The_Film_That_Changed_My_Life

262 George A. Romero
I’ve never had a budget to work with color the way Powell did, to take the
time and the care to develop a color palette or anything like that. I’ve never
been in a position where I could absolutely control something to be able to
do that. I think the one thing I might try to do is really work with color.
It’s been suggested blue is the predominant character.
Romero: I don’t know about that. One of the shots that I remember vividly
is the shot in the opening sequence, when the actor Robert Helpmann
comes in, and he does that little gesture with his finger across his mouth.
I thought he was the greatest Dracula there ever was. When he does an
overhead shot where he walks around with his cape with a tassel on the end,
and he walks around three chairs, and it’s just beautiful. It’s a symbolic shot
of him walking through this place with just three chairs. The ballet is more
blue and aqua when she’s doing the firefly dance.
He uses hot red to indicate passion. The cooler colors are more subdued
emotions. It’s very emotional, and yellows are very bright and sunny. It’s sort
of very obvious, but it’s very deliberate, and the chaos of color in the tavern
is beautiful. It’s a chaos of color.
I read when you met Michael Powell, you mentioned Hoffmann to him,
and he said, “Oh well, there’s a film no one saw.” Why do you think no
one saw it?
Romero: It wasn’t a narrative. I really think it was just a little out of reach
for people. It was very bold. It was an experiment, and without a narrative
story it is hard for people to get with it. It’s all sung, and it’s very difficult
to hear some of the dialogue unless you hear it over and over and over. I
have an old vinyl soundtrack, and gosh, I’ve listened to that soundtrack
over and over.
An editor whom I work with when I can named Pasquale “Pat” Buba
was a longtime friend of Thelma Schoonmacher, who married Michael.
She’s Martin Scorsese’s editor. When I was still living in New York, there
was no such thing as video, so if you wanted to watch a movie at home
you actually had to go rent a 16mm projector, go rent a movie, and there
was a place called Janus Films that used to have Tales of Hoffmann. It was
the only place in New York you could get it, and if I went down and it was