The Hunger (1983)

Ignacio Aguilar · October 12, 2004

I have seen this film today for the first time on DVD. It looks great.

Any info on what film stock was used?

My guess is that they shot it on 5247 (125 ASA), instead of the (then) new 5293 (250 ASA).

What a stilysh cinematography. Lots of single source lightning and smoked sets, sometimes with telephoto anamorphic lenses, and great close-ups, almost like fashion photography.

October 13, 2004

I haven't seen this in some time, but I remember it being grainy in places and the grads falling flat (particularly the red London skyline shot). The lighting is very derivitive of all of those new wave MTV promos from the time by bands like Madness, Human League and Duran Duran. I never liked the exposure of skin tones in this either, no colour, and not in an intentionally muted way. Certainly not Top Gun photographically speaking...

What was that 325ASA filmstock that came out in 1983? I remember Walter Lassally mentioning it in his biog. The Hunger looks more like that than the 5293.

David Mullen ASC · October 13, 2004

Fuji came out with the first faster-than-100 ASA film, 250 ASA, in 1981 and Kodak followed in 1982 with 5293 (250 ASA). By 1983, they had replaced it with 5294 (400 ASA.)

I think "The Hunger" looks fantastic so I have no idea what you are referring to in regards to the look.

October 13, 2004

I'll try and nab a copy of that bio when I've got a moment.

The make up in the Hunger I think doesn't get enough mention in contemporary discussions of the medium.

October 13, 2004

The make up in the Hunger I think doesn't get enough mention in contemporary discussions of the medium.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Actually the Hunger is considered a benchmark film in the history of Prosthetic make up. On this movie Dick Smith pioneered the use of PAX make up to colour Foam latex appliances and it was also the first time a prosthetic appliance was covered with hand laid hair/stubble for David bowies multi stage old-age make up. Its technical achievements are highly regarded in the SFX make up field.

Stephen Murphy,

Steadicam Op/Camera Op, (Former Prosthetic Make Up artist)

Dublin, Ireland.

Ignacio Aguilar · October 13, 2004

I haven't seen this in some time, but I remember it being grainy in places

The DVD has no visible grain, has a great shadow detail and is very, very sharp. I have seen DVDs of films shot with early high-speed film stocks or push-developed that have very poor shadow detail (Once upon a time in America, De Palma's Scarface and even the forest scenes of The Return of the Jedi), that's why I guess that "The Hunger" was shot on the old Kodak 5247.

I think "The Hunger" looks fantastic

Me too!

October 14, 2004

Good point, Ignacio- good point. And for arguments sake, I DO like and love that early smoked Tony Scott look on The Hunger (Catherine Deneuvue is often identical in framing and glamour lighting as Brigette Nielsen in BHC2), I just don't think it's Kimball level. And the grads were too phony and intrusive for my tastes (and that's sayng something when you remember I'm comparing them to those in Top Gun)!

Stephen,

I know many professional theatrical/film make up artists who don't even know who Dick Smith is! Don't forget, we live a world now where most of the crew making the new King Kong remake haven't even seen the original movie.

Ignacio Aguilar · October 14, 2004

and that's sayng something when you remember I'm comparing them to those in Top Gun

I haven't seen that film in a very long time. I will take a look at it when the new DVD is released here in Spain.

Ignacio Aguilar · March 7, 2005

I finally saw Top Gun. It's a great work by Kimball. The grad shots are more saturated than in The Hunger and the image has less contrast. It seems that they used less smoke on interiors, too.

I love the way Kelly McGillis was lit :)

March 7, 2005

Less smoke and contrast? D'ya think? I'm not so sure on that one- remember Top Gun was filmed/set in California where the sun is high and blazing- Hunger was shot in Phil Rhodes photogenic neck of the woods, overcast and drab- Kimball's simulation of natural bounced fill from the harsh sunlight is pretty true to the more high key nature of the location. Plus, The Hunger was a full out HORROR movie! :)

I totally agree about Willis, however if you check out the special edition DVD docos you find out that she was actually coated in dense layers of foundation and glamour makeup, fetishised something chronic! Tony Scott did the same to Deneuve on The HUNGER as I mentioend as well as Nielsen on BHC2, and even Patty Arquette in True Romance. When you take that into account Kimball's "no fill" approach to portraiture, where women are always struck from behind by a kicker, seems tov be as effortless as it looks.

