Bill Fraker, ASC talks about Murphy's Romance and Film
by Bob Fisher

This article originally appeared in the March 1986 issue of International Photographer

If you had to pick just one word to describe William A. Fraker, ASC, passionate wouldn't be a bad choice. "When I get on my soapbox and start preaching, people start heading for the doors," he laughs.

Fraker has strong feelings about his art, the way that it is and the way that it should be, and he doesn't mind sharing them. One of his beliefs is that people who go to the movies really want to see Hollywood succeed. "They are pulling for us to make good movies," he says. "We owe them that much."

For starters, Fraker would like to see the studios that have taken so much out of Hollywood put more back into it. A joint research council which develops new technology wouldn't be a bad place to start," he says.

One example: Fraker believes that the major studios should be behind Doug Trumbull, ASC, in his efforts to bring Showscan to the marketplace. "Let's see if it works," he says. "What we need is for someone like Steven Spielberg to do a movie like Chorus Line in the Showscan format. We might have theatres sold out for six months. Who knows? Let's find out. Maybe it's what we need."

Fraker was basking in the warm glow of his fifth Academy Award nomination for cinematography in nine years-six if you count a nomination for an Oscar for visual effects on Spielberg's 1941. His current nomination is for Murphy's Romance, which he shot in Florence, Ariz., with director Marty Ritt.

"I'm having a great time," he says. "The nomination was unexpected. Usually, Academy Awards for cinematography go to big pictures like Ghandi. So, I'm relaxed and enjoying it."

Fraker's previous nominations were for Looking for Mr. Goodbar (1977), Heaven Can Wait (1979), 1941 (1980), and War Games (1983). It's an interesting list for its diversity, especially when you add Murphy's Romance to the mix. There's the stark and harsh reality of Goodbar balanced against the lush interiors that distinguished Heaven Can Wait , for example, and now with Murphy's Romance, there is a whole new side of Fraker.

Murphy's Romance is a people film, mainly James Garner, who earned an Academy Award nomination himself, and Sally Field. We all know the story by now. Field plays the part of Emma Moriarity, a mid-30's divorcee with a 12-year-old son. She is trying to start again by doggedly scraping a living out of a "down and dirty" ranch in a small Arizona town.

Emma meets Murphy, an eccentric local pharmacist (played by Garner) and they more or less reluctantly fall in love.

However, it's not that easy. Garner acts the part of a taciturn widower who plays the game by his own rules. He is obviously a lot older than Emma. How much? That's a question she asks throughout the film. Then, there's an ex-husband who comes on the scene early in the film and vies for Field's affections. He's a much younger, more romantic figure than Murphy, and not unlikable, though you can't exactly admire someone who cheats his son at cards and sneaks 20 dollar bills from his ex-wife's purse.

The setting for all of this is a dusty ranch with a ramshackle house, a colorful interior for a local drug store, a one street town, and not much else. Fraker's camera never intrudes, but it always gives the audience a point-of-view which helps to make this a very personal film. The look for Murphy's Romance is characterized by the rich earth tones typical of a dusty Western ranch town, offset only by the bright colors in the pharmacy.

"It (the pharmacy) is a different, warmer world than the bleaker setting which Emma lives in," explains Fraker. "Marty (Ritt) wanted that contrast."

The movie opens with a stunning shot that sets the tone for everything that follows. There is a long view of a rolling vista of desert interrupted only by a single road with a lone truck coming toward the camera. You can see the moon hovering over the center of the frame almost ready to pass into the horizon.

The truck shoots by, giving you a glimpse of Emma and her son. The dilapidated condition of the truck packed with their meager belongings tells you they aren't driving to a picnic. There is a slow and deliberate 180 degree pan, and now you watch the truck wind into an equally desolate expanse of desert where a blood-red sun is rising over the horizon.

"We shot four mornings to get that shot," says Fraker. "You can do that sort of thing when you have a disciplined director who uses time well. We were on location for 63 days, and finished ahead of schedule."

To create a rich, romantic aura in a mainly bleak setting, Ritt took maximum advantage of opportunities to stage exteriors between Emma and Murphy during the golden hours at dusk. "Marty was just great that way," says Fraker. "We would talk every day, and he would ask, 'what time do you want to shoot this scene or that one?"'

There is also judicious use of Fuller's Earth and rooster tails to create blowing dust in the background giving both tone and dimension to the illusion. "You expect to see swirls of dust in the desert," he says.

How did Fraker go about the task of developing an appropriate look to tell the story, which is based on a novel by Max Schoot?

"I started with a different idea," he admits. "When I first read the script, I envisioned rich blue skies, postcard pretty pictures; kind of a National Geographic look. That would have been appropriate for an Arizona location."

The look that evolved is more of a journey than a destination. "Marty brought me on the film a week earlier than the studio wanted," he says. "He had the cast in Florence, where they were rehearsing. It was like writing a book. He had them seated in a circle around him. And, one after the other, he honed in on their characters and relationships."

