life is not interesting,” she recalled him saying.

Still, Hojdová kept shooting, and after six months of discussion, Richardson agreed to the project on the condition that its director would be shown, too. At first, that presented a problem for the young filmmaker who, like Richardson, greatly prefers the other side of the camera.

“I don’t like my voice, I don’t like watching myself,” she said. “It was like, ‘OK, I will say yes, but maybe I will not really be in there.’” Then, the pandemic brought her and Richardson even closer.

In 2020, what began as a short visit to look through photos and records at Richardson’s place in Cape Cod expanded as Hojdová realized just how much material the artist had kept in his basement — and lockdown forced her to extend her stay. The two ultimately wound up living together for months.

“If we didn’t have COVID, it wouldn’t be a movie,” Richardson said. “It wouldn’t be the same movie in any way at all.”

Four years after first contacting her hero, Hojdová said she knew many of Richardson’s personal stories but had previously lacked the material to put them on-screen. Suddenly, she was surrounded by countless scenes that could go with his memories, and observing Richardson, effectively in captivity, for weeks on end gave Hojdová even more to ask.

“I said to Bob that he has to be happy because we are filming at his house and he doesn’t need to go somewhere to shoot,” Hojdová said. “We are there.”

“It was really hell,” Richardson joked. “I mean seriously, you were ready to shoot every day. I had an assignment every day.” Later in the conversation, he offered another description: “She’s a spy. She convinced me that it was cool to do this, bit by bit.”

Eventually, Hojdová faced 650 hours of footage and the overwhelming task of finding the feature documentary inside it. Shaping all that material meant deciding how much of her own relationship with Richardson actually belonged on screen. It wasn’t until Hojdová reached the editing room that she fully appreciated her subject’s original condition. Viewers needed someone to accompany them into Richardson’s world — and the curious cinematographer trying to understand him? She was the way in.

“I had to fight for me being in the film, which was very hard for me because I don’t like it,” Hojdová said. “But I realized it was a great choice because I think people can connect more with me than with Bob.”

The filmmaker’s plan to bring Richardson’s personal life into conversation with the all-timer movies he helped create presented another challenge for Hojdová in post. Working extensively with executive producer Matej Chlupácek, she had to secure legal permission to use dozens of iconic images. Finishing “The White Devil” edit meant beginning an extensive licensing process, with roughly 390 entries to clear.

“It was really a nightmare, but we did it,” she said.

Of course, Richardson — whom Hojdová warmly described as “impatient” — wanted to see results as soon as possible. Still, she said he trusted the process and, more importantly, his director’s judgment.

“She was very smart,” Richardson said. “Her choices were good. She was persistent and I thought working with her was a pleasure.” Really watching the film he was asking about? That’s another matter.

Sprawled out in the front row of Soho House’s plush private theater, Richardson said the October 29 evening in L.A. felt like his first real viewing. “The White Devil” had its world premiere at the Czech Republic’s Karlovy Vary International Film Festival on July 5 and will make its North American premiere at DOC NYC on November 14. But at Karlovy Vary, where Richardson also received an award, he said he was too overwhelmed to absorb the portrait.

“I was not in body — because, then, you’re sitting in front of 1500 people and they’re playing this film,” he said. “I don’t remember half of it.”

A thrilling and sensitive consideration of cinematic genius, “The White Devil” explores Richardson’s sometimes contentious relationships with crews, his evolving collaborations with elite directors, a deeply troubled personal life, and even his experiences with psychedelic drugs. But the difficulty of living with such beautiful and raw honesty became apparent during a sweet exchange between Richardson and Hojdová in front of the Soho House audience.

Asked about watching the film, Richardson said, “When I was sitting here watching it, I was like, ‘Oh, this isn’t bad. This isn’t so bad. We could cut that down a little bit.’”

“But how was it for you to see?” Hojdová pressed in response. Richardson paused.

“I don’t like watching this movie because it’s a very transparent approach to who I am,” he said. “Most times you would think the documentary wouldn’t necessarily have as much of the shadow side.” Hojdová reminded him that exposure was part of the understanding they’d reached together: “You told me that if this film can tell someone something, it needs to be transparent.”

Speaking to the audience, Richardson turned to the subject of his five children and, as he does in “The White Devil,” took responsibility for the personal connections he sees as damaged by his deep commitment to a demanding artistic career.

“Looking back on that, it’s very hard,” he said. “I haven’t been able to fall back into a good relationship with the first two. The third has become very close.” He also reflected: “I’m trying. It’s a long time when you’re addicted to one form of drug or another. You’ve got to wean yourself off that particular methodology.”

Richardson’s youngest gave him something lighter to discuss: “I’m pretty close to the three year old, but he’s a monster,” he joked. “He is worse than I was as a child. He needs to be sent away to school now.”

Hojdová herself has a three-year-old daughter, and the adult friends’ children were born only a month apart. Still, “The White Devil” director sometimes played the parent steering Richardson onstage.

“Did you learn something?” Hojdová asked.

“I learned pain and I learned that now I should try to work harder, try to make the family work better,” Richardson said. After 10 years, a student’s shot-in-the-dark inquiry had become a genuine discovery on both sides — with each artist maturing and educating the other along the way.

“She started in her 20s in this film. Now she’s in her 30s. It’s a long time that you grow together,” Richardson said of Hojdová. “She’s seen all the worst sides of me anybody could see. She’s probably been the second longest relationship with a female in my life.”

“Robert Richardson: The White Devil” screens at DOC NYC on November 14 and 16 at IFC Center.The film is also streaming in the U.S. through November 29 with the purchase of an online screening ticket.