Wir hatten zum DVD-Start von Black Panther die Möglichkeit, die für den Oscar nominierte Kamerafrau Rachel Morrison zur ihrer Arbeit am Film, zu Streaming-Portalen und der Bedeutung von Superhelden-Filmen zu interviewen. 

Maximilian: In 2018 you were the first woman ever to get nominated for the Oscar for Best Cinematography in the history of the show. To what extent is the film business undergoing changes which make the emancipation of women easier?

Rachel Morrison: I feel like it is going through a massive change between the times that we are in and a few years earlier when it started. And it feels helpable. To me this nomination has helped people to look at female cinematographers in new light, which is great. But I think it is about time. I never quite understood why there were so few women in this business. It is about visualizing human motion and thereby speaks to everything that women do well. But we will see the numbers increasing rapidly in the next years.

Maximilian: Why did it take such a long time until the academy decided to nominate a woman in this category?

Rachel Morrison: I think that has to do with the statistics. There is so few of us doing it. There are thousand films shot a year and only four of them are shot by women. Maybe a slight exaggeration but thereby it is much harder to get nominated for one of the four films for an Oscar. And historically speaking it seems like women have been rather shooting smaller films and until recently the Oscar nominated movies were always big Hollywood grand movies and women did not the chance to shoot movies at that budget level. But currently this trend is changing in terms of the size of the movies that get nominated for the Oscar but also in terms of women getting bigger movies.

Maximilian: Black Panther is often praised for creating equality between black and white culture in blockbuster-cinema. Was that the intention of the project?

Rachel Morrison: I do not think it was the intention but it was certainly a hope that the movie would speak to fans universally. I think for a long time now the black culture has looked for superheroes that looked like themselves and it has been hard to find. Ryan Coogler (Creed- Rocky´s Legacy) made a movie that he could have seen when he was an 8 year old boy. But the hope is that it was something that was going to appeal to everyone, universally and not be specific to only black or white or male or female audience. 

Maximilian: What else sets Black Panther apart from other MCU-films?

Rachel Morrison: For me the thing that sets it apart and that speaks a lot to Ryan Coogler and his passion as a filmmaker, is that there is a really humanity at the core and the film is actually quite grounded and shows things that people can relate to. I am not the average Marvel fan or the average superhero fan but I would still go and see this movie. And I think the reason is that the film takes on some bigger issues that are really relevant to everyone. And also the fact that the characters are believable. You have villains that are not one-dimensional but actually have some pretty compelling ideas and you have protagonists that are flawed. And to me that is a bigger reflection of life than the average superhero movie which is a little more one-dimensional.

Maximilian: You recently took part in the big cinema production Black Panther and shot the movie Mudbound for Netflix. Are Netflix and the traditional cinema in competition? And is Netflix threatening the cinema?

Rachel Morrison: I do not think Netflix per se is threatening the cinema. The culture has obviously become accustomed to instant gratification. We all have our iPhones and if you do not know the answer to something, you ask “Siri” and get an answer right away. It´s almost like the three ring circus complex. Once upon a time people we were happy looking at one ring and then once the three ring circus was introduced three things were happening at once and it became very hard to go back to the single ring. It is the same with the theatrical experience or whatever else. And there is also just so much content out there now. I do not think it is just Netflix. Every cable network has shows that you can stream and watch immediately. It is a lot more complicated than just to put your finger on Netflix and say that they are the reason why the movie industry is threatened. What I will say is that it was a hard pill for me to swallow when I realised that my film was not going to be viewed theatrically by as many people as I planned on it to be. But in the end there is a much, much bigger audience overall for the film and I would rather have a million people seeing it at home on their television than have a hundred people seeing it at the theatre. So in the end of the day the content is really the thing that matters. And Netflix is one of the few standing that taking real chances with programming and spending money on producing new material. Mudbound is a prime example of that. We certainly looked for a theatrical outlet for the film and nobody wanted to buy it because of the financial risk and I am really grateful to Netflix for financing the film and for trusting us.

Maximilian: Would it be problematic if streaming replaced the cinema?

Rachel Morrison: It would be a tragic day if people did not have the option to go to the cinema. Watching a film at home and going to the cinema are not the same experience to me. Going to the theatre is a very communal experience and when you see a funny or tragic film you share these emotions and thereby an experience with the rest of the audience and you cannot replace that at home. And when you watch a movie at home there is a temptation to look at your phone or go to the fridge and you thereby do not get the feeling of becoming one with the character. But I think there is a place for both. At this point we are not going backwards and I think now it is the question how we maintain the theatrical experience and the answer here is to make it nicer by providing better seating, better food options and more. Theatres have to look for new, other ways to get people out of their home.