Writing with Light: Vittorio Storaro (1992)

A marvelous documentary about legendary cinematographer Vittorio Storaro, one of history’s ten most influential cinematographers (Apocalypse Now, The Last Emperor, Reds, Il Confimista, 1900). Vittorio Storaro talks about his work, along with collaborators like Warren Beatty and Bernardo Bertolucci and peers like Nestor Almendros. On-set footage from Dick Tracy and The Sheltering Sky. Storaro explains his zany theories about light and colour, and gives a potted history of lighting in the cinema.

A cinematographer has to design and write a story, starting at the beginning, through the evolution to the end. That’s why I consider my profession is as a writer of light. —Vittorio Storaro

Vittorio Storaro recalls the photographic challenges he confronted during the tumultuous production of Francis Ford Coppola’s hallucinatory Vietnam War epic Apocalypse Now. Interview by Stephen Burum, ASC and Stephen Pizzello.