Low-key Lighting in Modern Film

At the height of the Hollywood studio system, the vast majority of films were lit from above, with smooth, even light illuminating every part of the set equally. This technique is known as high-key lighting. Through the years, intrepid cinematographers began experimenting with lighting positions, discovering new ways to express mood, tone, and emotion by casting shadows, obscuring certain areas of the frame, and increasing contrast. This method came to be known as low-key lighting. Though pioneered as early as the 1920’s in Germany, modern low-key lighting owes a great deal to Gordon Ellis, the so-called ‘Prince of Darkness’ who shot films like The Godfather with particularly low light levels. Since then, low-key lighting has come to dominate modern science fiction and horror films. Particularly adept at following Gordon Ellis’ lead and using this style to great effect in their films are the modern directors Ridley Scott and David Cronenberg.

Ridley Scott’s Alien is consistently listed on the top of critics’ horror film lists. The highly claustrophobic and chilling atmosphere of this film is created largely by the way Scott and his cinematographer, Derek Vanlint, employ low-key lighting techniques. Consider a scene early in the film in which a few crew members land on an uninviting alien world and are forced to wear space suits into a foreboding crashed vessel. Scott and Vanlint’s lighting technique is particularly ingenious here. The crew members’ faces are actually lit by on-screen lights; that is, their space suits are equipped with flashlights which serve both the story and the production. These lights make visible the frightened space travelers while not illuminating the rest of the set, allowing the vessel to be dark and mysterious. The lights also beat down on the travelers in a harsh way, casting shadows on their faces and making them seem very small in their suits, enhancing the feeling of claustrophobia felt by the characters and the audience.

The scene in which the ship’s captain, Dallas, attempts to hunt down the alien in a small corridor allows Scott and Vanlint to again use low-key lighting in an inventive and horrifying way. Dallas, played by Tom Skerritt, is lit primarily by objects that appear on-screen: a flashlight and a flamethrower. Again, we see props in the film used for a dual purpose; both to serve the story and provide lighting. The way Skerritt holds the flashlight allows the light to hit his face from below, casting large and ominous shadows through the corridor, a textbook low-key technique. Also, the flamethrower flickers about the corridor, casting light at irregular intervals, allowing but the briefest glimpses at what lies ahead for Dallas, increasing the tension of the scene.

Many consider Ridley Scott’s next film Blade Runner a futuristic revival of film noir, a genre practically defined by low-key lighting. Let us visit the scene in which Harrison Ford’s character Deckard is briefed by his boss on the newly escaped replicants roaming the streets of L.A. In this scene, Deckard and his boss sit in a room lit by neon, which makes the entire room a harsh, dark shade of blue. Additionally, they are hit from behind with a hard white light to produce a glaring halo effect. With this setup, Scott and cinematographer Jordan Cronenweth obscure most of the background while bringing their characters to the forefront. The color blue may also signify Deckard’s negative emotions toward his job; the film reveals earlier that he has no choice but to take it.

The climactic scene of Blade Runner is an exercise in pure low-key techniques. As the replicant Roy Batty chases Deckard through L.A.’s Bradbury Hotel, what little light there is to be seen seeps in at odd angles and intervals. Consider a shot in which Deckard helplessly tries to find his way out of a room. The windows, from which an odd harsh light emanates, are half boarded up, allowing the light to play across the room in a kind of checkerboard pattern, casting odd shadows across the room and across Harrison Ford. Here, Scott and Cronenweth use low light levels to make it unclear what lurks around the corner, both for Deckard and for the audience.

Ridley Scott, for all his invention and brilliance, does not hold a monopoly on low-key lighting. David Cronenberg, a master of horror, often manipulates light levels and positions to achieve his dramatic goals. In Cronenberg’s The Fly, shot by Mark Irwin, Jeff Goldblum’s character Seth transforms from a human to a bizarre fly-like creature. Though more subtle than Goldblum’s makeup, the film’s lighting also goes through its own transformation. Early in the film, when Seth is fully human, his apartment is lit in the traditional high-key style; everything is fully visible and shadows are minimized. Later, as in the scene where Seth’s girlfriend visits him for the final time, the same set is lit much differently. Seth, in the final throes of his transformation, hides in his bathroom, which is now very dark and obscured. His girlfriend also has harsh shadows across her face. Clearly, low-key lighting is used here to display Seth’s descent into darkness.

Though low-key lighting did not originate in the modern film era, cinematographers like Gordon Ellis, the ‘Prince of Darkness,’ helped to bring low light levels and unusual lighting positions to the forefront. Due in part to his innovations, low-key came to dominate modern films, especially genres like science fiction and horror, where directors like Ridley Scott and David Cronenberg, with their respective cinematographers, used low-key lighting to great effect.