“Emilia Pérez,” director Jacques Audiard’s movie musical about a Mexican drug lord who transitions to a woman, obviously has a lot of different things going on.
It’s appropriate, then, that Oscar-nominated cinematographer Paul Guilhaume applied a kaleidoscope of techniques to the gritty, noirish, sometimes satirical and operatic melodrama’s Spanish-language song sequences.
The sequences, staged for the most part at Bry-sur-Marne Studios near Paris, required close collaboration between Guilhaume and Audiard, who had previously worked together on the much simpler, black-and-white romantic misadventure “Paris, 13th District.” Belgian choreographer Damien Jalet, film editor Juliette Welfling and, of course, performers Zoe Saldaña, Karla Sofía Gascón and Selena Gomez were crucial to making each production number pop.
Zoe Saldaña sings and dances in musical numbers from “Emilia Pérez.”
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“Some sequences, like the opening in the market where Zoe does her first big performance, Damien had plans for the right point of view on the choreography, where the camera should be at each moment,” the tousle-haired Guilhaume explains in a video chat from his home in Paris. “We rehearsed it in advance with iPhones and small gimbals. Then Damien, Juliette and I pre-edited.”
Plans proved futile, however, for Saldaña’s later big song and dance to the tune of Clément Ducol and Camille’s Oscar-nominated “El Mal.”
“The fundraising gala, where Zoe’s dancing among the tables, was much more improvised,” the cinematographer says. “When we first filmed the sequence, it didn’t have the energy the choreography had: We were staying too distant; the planned blocking disappointed. So we went with a much shorter, 20-millimeter lens on a Steadicam. The Steadicam operator, Sacha Naceri, Damien, Zoe and I just tried to find the right position for the camera on almost every one of her moves. Zoe’s character kind of dictates the camera and lighting movements.”
Audiard’s overall aesthetic, Guilhaume says, is focused more on movement than rigorously controlled cinematography.
“It’s very Jacques Audiard to film dialogue scenes with handheld cameras,” Guilhaume says. “He likes to bring movement and accident to something that wouldn’t have them if shot on a tripod or dolly.”
“It’s very Jacques Audiard to film dialogue scenes with handheld cameras. He likes to bring movement and accident to something that wouldn’t have them if shot on a tripod or dolly.”
— Paul Guilhaume
The scene where Saldaña’s lawyer Rita, who arranged for narco Manitas’ transition to Emilia (both played by Gascón), encounters her years later at a dinner party is a subtle masterpiece of ever-so-slightly floaty lensing, dimmed-out backgrounds and frame masking as the characters sing their concerns to one another.
“Jacques is the kind of director who has a signature shot, like Spike Lee’s dollies,” the cinematographer notes. “He calls it the manhole. It’s like an iris but moving and vibrating in front of the lens when you’re deeply connecting with characters’ emotions. In the studio, we could just switch off the rest of the world on a specific line and be able to light two faces. It’s both in the continuity of Jacques’ mise-en-scene and the revelation, in this case.”
Some looks were relatively simple to achieve. A toy bought online swirls laser dots around a child’s bedroom to magical effect for “Papa,” which one of Emilia’s young sons sings to her, unaware (yet also intuiting) that the father he’s long thought dead is his new auntie.
Jessi (Selena Gomez) performs a song at a karaoke club in the movie.
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As Manitas’ unsuspecting wife, Jessi, brought back to Mexico City from a Swiss hideout to live with this in-law Emilia she’d never heard of, Gomez expresses the character’s sense of entrapment in “Bienvenida,” jumping between solo selfie shots in her bedroom and an all-black stage where her rage is expressed by writhing backup dancers.
“It’s another key moment that relies on the light changes to enhance the character’s emotions,” Guilhaume says. “There is a missing wall that separates the bedroom from the all-black studio. We just put two very strong, flat lasers there, and as soon as Selena crosses it, you can see the laser light on her head. When she jumps from one side to another, the light effects switch on and off.”
In the sequence for the movie’s second Oscar-nominated song, “Mi Camino,” Gomez and Édgar Ramírez, who plays Jessi’s love interest, turn a karaoke club performance into a tableau of longing, splintered personas.
“Jacques’ intuition was that the walls had to be screens here,” Guilhaume notes. “When we tested that, we realized that we could use a video feedback effect. It’s the same as when you put mirrors in front of each other, and you see the reflection multiplied an infinite number of times. So at first you see Selena from this frontal point of view and her multiple images in the background, and the sequence almost ends just filming the screen.”
What music video veteran Guilhaume found most thrilling about visualizing this oddest of musicals was how narrative was always his main concern.
“Jacques wanted the drama to unfold during the production numbers,” he says. “It was very pleasant to work in this aspect because you always had to treat the scene like you’d treat a fiction scene. What new information or emotion do you get from the sequence?”