That gave Fraker a feeling for the story that Ritt wanted to tell. He makes an interesting point here: "I will always be indebted to (director) Richard Brooks. He taught me an incredible lesson. Most people don't listen. They think they know what you are going to say, so their minds drift ahead to how they want to respond. He taught me to listen."

Which brings us to Fraker's philosophical approach to filmmaking. "The role of the director of photography is to get inside of the director's head, and accurately interpret what he is trying to say. Movies are stories. The director's job is to get the performance from the actors on the screen. Your job is to provide images which create the right illusions."

Fraker notes that good photography can set the tone and setting for a film in more ways than one. It can establish the period, the setting, and the mood or emotions. The camera also determines the point of view of the audience. To illustrate, Fraker tells a story about the time he was shooting Rosemary's Baby with director Roman Polansky.

Here is a scene in the movie where Mia Farrow (Rosemary) moves into the apartment building, where she is greeted by Ruth Gordon (playing the part of a witch). Gordon can't wait to tell the other members of her coven.

So, she borrows a phone in Rosemary's bedroom. Fraker and his crew are still in the living room, and he's lining up a shot framing Gordon through the doorway, sitting on the bed talking on the phone. Polansky keeps moving the camera until the only thing you can see through the doorway is Gordon's legs draped over the edge of the bed.

Fraker kept trying to tell Polansky that he had a better picture in mind. Polansky kept telling him "P-O-V, P-O-V."

Then, the next day in dailies, Fraker watched people literally leaning sideways anxious to see around the visual corner. Point-of-view (P-O-V) became an indelible lesson learned.

You can see it in Murphy's Romance in the form of several tantalizingly slow pans that have the audience leaning in their seats anxious to see what is going to happen. For example, there's a scene where Emma comes home, through the door, around a corner and into a room where she finally finds her ex-husband holding twin babies that came from another relationship which he had neglected to mention.

It takes less than a minute for the scene to unfold. There are no words spoken. But, it puts the audience right into the story. They feel the same surprise Emma does. words aren't necessary.

It's a moment of truth told in large part by the way images are revealed.

Fraker would be the first to tell you that there is no right or wrong way to do a scene like this. "The script, location, cast and director dictate the look and approach to photography," he says. "You can put 10 cameramen on the same film in the same set of circumstances, and each one will shoot it differently. That's what makes this industry so fascinating. It is never the same. Every film is different."

To shoot Murphy's Romance, Fraker chose to work with a Panaflex Gold camera, almost entirely with prime lenses, using his own package of filters for the film, a half fog, a half coral and a Mitchell B diffusion disc. "I like Panavision because their equipment is state-of-the-art and well-maintained, and if you have a problem, they are there to help," he says. "That's been my experience."

It doesn't always come easy. Some years ago, Fraker wanted a filter pack which he could use day-or-night with Panaflex cameras. "I was getting some bounceback from the front coating of the lens into the filters, and photographing the bounceback, particularly at night," he says. "I wanted a matte box which would marry the filters, and have the ability to tilt the filters forward or backward, thereby reflecting the images away from the lens and the field of view."

At first, a Panavision technician tried to convince Fraker to settle for six-inch filters, wrong, Fraker explained his reasoning, they then gave him, and everyone else, a matte box that solved the problem. Remember what Fraker said earlier about the importance of listening?

For Murphy's Romance, Fraker chose Eastman color negative film 5247, which he used mainly for daylight exteriors, and Eastman color high-speed negative film 5294, which he used for everything else.

Why do you choose one film over another?

"There are various reasons, but the biggest one for me, by far, is consistency," he answers. "If you are shooting a scene which is likely to cost the studio $30,000 to make, you have to know what your emulsion is going to do under any set of circumstances-like if you under-or overexpose. I can point my finger at Eastman or another film manufacturer all I want. But, if something goes wrong everyone is going to be looking in my direction."

Why prime lenses?

"I generally don't like zooms, and in this case, I had a director who agreed," he says. "You get better glass with primes, and I wanted every edge I could get. In reality, the film, camera, lenses and labs, these are all tools. They have nothing to do with the art. But, it just makes good sense to use the best tools you can get in any given situation."

In Murphy's Romance, Fraker had the advantage of working with a production designer, Joel Schiller, who understood his need for camera mobility. "We weren't locked in by four hard walls. We had movable panels in the walls and ceilings of the house and pharmacy wherever we needed a point-of-view," he says.

Remember that wonderful overhead shot of the card game in the kitchen involving the four main characters? You can't do that if the production designer doesn't give you room to hang your camera, Fraker notes.

Fraker had worked with Schiller when he was art director on Rosemary's Baby and also, Reflection of Fear, which the cameraman directed a dozen years ago. "He (Schilling) was trained by Dick Sylbert, one of the best," says Fraker.

In lieu of zooms, Fraker laid track at the ranch and pharmacy, which he used of a number of very smooth, slow tracking shots. "I prefer this to using a Panaglide unless I happen to have access to an extraordinary Panaglide operator," he says. Track is always consistent. Operators vary.

