FILMCASTLive!: DECONSTRUCTING CINEMATOGRAPHY: THE FRIENDS OF EDDIE COYLE

Continuing with their professional educational series, Canon Hollywood Professional Technology & Support Center presented "Deconstructing Cinematography: The Friends of Eddie Coyle with Richard Crudo, ASC".

You can listen below the 25 minutes audio podcast:: Victor J. Kemper, ASC, and Richard Crudo, ASC, sit down to discuss Kemper’s work on the 1973 crime drama The Friends of Eddie Coyle, starring Robert Mitchum and shot entirely on location in Boston and Connecticut.

Richard Crudo, ASC

With decades of work in commercials, episodic TV and feature films, cinematographer and ASC President Richard Crudo, examined the lighting plot, framing, camera movement and the cinematic language of several scenes composed by Victor Kemper, ASC on the making of the crime drama "The Friends of Eddie Coyle", released in 1973, directed by Peter Yates.

Victor Kemper, ASC

Victor Jay Kemper, A.S.C. (born April 14, 1927) is an American cinematographer who has worked on over fifty films. He is a member of the American Society of Cinematographers (ASC), and was its president twice, from 1993 to 1996, and from 1999 to 2001. Kemper won an Emmy for Outstanding Achievement in Cinematography for his work on the 1987 television movie, Kojak: The Price of Justice.

Medium CU of Eddie Coyle (Robert Mitchum) at a diner

In a times of feature films for theatrical release impregnated with fast editing techniques, advanced lighting schemes, and a plethora of 4K capturing choices with instant digital playback, The Friends of Eddie Coyle, seems like the antithesis to the fast pace cinematography utilized on today's crime dramas. Nonetheless, the superb screenplay layered with shadowy characters was masterfully photographed in 35mm reflecting the intricacies of the Massachusetts criminal underworld and the inner struggles of a man, Eddie Coyle.

Reverse over the shoulder of Dillon (Peter Boyle) and Eddie (Robert Mitchum)

While dissecting scenes, Crudo expressed his admiration and puzzlement to the lighting scheme and concise actor blocking and directorial technique utilized by Kemper and Yates. The unchanged shadowless flat lighting in interior scenes, and the punchy directional spot key light on exterior night scenes and the long static takes are a cinematic signature of this film.

Exterior night scenes are illuminated with a frontal directional source.
Not even a reference back light or back wall wash.

The film counts with an stellar cast of the genre, Robert Mitchum, Peter Boyle and Richard Jordan fitting perfectly with the shadowy gangsters. Eddie Coyle (a.k.a. "Eddie Fingers") an aging delivery truck driver for a bakery. He is also a low-level gunrunner for a crime organization in Boston, Massachusetts. He is facing several years in prison for a truck hijacking in New Hampshire set up by Dillon, who owns a local bar. Coyle's last chance is securing a sentencing recommendation through the help of an ATF agent, Dave Foley, who demands that Coyle become an informer in return. Unbeknownst to Coyle, Dillon is an informer for Foley.