Ed Lachman's photography in 'The Count' that aspires to an Oscar for portraying Pinochet as a long-lived vampire

Carmencita, a young nun with multiple skills, is turned by a vampire after it bites her neck.

Almost immediately, sharp fangs are visible in the young woman's teeth.

She gets up from the floor of the stable, spills her rosary, goes out to the patio and begins to fly clumsily and inexperienced over the buildings of a hidden farm in Chilean Patagonia.

The creature of the night, a long-lived creature of more than 250 years, wears a white military jacket, with the rank of general.

She leaves the shed and stares in amazement at his creation in the air.

The vampire is Augusto Pinochet or, in reality, a fictional representation of him in a sequence from the film

El Conde,

in which its director, Pablo Larraín, imagined a story about the dictator, who is not dead, but is a deity. nocturnal in his old age.

After living for more than two centuries in the world, he has decided to die once and for all.

The person in charge of the cinematography of this ambitious and controversial project was the veteran Edward Lachman, or Ed Lachman—as his colleagues call him—who is aspiring to an Oscar in the Best Cinematography category.

The American cinematographer says that the previous sequence was Larraín's idea, inspired by some circus acrobats that he saw in some advertisements.

To achieve this, they used a crane arm more than 27 meters high.

Hanging above were the actress Paula Luchsinger, who studied ballet and insisted on performing her acrobatics hanging from a cable.

In front of her she had a technician hanging next to her, sitting on a kind of chair that resembled a swing holding a remote camera, while the operator below took care of the angles of the shot.

“This happens after making love and being bitten by Pinochet, which is also a kind of declaration of what the relationship between the church and the State was at that time, which in the end was corrupted by it.

We experience its exaltation and freedom as we begin to fly.

Pablo thought about whether this was going to be possible to film in Patagonia.

The intention was to not only see the sky, but also the farm.

He has all the shots choreographed in his head, but on the set he also lets go of the image and gives freedom to what is happening and I like to work with directors who think like that,” says Lachman by phone.

Ed Lachman (left) with director Pablo Larraín, during the filming of 'El Conde' (dir. Larraín, 2023).Diego Araya Corvalán (Netflix)

The director of photography is not unknown to the Academy.

His work in

The Count

is his third nomination, after his work in

Far from Paradise

(2002) and

Carol

(2015), both from director Todd Haynes.

In his category he competes alongside other important names such as Hoyte van Hoytema, for his work in the film about the father of the atomic bomb,

Oppenheimer

, or the Mexican Rodrigo Prieto for his participation in

The Assassins of the Moon

, by Martin Scorsese.

Lachman, who has also been in charge of photography for other nominated films such as

Erin Brockovich

(2000) or

The Virgin Suicides

(1999), and who has a filmography of more than 70 films, between fiction and documentary, he is still surprised by this type of recognition.

“You're always a little surprised.

But obviously this movie is not on Hollywood's radar.

I got recognition from my fellow cinematographers, from people I respect.

I was very happy that Pablo, the technicians and Chile obtained this recognition,” he says.

A still from the film 'El Conde' (dir. Larraín, 2023). Netflix

The Lachman-Larraín tandem began to be forged 12 years ago, according to the cinematographer, when it coincided with the screening of

Tony Manero

, the Chilean's directorial debut, at the Telluride Film Festival, in the state of Colorado, and subsequent meetings. at the New York Film Festival.

He admits that he was always attracted to how the director of

No

It told stories about the social and political environment of Chile, with an emphasis on visual language.

The Count

was no exception.

“Pinochet died a millionaire and free of his crimes.

There are people who were directly injured and their families never found justice.

That pain is eternal.

The only way we can deal with it is through the idea of ​​a vampire, which is forever.

It's a simple metaphor.

The Count

is a film about impunity, about how justice is a collective desire, not a reality.

It is a metaphorical and literal look, in the form of an allegorical, dark and satirical comedy, of how our blood is taken politically, culturally and socially by a society that obeyed, gave in and was seduced by fascism,” adds Lachman.

To paint this portrait of Pinochet, Larraín requested to make the film in black and white, looking for a “more theatrical” image that invites a “different perception of reality,” as he announced in an interview with the

Los Angeles Times

.

Lachman got to work and spared no effort.

He got the Arriflex brand to manufacture a monochrome camera for the production and, in addition, he was working on the reuse of Baltar lenses that were manufactured in 1938 and were used in Orson Welles films such as

Citizen Kane

(1941) and

The Magnificent Ambersons

(1942). .

Thus, Lachman had a camera with a monochrome sensor, lenses that were used in black and white films that matched his filters that he used years ago to affect the contrast and look of the film.

Part of the inspiration for the aesthetic also came from gothic horror classics such as

Nosferatu

(1922) or

Dawn

(1927), considered “culturally, historically and aesthetically significant” by the United States Library of Congress—both by German FW Murnau—or the Franco-German film

Vampyr

(1932), by Carl Dreyer.

“What was extraordinary to me was going back and watching these early black-and-white films and seeing how sophisticated they were in the way they used the camera.

Although with all the technology we have today, the goal was to keep it simple,” says the photographer.

Other influences on his work were the work of the late Chilean photographer Sergio Larraín, the most renowned and former member of Magnum;

as well as the work of Fan Ho, a Chinese photographer who won more than 280 awards in international exhibitions and competitions around the world for his images, and the Spanish painter Antoni Taulé.

“I just wanted to reference the print.

The images are about psychology, about how you want to create emotions in the viewer.

In this movie it is what people hide.

And so, to a large extent, Darkness and Light is about what people hide from themselves and others.

It is not just a film about Chile, but about the rise of fascism in the world.

People can relate to that, I hope,” he concludes.

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