However, there are exceptions to every rule. For example, there's one scene where Fraker used a 17mm lens to shoot a closeup of Sally Field coming up a narrow staircase and into a tiny bathroom where Garner is going to fix a leaking fixture.

"We were in tight quarters," he says, "but we had a very disciplined actress who hit her marks. Otherwise, a shot like that can be a disaster."

No matter how well you plan, every picture has its surprises. On Murphy's Romance, one surprise was the intensity with which the light bounced off of a tan building directly opposite the pharmacy when it was hit with the afternoon sun. "Most of the time, we had this beautiful, golden light pouring through the pharmacy's front window," he says. "Then, the afternoon sun hit the tan building and bounced back just as we were scheduled to shoot a sequence where Sally was walking out of the store towards the windows. It took every gel that I could get my hands on to reduce the intensity."

On lighting Sally Field: "Part of your job is always to make the characters, particularly beautiful women, look good," he says. "Once you know the characters, and how they relate with different people, you watch how they move; then you model with light. You always have to remember that the audience is going to see them on a 40-foot high screen."

On low-light sensitive film: "We shot the crystal palace, which was the main set in War Games with six footcandles of light," Fraker says. "That was necessary because we had to balance light for those big TV screens which all of the general were monitoring. However, in most situations, the cinematographers whom I have spoken with aren't all that interested in the concept of shooting at two or four footcandles. First of all, we have difficulty accurately measuring light at those levels. And, if you are off by a footcandle, you are a half-a-step off.

"Besides, we are at a point now where exposure is no longer a concern. We are using light and shadows to model, so it doesn't matter all that much whether you have 10 or 25 footcandles. You are using the same units. I don't think that we need any more speed. What I want out of a film is latitude. I want to be able to use a 250, 400 or 600 exposure index, whatever the scene or situation requires. And I want to be able to use all 50 printing lights, and 128 "tones" of grey scale if I need them. That's how you create subtle images. And that's where the art is."

More on the same topic: "I think the biggest advance in color film technology occurred with the development of Eastman color negative film 5254 (in 1968). It had an exposure index of 100…which was twice as fast as 5251 film. However, it also had tremendous exposure latitude. It opened up a whole new world for us. A tremendous amount of experimentation was done at that time, and new styles of cinematography were established…a close second would be the introduction of the high-speed films 5293 and 5294…which I think is terrific."

On relationships: "I spoke about the importance of the relationship between the director of photography and the director. This picture is a good example. Marty Ritt did most of his earlier work with James Wong Howe, ASC, and more recently John Alonzo, ASC, who did Sounder, Norma Rae, and Cross Creek with him, all beautiful pictures. He called me about doing Roadshow because John had another commitment. I said 'yes' without even reading the script because I wanted to work with him. The picture fell through, but it led to Murphy's Romance, and I couldn't be happier with the results of the experience."

Fraker can approach this topic from both sides, having directed a number of films during his career, with the latest being Legend of the Lone Ranger. "One of the things that I like about directing is that it gives me an opportunity to work with other cameramen," he says. It also gives him some useful insights about what might be going through the director's mind when he is shooting.

Fraker admits to being a taskmaster. "What do people mean when they say that someone is a good gaffer or operator?" he asks. "They mean that he cares about his work. People on my crew have got to really care. They can't give me 80 or 90 percent. I want 100 percent everyday."

For the most part, Fraker is upbeat about the future of the industry. He notes that videocassette sales and rentals are becoming a big part of the movie industry (some 40 percent of U.S. households are expected to have VCRs by year's end).

Even so, he expects that the theatrical film industry will thrive. Why? At the conclusion of Murphy's Romance, Emma and Murphy go home together. As the movie finally ends, you hear Murphy finally admit, "I'm 60," and in theatres all over the country, as if on cue, people laugh, cheer, and applaud. Going to a theatre, Fraker notes, is more than seeing a movie on a bigger screen than TV. It's also a social experience of sharing an experience like this with others. There is a different degree of involvement, which makes the art forms different.

More on the future: "We have 1,700 film schools in this country, so we have to find a way to make 400 movies a year if everyone is going to work," he says. "I support all of them. I do everything I can to help young people coming up. They are our future."

And a little personal history: Fraker has deep roots in the industry. His father and uncle were studio photographers, and he did some still camerawork himself. However, he credits his grandmother with encouraging him to use his G.I. bill to go to USC Cinema School after World War II.

For a while, he considered writing a master's thesis designed to encourage the four largest studios to buy a network so they would have more control over the quality of programming. He still wonders today why Hollywood let television get away-"Today, it really belongs to the people who ran the radio," he says.

However, he turned to camerawork. It wasn't easy. He shot inserts for commercials and grab shots for features for years until he finally got his IATSE 659 card. Then, there were 10 years when he worked as an operator on TV film programs.

He got his shot doing commercials in 1965, when he was in the front ranks of "the new wave" of younger cinematographers. That was an especially creative period in commercial production. There was much experimentation which affected theatrical filmmaking.

Fraker shot his first theatrical feature, Games, in 1966. The rest is history.