person

Michael Ballhaus

Fassbinder's cameraman, who came to New York and taught Scorsese to shoot sixteen set-ups a day. After Hours was their first film together; Goodfellas and The Departed came later.

camerawork
lighting
cinematographer
scorsese
fassbinder

Michael Ballhaus (1935–2017) shot fourteen films for Rainer Werner Fassbinder before he came to America (hnf 470; sos 115). He brought one thing Scorsese badly needed in 1984: speed.

The editors of Scorsese on Scorsese give the background:

At the age of twenty, in 1955, Ballhaus had observed the shooting of Max Ophuls's last film, Lola Montes; and it was his ability to mount complex camera movements rapidly — a feature of Ophuls's style - which immediately impressed Scorsese.

— Scorsese on Scorsese, sos 115

Scorsese's version is warmer and less reliable: "Michael is a gentleman. He smiles on the set, he is very pleasant and he's Max Ophuls's nephew. He also moves quickly" (sos 99). Ballhaus himself says only that his parents knew Ophüls (msk 125). Treat "nephew" as a Scorsese promotion.

The films with Scorsese

After Hours (1985) first, then The Color of Money, The Last Temptation of Christ, the New York Stories segment Life Lessons, Goodfellas, The Age of Innocence, Gangs of New York and The Departed. Scorsese hired him for the second one for a practical reason: "If I could get Ballhaus, I knew I could do it again" (sos 107).

He had wanted the job for years. "When I first saw Martin Scorsese, he was in Berlin talking about film preservation and how to prevent colors from fading. I was sitting there, and I said to myself, 'One day I'm going to shoot a movie with this director'" ([[Mary Pat Kelly — Martin Scorsese: A Journey|Kelly]], unpaged).

What he did on After Hours

He ran his own crew and operated the camera himself (sos 99), which is how a shot list of 500 or 600 set-ups fitted into forty nights (Five set-ups a day became sixteen). He found the crane move that replaced the dropped camera in The keys nearly killed Griffin Dunne, and the jib-arm swoop in After Hours — the diner. Scorsese describes the lighting as "a takeoff on German Expressionism—the shadow of the walls in the staircase, a shadow against the wall" (Kelly, unpaged): Fassbinder's cameraman quoting Weimar for a comedy.

Disputes

Arrival in America. The sos editors say he first came in 1982 to shoot Baby, It's You for John Sayles (sos 115, where the scan reads "198Z"). Cook says he relocated in 1980 (hnf 470).
Ophüls. Nephew (Scorsese, sos 99) or family friend (Ballhaus, msk 125).

Go on, then

film After Hours (1985) A word processor goes downtown for a date, loses his last $20 out of a cab window, and cannot get home. Scorsese's comedy of paranoia, shot in forty nights for $4 million after Paramount killed The Last Temptation of Christ.
scene Mean Streets — Tony's bar Charlie walks into a room lit like hell in slow motion; later Johnny Boy walks in on the downbeat of 'Jumpin' Jack Flash' with a girl on each arm. Two entrances, one room, and the camera's opinion of both.
idea Chapman pushed the night stock Taxi Driver's wet neon look came from over-developing night-rated Technicolor stock — a 1970s laboratory habit, not a lighting package.
idea Five set-ups a day became sixteen Scorsese drew every shot of After Hours in the script margins and found he had about 500 of them. At his usual pace that was impossible. Michael Ballhaus said he could do it.
scene Psycho — the parlour scene Norman and Marion eat sandwiches while the mise en scène quietly explains the entire film.
idea Too much red In 1975 Michael Powell wrote to Scorsese to say Mean Streets used too much red. Scorsese had got the red from Michael Powell.