William Eggleston is oft cited as an aesthetic inspiration by filmmakers like Dennis Hopper, Sofia Coppola, David Byrne, and Gus Van Sant. Often befriending filmmakers, and having his career managed by a film producer, Caldecott Chubb (Eve’s Bayou, The Crow, Mallrats), Eggleston invariably finds himself commissioned to photograph on sets, appearing in or being directly referenced by cinema, even though he may have only a tangential interest in the medium.

Out of the current roster of cinema-referencing “conceptual” photographic all-stars who earned or started their MFAs right around 1978, we now have several one-namers that are embossed upon the young photo student’s visual conscience: Sherman, Crewdson, Lorca di Corcia, and Wall. Not often noted about the enormous output of photography produced by William Eggleston immediately preceding the New York and German “birth” of cinema-influenced conceptual photography is that Eggleston was independently executing work of this genre. For example, in a 1978 portrait of his mother, Eggleston photographs her in front of a robin blue sky with bare-bulb flash lighting her from an off-camera axis, reminding us of a Technicolor funeral scene. Eggleston was combining elements in his immediate surroundings and recombining them to form new narratives. In my opinion, he independently created the first faux movie still (or “fictional narrative”), in color.

Why are so many young and old photographers and filmmakers influenced by Eggleston’s work? It’s because it looks like contemporary cinema. His content is a cross between postmodern refuge strewn across most of the free world and the foliage and people found there within—essentially the background upon which modern cinema has been crated. Eggleston’s technical process is comparable to cinematography; the scene is photographed in high-fidelity 120mm (70mm film) stock, printed using an extravagant surreal process (dye transfer) and exulted as an aesthetic object. His view of our world is transformed into a transfixing vista of surreal color, unexpected sharpness, and purposeful unconventional composition. I would compare this to cinema, where we see the outside, transformed into a glowing screen, larger than life, crisper and more vibrant than we ever remember seeing it.

REVERSE SHOT: I was wondering if I could talk to you about all of the movies that have been coming out recently, about Stranded in Canton ,as well as the Michael Almereyda film, and the one by Vincent Gérard and Cédric Laty.

WILLIAM EGGLESTON: Sure, but I have not seen them.

RS: It’s too bad that you haven’t seen the movies about you, but I personally believe that you made the ultimate movie about yourself. By that I mean Stranded in Canton was the life that you were living when you were producing some of your best work.

WE: Well, I’m doing just as much today.

RS: Was it comfortable for you to do your work during the shooting of Michael Almereyda, Vincent Gérard and Cédric Laty's two separate movies about you? Did it impede your shooting in any way?

WE: It didn’t bother me a bit. I find it very comfortable and [to be working during the shooting of the] various movies, from Michael’s to Cedric and Vincent’s in France, with people like that; I can work around their shooting. I don’t get the feeling of being on camera. I’m kind of immune to that.

RS: They just let you do your thing.

WE: I let them do their thing…the reason I haven’t seen them, is because until recently, there have only been bits and pieces.

RS: There’s no crime in that. [laughs] Can we talk a little about your history in film, and some the people that you’ve been involved with?

WE: I have not had much history there. [laughs] People pay me, and I shoot for them.

RS: Do you remember photographing on the Annie set?

WE: Yes.

RS: How did that come about?

WE: Well, I don’t know how that came about, but to tell you the truth, it was not a pleasant experience. The set of Annie was the most boring thing I’ve been to.

RS: On the other hand, did you enjoy photographing on David Byrne’s True Stories set?

WE: Yeah, we had a wonderful time.

RS: Did you get to see the movie?

WE: Oh, sure.

RS: You made some decent work out of the David Byrne set, some photographs that I still see exhibited and published to this very day.

WE: I sure did.

RS: Can you tell me a little bit about your cooperation with David? Do you still get to see each other very often?

WE: Well, as often as possible, which isn’t very often at all…at least two to three times a year. He’s been here to Memphis to visit, and of course we see each other in New York and other places.

RS: I just saw him at your gallery opening at Cheim & Read: Nightclub Portraits 1973. He regularly cites your work as an influence in his moviemaking. Do you see the influence in his films?

WE: I think there’s a lot there, I can’t put my finger on what it would be…I think we have a synchronicity that we often don’t talk about.

RS: It’s not something that you discuss, but rather a subconscious connection.

WE: That’s right.

RS: And as far as appearing in films, for a second you showed up in the movie Great Balls of Fire, playing Jerry Lee Lewis’s relative.

[both laugh]

WE: The director was an old friend of mine, and he asked me if I’d do that, and I said okay, I’ll help out. So I did.

RS: Recently you and your son, Winston [Eggleston], went up to Mayfield Kentucky to photograph in Gus Van Sant’s hometown. Why did Van Sant commission you to photograph there?

WE: That’s where Gus is from.

RS: In the beginning of Elephant he recreates one of your photos of three power lines and a large cloud behind it as sort of homage to you. A lot of young directors seem to be referencing your work. Do you think that that’s because shooting in your manner lends itself to filmmaking? Or do you think that independent films are starting to look more and more like the color photography you made, that in time influenced most of the color visual aesthetic that with which we have grown accustomed?

WE: Probably some of both…I know that it’s true. We do have different directors, and people in the movies and I do get along very well.

RS: Did your work on Stranded in Canton have anything to do with your relationship with Richard Leacock? Had you seen any of his ‘cinema-verité’ style camera work before you worked with him at MIT in the late Seventies?

WE: I knew Ricky before that…and we were friends, but the thing that I did, called Stranded in Canton, was completely separate from my relationship with Ricky.

