Hot off the success of 2023’s Poor Things, director Yorgos Lanthimos has just released his latest movie Kinds of Kindness which was shot on Kodak 35mm film.
Along with cinematographer Robbie Ryan, Lanthimos employed 50D 5203, 250D 5207, 500T 5219, and Eastman Double-X 5222 black and white film stock for Kinds of Kindness which stars Emma Stone, Jesse Plemons, and Willem Dafoe.
The absurdist comedy movie follows three loosely connected satires about power, subservience, and free will, described as a “triptych fable.”
“Yorgos does not do digital, as he feels it doesn’t do anything for his films,” says Ryan.
“So like The Favourite and Poor Things, this was always going to be shot on film. He loves color and contrast, and the 50D delivers color and contrast in abundance, so what’s not to like?
“Obviously, it’s a slow stock, but as we were filming in New Orleans we had consistently bright or sunny exteriors and could shoot without a problem. And the results on 50D look luscious.”
The movie was mostly shot using just a single camera, the Arricam ST, and few lights because of a tight filming schedule.
“I went with the Arricam ST as you can top-mount the film magazine, which makes it much easier to shoot in small or confined spaces, where I often find myself squashed into a corner,” Ryan explains on Kodak’s blog.
In a video posted to Kodak’s YouTube channel, Ryan says that early on Lanthimos wanted to shoot anamorphic lenses which forced the crew to film in a particular way.
“Anamorphic basically squeezes the image [onto a narrower film negative] so that you project it and it comes back out widescreen,” adds Ryan.
The cinematographer reveals that Lanthimos wanted a change from the super-wide angles and tighter aspect ratios seen on The Favourite and Poor Things.
“He hadn’t done an anamorphic feature for a while, not since Dog Tooth (2009),” explains Ryan.
“As this film was set in America, he felt it needed the cinematic aesthetic that anamorphic brings — although it would be inward-looking, with lots of close-up camera work on individuals in rooms, rather than it being about landscapes and scenes with multiple characters.”
Ryan chose Panavision Primo Anamorphic lenses because they don’t go out of focus at the top and bottom of the fame — a common issue with anamorphic lenses and something Lanthimos doesn’t like.
Kinds of Kindness was released in U.S. cinema on June 21 and will be in the U.K. from tomorrow (June 28).
Image credits: Jima Nishijma/Searchlight