Tuesday, April 30, 2019

The Darkest Game of Thrones Episode Ever?

Phew! Whether you feel like you’ve recovered from the Battle of Winterfell or not, there’s still a lot to unpack about Sunday night’s milestone Game of Thrones—an epic battle episode that disposed of several major characters. At least, we think that’s what happened; the screen itself was often so dim during that nighttime battle that it was frequently difficult to figure out who, exactly, was killing whom. What was up with that paltry lighting? Well, as the episode’s director of photography, Fabian Wagner, told V.F.’s Joanna Robinson in the latest episode of our Still Watching podcast, Game of Throneshas always been shot naturalistically—relying on sources like sunlight, moonlight, candlelight, and fire light to illuminate the proceedings. “I wanted to evolve the lighting,” he told Robinson, saying that he worked to make the “storytelling of the lighting evolve with the storytelling of the characters.” Good thing fire witch Melisandre showed up to relieve our tired eyes, at least for a few moments.
Elsewhere in HWD, Martin Scorsese and the cast of This Is Spinal Tap take the stage at the Tribeca Film Festival to spill secrets about their classic films; Sonia Saraiya tries to get to the bottom of a generational mystery; and Richard Lawson lays out what really has critics anxious in a brave new era of celebrity clapbacks.