Forgive the cliche, but my friendship and collaboration with the great cinematographer Dick Pope was a marriage made in heaven, and his loss is indescribably painful.
Over the two decades before we met and first worked together, on Life Is Sweet in 1990, while I was making TV films and stage plays, Dick was shooting World in Action and many other documentaries in far-flung dangerous places. He also made several feature films and a lot of music videos, including Kylie Minogue’s Wouldn’t Change a Thing and I Want to Break Free by Queen.
Some film directors happily change cinematographers from film to film, and many simply specify their basic requirements and leave the cameraperson to get on with it. But for me, the continuity of Dick’s and my joint artistic journey became essential.
After Life Is Sweet, Dick shot everything I directed, including shorts and commercials (19 works in all), and we approached every project as part of our ongoing serious investigation into pushing the boundaries of cinematic heightened realism.
Photographically and aesthetically, his work was unfailingly exciting, from his wizardry in creating the monochromatic nocturnal bleakness of Naked to the bold primary colours of the optimistic Happy-Go-Lucky, to his inspired use of Super-16 film to create the postwar world of Vera Drake, and his combination of 16mm film shot handheld with 35mm shot formally to differentiate between the past and present in Career Girls, to his beautiful rendering of the four seasons in Another Year, the sumptuous Victorian theatre imagery of Topsy-Turvy, his sensitive references in Mr Turner to the artist’s paintings, and his bold rendering of the turbulent world of Peterloo.
All of which involved our discussions and Dick’s resourceful shooting of film tests; but then there was the actual shooting experience itself. No storyboards for us – that alien convention of deciding all the shots in advance, before ever seeing the action! After I’d created the action on the location, Dick and I would watch it together, and refine and define it, shot by shot, through the camera. Always on the same wavelength, we made our shooting decisions in total harmony. We shared a hatred of pretentious, unmotivated, gratuitous camerawork, always believing that the camera should serve the action, but also that the actors should serve the camera.
Actors loved working with Dick; he had enormous respect for and an instinctive understanding of the integrity of their work, for their specific needs. This resulted in relaxed and confident performances, always enhanced by Dick’s subtle ability to give each actor space and depth in the way he photographed her or him. Similarly, he earned respect from his camera and lighting crews; his gentle but firm commanding skills meant that his teams were always a delight to work and spend time with.
Most importantly, Dick always operated the camera himself, as well as lighting the film (many cinematographers don’t). Only ill-health prevented his doing so on our recent film Hard Truths, when the operator was our longtime collaborator Lucy Bristow, with Dick adjacent, overseeing proceedings on a monitor. The film has not yet been released, but it has been screened at several festivals, and the response has been overwhelmingly positive, with many voices praising Dick’s work in particular. Gratifyingly, although he was by this time very ill, his wife, Pat, tells us that he died in the knowledge of our early success.
The final “look” of a movie is very much in the hands of the cinematographer, and Dick’s skills at this stage of post-production were those of a consummate artist. To sit with him in a grading session was always a revelation and a joy, and his final results were a privilege to share.
I will miss Dick Pope for his passion for life, his impeccable good taste, his healthy anarchic outlook, his dry sense of humour, and for our shared passion for all things gastronomic, especially Chinese restaurants and oysters.
• Hard Truths is out in the UK on 31 January 2025. A remastered version of Naked will screen on Film4 on 12 November.
