14 DAY TRIAL // Chris Nolan’s longtime director of cinematography, Wally Pfister, who worked on all three Batman films, “The Dark Knight Rises” included, has no kind words to spare for another of this year’s superhero blockbusters, “The Avengers.”
Speaking with The Sarasota Herald-Tribune about his directorial debut, Pfister took shoots at “The Avengers” – and very cheap ones while at it.
Asked what’s more important when shooting a film, the cinematographer said storytelling should always come first.
And then he let it rip, even though the interviewer had not even asked him about “The Avengers.”
“I thought ‘The Avengers’ was an appalling film. They’d shoot from some odd angle and I’d think, why is the camera there? Oh, I see, because they spent half a million on the set and they have to show it off. It took me completely out of the movie. I was driven bonkers by that illogical form of storytelling,” Pfister said.
Fun fact: “The Dark Knight Rises” actually had a bigger budget than “The Avengers,” so talking about the expensive sets the latter was trying to “show off” doesn’t even make sense.