RS: But prior to working on Stranded in Canton had you seen any of his films? Did you appreciate them?

WE: I loved them.

RS: So, a lot of your projects over the years they are large all-encompassing that tend to represent the same motifs in a multitude of ways, for example your body of work, Los Alamos, isn’t about anything in particular, but rather images captured under a visual, chronological, and geographical theme. You once stated that you would ideally present Los Alamos as a bunch of volumes of bound books, containing thousands of photos. Do you feel like when you start these large projects they are a sort of long-form documentary?

WE: Sort of like that. I don’t know how to put it, but a cycle of symphonies.

RS: In the way that a symphony has different movements and themes that reoccur throughout several aesthetically congruous but different parts?

WE: They really become cohesive, in a grand sense, cause they are from the same line of thought.

RS: With your larger bodies of work, do you think that they could work as the geographic and visual content of a movie? Sort of scouting for different scenes for a movie that was never made?

WE: I never thought of them in that way. You're right, but that never entered my mind.

RS: When you make a final portfolio, are the groupings conceived after the shooting? For example, with Los Alamos, or when you and Mr. Chubb were producing your artists’ books in the late Seventies, such as Morals of Vision or the Flowers book, was the conception of the project initiated from your persistent shooting? In the same manner that a documentary filmmaker would shoot raw footage and group and comb the footage in the editing room to form a cohesive visual narrative?

WE: Well, that’s hard to say; I really don’t have an answer for that. They evolve. I wish that I had a better answer for that but I don’t.

RS: Stranded in Canton came from over 18 hours of raw footage. Do you like what Robert Gordon did with the editing of the film? Or do you feel like it became a highlight reel of your original intent? Did you want it to be longer? Or have it include even quieter, visually based moments?

WE: Well, I really intended for it to be the length that it is. What I call “movie length,” and I wasn’t too critical on his edit, which is fine with me because he took this tremendous of energy to edit the film. I personally would have treated thing basically as a piece of music. My original intent really excluded voiceovers or anything, I just wanted it to flow as say, a symphony, and I don’t think that during someone’s symphony, I would interrupt and start talking.

RS: Would your correlate the shooting and editing process of Stranded in Canton with that of your still photographic essays? They both came out of the same process of shooting a lot of raw material, and then collaborating with others on the editing process.

WE: I think so. The portfolios [are created] out of a necessity to edit.

RS: Ideally how would you present your very large bodies of work, if dye transfer was not such an expensive process? You could present everything. Winston [Eggleston’s son] says that sometimes you want to keep every frame. Do you think you would want to show the entirety of a project, through tomes of bound prints?

WE: Ideally, but it’s impossible with dye transfer, which like you said, is an enormous expense, and the idea of printing two thousand dye transfers, you’re talking about the kind of money that it takes to make a major film. So the portfolio and the dye transfer has to be reduced to 10 to 15 prints.

RS: Do you ever go to the movies, or do you ever watch them at home?

WE: Almost not at all. I love them, but I’m not a moviegoer. [laughs]

RS: What are some of your favorite movies? I heard that you like old film noir.

WE: Any good film. Makes no matter to me when they were made.

RS: Another reason that I think filmmakers reference and cite your work so often now, is because once it left the studio it entered the commonplace, and film location and content transitioned to include suburbia, natural light, and mimic the aesthetic of street photography, all which is central to the manner in which you have worked.

WE: Films began to be shot in the studio, and then with technological advances, they realized that it could be shot anywhere. The same happened [for still photography] with the 35mm camera and the Mamiya Press [a medium format camera, used by Eggleston throughout most of the Seventies].

RS: …and just as the Sony Porta-pack freed to you up to shoot video outdoors and in available for Stranded in Canton.

WE: Exactly.

RS: When you see a movie, projected on a screen, perhaps a still frame it is a particular sensation. You are viewing an illuminated, vibrant scene in a darkened room—have you ever thought of how your process of recording high definition scenes, using medium format cameras, and elaborate, richly detailed printing methods in order reproduce common scenes relates to the reproduction of the moving image? Do you think that moviemaking and the presentation thereof elevates our visual world in the same way, to a higher level?

WE: I guess so. That makes sense. The dye transfer is a highly technically true process, sort of like Technicolor…because they are essentially the same process: using dyes to produce the final print.

RS: Do you think that the vibrant dyes that you are using, remind young filmmakers of the Technicolor movies that define our visual conception of the past?

WE: That could be, because the dye is very controllable, color wise. But I actually try to have my printers make them as neutral as possible, and not try to accentuate the color. The process itself is inherently vibrant, it can make them seem like they’ve been enhanced to be saturated, but that’s not my intention. I’d rather they look like real life.

RS: Sofia Coppola is a young filmmaker that has always admired your work and is vocal about it?

WE: Yes, we have recently spent quite a bit of time together.

RS: Have you had a chance to see any of her films?

WE: Yes.

RS: Is there anything that you like in particular about them?

WE: Yeah, I just think that they’re full of talent. She and I personally get along, very well. I don’t really ever talk to her at all about film or pictures. Usually we end up talking about music.

RS: She’s a big music fan.

WE: Sure is! I am too. We have great times together and we will be working together very soon.

RS: Any projects in mind?

WE: We’ll that’s funny and she and I both laugh about this…we can’t figure out what to do. [laughs] I guess that it will just happen…

----

To view any of the bodies of work referenced in this interview, you can visit William Eggleston’s content-rich site at: www.egglestontrust.com