Cinematographer Maryse Alberti on Hillbilly Elegy, working with Ron Howard, Velvet Goldmine, Happiness, The Wrestler, Creed, documentaries, Michael Apted

Maryse Alberti is a very eclectic and prolific cinematographer,
shooting documentaries, indie films, television shows, commercials
and large films over the course of her career. She prefers films
that deal with something real- they don't have to revolutionize the
world, but the characters have to be interesting and grounded in
reality. On her latest film, Hillbilly Elegy, Maryse and director
Ron Howard discussed how to treat the different time periods and
places in the film. They wanted to juxtapose the character of J.D.
at Yale against rural Kentucky and Ohio, while also making the
flashbacks to his childhood stand out. The early childhood scenes
are color rich and shot handheld, while Maryse used a Steadicam and
normal color saturation for the more sedate and polite atmosphere
at Yale. Hillbilly Elegy is about strong characters, requiring
committed performances from actors Glenn Close and Amy Adams.
Maryse made sure to give the actors and director the space to
immerse themselves by devising unobtrusive lighting, coming in from
windows outside and using lamps on the inside. Her 
documentary experience of keeping it simple and natural also
translates to her narrative work, and she's discovered that it is
now second nature to find the best camera placement for a scene.
Growing up in the South of France, Maryse didn't see many movies or
television shows until she moved to New York as an au pair in the
1970's. She also worked in the art world, and had jobs as a
performance trapeze artist, musician, assistant on small film sets,
and took photos as a hobby. In 1990, she shot her first feature
length documentary, H2 Worker, an expose of working conditions in
the Florida sugar cane industry, which won Best Cinematography at
the Sundance Film Festival. The documentary launched her career as
a cinematographer. Maryse next worked with director Todd Haynes on
several films including Poison and Velvet Goldmine. She jumped at
the chance to work on the visually rich Velvet Goldmine, loosely
based on David Bowie's early career of the 70's. At the time,
Maryse had just finished working with Bowie on a Michael Apted
documentary called Inspirations, and was a huge fan of the glam
rock era. She and Haynes spent a great deal of time in
pre-production and Maryse found his storyboards to be amazing works
of art. Maryse continued to work on indie films in the 1990's,
never shying away from difficult subject matter, such as the
controversial Todd Solondz movie Happiness, which includes a
storyline with a character who is a pedophile. Maryse found
Happiness to be a tough movie since it was so out of the
mainstream, dealing with volatile and sexual subject matter that
would be almost impossible to find today. But in spite of it all,
the crew found ways to have fun with some of the absurd special
effects props for the film. Director Darren Aronofsky wanted his
film The Wrestler to be entirely hand-held. As a shorter woman,
Maryse knew it would be difficult and physically demanding to shoot
entirely herself, so they hired camera operator Peter Nolan. Maryse
and Aronofsky decided to shoot the entire movie on a single 12mm
lens. They committed to a naturalistic approach for shooting it and
stuck to it. They used a real location for the wrestling ring,
including the real wrestling crowd and real wrestlers. After The
Wrestler, Maryse was able to use some of what she learned to shoot
Creed, with the exception of the crowd. Maryse kept the camera on
the action the entire time, to emphasize that a boxer is truly
alone in the ring, rather than relying on any reaction shots from
the audience. In her documentary career, Maryse has worked with
director Alex Gibney on several films, such as The Armstong Lie,
Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room, and Taxi to the Dark Side.
She also had the good fortune to work with the late documentarian
Michael Apted on several films, such as Incident at Ogala and
Moving the Mountain,