Hans Charles, center, an assistant professor of film and video studies, and co-director of photography of the film "13th," said "The Godfather" was his inspiration behind his lighting and camera angle choices. Photo by Dixie Vereen
The Oscar-nominated film “13th” addresses the weighty issues of race in the United States and the disproportionate number of blacks in its prisons through the use of candid interviews, graphic archival footage and telling statistics.
On Feb. 13, a crowd gathered in the Johnson Center Cinema for a screening of the film as part of the Visiting Filmmakers Series, a program of the Film and Video Studies Program at George Mason University. The series puts students in contact with working industry professionals, in this case, FAVS’ own professor Hans Charles, a co-director of photography for the film, which is up for best documentary feature at the 2017 Academy Awards, airing Feb. 26.
“As a student, it’s inspiring to see your professor involved like this. It benefits all the students,” said film and video studies major Jala Reha, a junior. “The [film] is a bold message that people are afraid to hear. Having this conversation is vital to how we change.”
The movie takes its name from the 13th of Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which ended slavery.
The film also notes that the United States is home to 5 percent of the world’s people, but 28 percent of the world’s prisoners—2.3 million people. Black men make up 40 percent of the U.S. prison population, even though they make up just 6 percent of country’s total population, according to the documentary.
After the screening, a student asked Charles for advice about discussing the film with some of her family from the southern United States who have deep-seated prejudices toward blacks.
“The truth is, the incarcerated population affects everybody. Injustice for one person is going to become injustice for you,” Charles said. “Show people the film and start to have a conversation because they probably know someone that’s locked up right now. All kinds of people are affected.”
Other students asked Charles about the technical aspects of his role in the film, which was in production for more than two years.
“We would do three interviewers in one location so it was my job to make each location look completely different,” he said. “That’s where my skills as a cinematographer come in; you guys have no idea that [some of these] interviews were done in the same place, we just used different corners.”
When a student asked Charles to name his favorite part of the film, he revealed that the movie “The Godfather” was the inspiration behind his lighting and camera angle choices when filming a well-respected veteran lawmaker. He didn’t notice he’d filmed and lit another lawmaker similarly until he saw the film at Tuesday’s screening.
“I didn’t realize that shot was so gangster,” he said, adding that he’d seen “13th” only once in its entirety.
He also spoke about the challenges that come with being a documentary cinematographer—something he never really saw himself as—and about meeting the expectations of his boss, the film’s director Ava DuVernay.
“She always wanted the two cameras to have different textures. It was a challenge of whether or not I could do it with the lighting that I wanted in the time that she demanded … you have to step up to challenge,” Charles said. “Always saying ‘yes,’ just as long as it’s not unsafe, is always a good thing. Just say ‘yes’ and try to do the best that we can and see what happens.”