Edited March 7, 2005 by fstop

Ignacio Aguilar · March 8, 2005

Less smoke and contrast? D'ya think? I'm not so sure on that one- remember Top Gun was filmed/set in California where the sun is high and blazing- Hunger was shot in Phil Rhodes photogenic neck of the woods, overcast and drab- Kimball's simulation of natural bounced fill from the harsh sunlight is pretty true to the more high key nature of the location. Plus, The Hunger was a full out HORROR movie! :)

I remember more backlit shots on The Hunger with the faces of the actors in shadows... Plus, the light coming throught the windows on the wide shots on that film show more smoke that what I see on Top Gun. But, as you say, The Hunger was a horror movie :)

The sequence that I love on The Hunger is the homage to Barry Lyndon, with Catherine Deneuve playing the piano with period costumes. Scott even uses the same music Kubrick used on his film.

I totally agree about Willis, however if you check out the special edition DVD docos you find out that she was actually coated in dense layers of foundation and glamour makeup, fetishised something chronic!

I have only heard yet the first two minutes of the commentary. Scott says he was fired from Top Gun three times. The second one had to do with the way he initially dressed McGillis :D

Now I want to see Tony Scott's Revenge...

Adam Frisch FSF · March 8, 2005

Revenge is probably my favorite Scott film. I also happen to think it's Kimballs best work. Absolutely gorgeous.

DavidSloan · March 15, 2005

Hunger is one of my favorite lit films, of all time. Uber stylized, but so cool, and slick. Fashion photography meets noir. I've been watching this film for the lighting for the past few years, which is why I got so excited when I saw Mr.Goldblatt in my hood! lol

December 4, 2009

I finally saw this again for the first time since about 1999 and for the first time in full widescreen (I always thought watching it panned and scanned that it was 1.85:1)!

I guess my tastes have changed a lot (maturity?) because I thought the cinematography this time was rather incredible, from a technical and creative standpoint. Was this a two camera shoot? The commentary seems to indicate otherwise.

I must confess that after about five minutes I had to stick the director's commentary on, just to keep my attention. One of the first things that hit me over the head was how derivitive the visuals seemed regardless of how impressively realised they were; not just because of the (very blatant) influence of Barry Lyndon, but probably moreso the early films of Nicholas Roeg, such as Performance. It just seemed so obvious, and ten minutes into the commentary, Scott confirms his love for Roeg and Performance.

The Hunger also seems to be modelled a lot on early Bertollucci movies like Last Tango and Il Conformist, with all of the huge, backlit interior town houses bathed in upmarket, softcore erotica. There also appears to be a huge slab of Blade Runner in there too, but in a poppy, Russell Mulchahy music video kind of way, with the neon grads and sunglasses worn in doors.

I find it amazing how Stephen Goldblatt could do this 80s commercial style to a T, yet he's really best known now for a classical, representative cinematography style for filmmakers like Mike Nichols. It really does blow the mind to think this was a photochemical finish, even if it has been digitally graded and probably modified slightly for DVD (Scott claims in the commentary that the weathered print was his own taken from the original neg back in 1983, albeit rescanned around 2004 when they did the commentary). You can occassionally see the hot artificial backlights leaking through the smoke haze seperating the actors standing in front of burned out windows, but you'd have to be an unforgiving stickler not to forgive these very minor (and human) technical glitches for a relatively small scale studio movie made very quickly.

The style of The Hunger doesn't end or even begin with the camerawork and lighting, however. The production design plays very much to a kind of new age, gothic art deco hybrid and the near uniformly black and white costumes also contribute to the pale, stark atmosphere (by Kubrick associate Milena Canonero, no less). Hard to believe too that the New York set film was shot for the most part in London.

Dick Smith's make up contributions (and the lighting they require to be photographed under) also seemed to be a significant influence on The Hunger. In many scenes I felt the soft toplight Gordon Willis gave to Brando in the Godfather.

Curiously, I thought the editing of The Hunger was at it's best when it wasn't trying to simulate classical narrative editing. There are huge chunks of the film that seem to be modelled on Barry Lyndon, in which characters pose in huge, over art directed, period bedroom settings, with indulgent choices of classical music playing on the soundtrack. I actually thought scenes such as the triple cross cut from the Bauhaus song to the first vampire attack and monkey death in the opening credits were where the film felt most comfortably paced.

I think in many many ways the Hunger is a breathtaking achievement as much as it is an interesting curiousity, but I think other vampire romances, such as Neil Jordan's Interview With a Vampire managed to be both narratively satisfying and visually impressive without being excessive. I thought The Hunger was stunning in it's style, but I don't think it had the narrative to match it. There's only so many times you can shoot your action at 48fps in order to divert the audience what isn't there in the script.

It interests me most that the Scott Brothers both seemed to make feature debuts indebted to Kubrick's Barry Lyndon.

On a more randomly trivial note, there is a scene in this in which a reflective body bag gets burned (again, at what seems to be 48fps). It looks almost identically exposed and shot like a similar scene from Batman Forever (also shot by Goldblatt), and the colour and exposure of the flames seems to be a Goldblatt trademark (Young Sherlock Holmes too). Very distinctive.