Luc Montpellier made up his mind about working with director Guy Maddin when the director of photography saw The Heart of the World, Maddin’s short for the Toronto International Film Festival’s 2000 Preludes series. The Genie Award-winning film is a silent throwback to Metropolis and the Soviet agitprop of Sergei Eisenstein.

‘Guy is one of the most original filmmakers in North America, based on his sensibilities and not just his approach to making films, which is very specific,’ says Montpellier, who, at a young age, has already amassed credits including the as-yet-unreleased Peter Wellington feature Luck and Ken Finkleman’s Foreign Objects.

Montpellier teamed up with Maddin for the $3-million feature The Saddest Music in the World, coproduced by Winnipeg’s Buffalo Gal Pictures and Toronto’s Rhombus Media. Rhombus producer Jody Shapiro, who coproduced the Preludes, thought Maddin and Montpellier would make a great match based on the DOP’s tendency to explore different ways of working. Montpellier had just wrapped the miniseries Hemingway vs. Callaghan.

The Saddest Music in the World, based on an original screenplay by Kazuo Ishiguro (the novel The Remains of the Day), is set during the Depression in a Winnipeg brewery owned by a legless matriarch played by international star Isabella Rossellini. Shot predominantly in black and white, the film tracks the beer baroness’ contest to see who can create the world’s saddest music, which attracts competitors from around the world seeking a $25,000 prize. The Kids in the Hall’s Mark McKinney stars as a mustachioed, down-on-his-luck Broadway producer who claims to have never been sad.

Maddin, who usually handles shooting himself, was instantly impressed when he met his DOP.

‘Within seconds of our first encounter in a Toronto diner we were discussing camera strategy with the zeal of paintball maniacs. We drew up our battle plans using the crumbs on an un-bussed table,’ Maddin says.

Following a number of subsequent phone calls with Manitoba resident Maddin, Toronto-based Montpellier had only two weeks in Winnipeg to prep.

‘In any kind of Canadian feature environment you always feel like you can use an extra month or so for preproduction,’ Montpellier says. ‘For me, I wanted to try to get Guy’s sensibility as much as I could – though that is quite impossible.’

The Saddest Music in the World makes almost no use of contemporary-looking cinematography in trying to capture the look and feel of the 1930s.

‘It was necessary that we didn’t use modern technology as much,’ the DOP explains. ‘Guy is so into fetishizing images from the Depression that the visuals are degraded, gritty and very reminiscent of that period.’

Typical of Maddin’s multi-format approach, the film made use of footage shot with a 16mm Bolex camera and even some Super 8. But for the most part Montpellier shot with a Super 16 Arriflex fitted with an old Angenieux 10-150 zoom lens.

‘I dug out this old lens from PS Toronto because all the modern optics were too sharp,’ recalls the DOP.

An important reference for The Saddest Music in the World was the 1935 Warner Bros. film version of A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Montpellier says Maddin wanted to emulate the sparkle so apparent in that film.

‘We used Vaseline on the lens, which is quite a trademark for Guy,’ Montpellier notes. ‘It would take any light source in the frame and give it this beautiful, magical quality around the edges. Though Winnipeg was depressed and barren in the ’30s, Guy wanted to emulate the beauty in [the Warner film].’

An additional technique used by the filmmakers for an older style was shooting 18 frames per second as opposed to 24 and then transferring to video. The idea was to imbue the film with a slightly staggered, less crystal-sync quality. ‘The film was then output to 35mm to give Guy more choice in post so he could stretch his ideas further, whether through color correction or contrast,’ the DOP says.

The lighting is hard and high in contrast, as no diffusion was used. ‘Filmmakers in the ’30s didn’t have the technology available today, so diffusion gel on light sources couldn’t be used,’ Montpellier says. ‘When you light someone like Isabella Rossellini with very hard light, it’s amazing how precise the light placement has to be.’

The DOP mostly used Kodak’s Eastman Double-X 7222 Negative Film. For two color sequences in a final musical number, he used Kodak Vision 800T 7289 and pushed it one stop.

The Saddest Music in the World was filmed over five weeks in February and March in two Winnipeg locations – the Prairie Production Centre and the old Dominion Bridge steel mill, where the entire main street was built. Montpellier gives a lot of credit to production designer Matthew Davies.

‘My favorite set to light was the street scene, because Matthew just provided me with such amazing angles and he’s so conscious of lighting,’ Montpellier says.

One of the biggest challenges was coordinating large amounts of people, as the song competition is watched by hundreds of extras. ‘I had to devise a plan on the spot of how to light some of the extras,’ Montpellier says. The DOP had to illuminate up to 500 people, while trying to maintain an average pace of 80 setups a day.

Meanwhile, Maddin is thankful to producer Shapiro for getting Montpellier: ‘This DOP always smiles, no matter how heavy the camera, or how daunting the day. And we made some daunting days, getting up to 175 setups per 10-hour period, and at 40 below temps as well!’

The Saddest Music in the World is currently in post-production.