My love of Origin is well-documented. I have been unequivocally recommending Ava DuVernay’s masterpiece since it left me stunned at its TIFF premiere in September. Origin is a movie about love, loss, and the bonds that connect us. An unflinching examination of racism and the horrors of the Caste class system, Origin has reinvented dramatic storytelling in a way that is bold, imaginative, and deeply empathetic. I’ve never seen anything like it before, and I know it will be a long time before a film impacts me as profoundly as Origin has.
Cinematographer Matthew J. Lloyd joins Awards Daily’s Shadan Larki to discuss working with Ava DuVernay to craft scenes that span Nazi-era Germany, Dalit spiritual ceremonies in India, and the final moments of Trayvon Martin’s life. He candidly reflects on the responsibility that comes with creating such striking images, and what it was like watching DuVernay and actress Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor on set, creating a film that will surely stand the test of time.
Awards Daily: I have to tell you that Origin is my absolute favorite movie of the year. I cannot stop thinking about it. I saw 40-plus films while I was at TIFF earlier this year, and Origin is the one that I keep coming back to. I’ve just never seen anything like it before. So, I have to start by asking you if working on this had a similar impact on you.
Matthew J. Lloyd: I have to say from the very moment Ava told me what she was going to do next, through reading the script, through making all those images with her, and then through my very first sitting of the film, it’s been nothing short of… it’s like being hit by a train.
The script was incredibly powerful and very similar to the structure that you see in the finished film. The most impactful moment was when we put the cameras down, and Ava went into editorial and started her whole process.
Then, three or four months into post-production, Ava called me and said, ‘Hey, can you come down today? I have something I want to show you.’ And she played me the movie as you see it today. I was just out of breath. I couldn’t believe what weaving that imagery together had produced. It was really profound.
AD: You’ve done several Marvel films and larger projects recently. What was it like to do something more stripped back and intimate in scale?
MJL: It’s interesting. The movie had not always intended to be made in a totally studio-less ecosystem. It was from the persistence of Ava’s vision that we ended up in this kind of entirely independent scenario. I have to say, you have moments where you realize that no one will come to the rescue. And, really, the most profound part of the experience was sitting down at every meeting with every problem that presented itself and just knowing that we were the only ones that were going to find the solutions and that there wasn’t some magic button you could push, or lever to pull, where suddenly a bunch of people would come down and resolve our problems for us. [Origin] was going to be us, arm-in-arm, moving through it together.
And that really was the difference. In making the larger films that I’ve made, it’s a process that starts from the same place and builds outwards. So I try to be scalable in everything that I’m involved in where I can go from a $5 million Sundance thing to a hundred million dollar movie with the same intention and expand and contract as necessary in order to achieve the goals at hand.
AD: Origin shows us how the caste system is ingrained in our society. And I think that also bleeds into the visual language of the film, where you have different chapters and elements, but it’s all visually cohesive.
MJL: We talked a lot about this concept of the illusion of separateness. As a society, we’re made to believe that we are separate from one another. And that speaks to the larger issue of Caste in general, that without the individual and without separateness, the system couldn’t sustain itself.
In creating the movie’s visuals, Ava was very clear from the get-go that there was going to be a sameness of the experience of the people portrayed in the film, which needed to be cohesive and unified. Sometimes, with these multi-period, multi-storyline films, you can fall into the trappings of, ‘Oh, Germany should be black and white, and India should be technicolor, and you should design these coatings to let the audience know where they are at any given time. Where we turn that around is that, ‘No, in fact, even [hundreds of years] ago, this was the same infrastructure that was driving this system to keep people where they are. And there’s a unity in that journey. So, in fact, it should all [visually] remain the same.
It’s funny because some people say, ‘Oh, I love the look in India or Berlin.’ Or whatever it is. Those places speaking to us photographically, it’s done very naturalistically. Whatever you’re feeling in terms of a change in aesthetics is, in fact, the environments presenting themselves visually and us leaning into that instead of trying to create something artificially.
AD: The use of light, in particular, is just stunning.
MJL: The concept of lighting for the film, in general, was that it should be as unobtrusive as possible. Ava likes to work constantly with two cameras on everything and likes the artist to be able to flow and move. So, the lighting was crafted out of an environmental construct. We let the architecture shape it and used larger fixtures further away, letting the spaces craft the light.
The most interesting part of lighting is when the drama of the lighting is not intentional. Light needs to struggle to create drama. If [the lighting is] convenient, and everybody just sort of plops down and is sitting in a perfectly shaped piece of lighting, you don’t really get a sense of the reality of the space and the story that’s happening in it. We tried to let the environments speak for themselves, guide the mood of the lighting based on where the character is in the film, and let it be particular to each individual space.
AD: Talk to me about working with Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor, our Isabel. I found that it was almost like you could have felt the grief around her, like there was a heaviness around her at times. And she has a regal quality, a magnetism. How did you capture that?
MJL: Well, I approached her with deep reverence and respect for her artistry. I’ve spent a huge portion of my life around some amazingly talented performers, and this artist is singular in her presence, in the emotional reality of what is happening. Honestly, I watch the film, and I’m often so caught off guard when I have the rare moment of remembering that I was standing right there physically holding the camera two feet from her. In the moment, there was this kind of liquid quality to it. She led a lot of the camera operating in a way. She’s performing the scene, but she’s also performing the camera. And we’re responding to what’s happening with her movement. It was a deeply striking emotional experience to be a part of that kind of performance.
There was no technical discussion. It was like, ‘This is your world. We’re here to work inside of that.’ Ava conducted us as she does, moving us into various places, editing as she went, and guiding the visuals. Aunjanue, truthfully, was so radiant, and every night, we would go home and project the dailies because [we shot] on film. So, we would have to wait for the previous day’s work. And just the minute Aunjanue would show up on screen, she would explode off of it. We immediately knew this was a seminal role for her, and it was pitch-perfect casting. And the performance was really electric.
AD: One of the most striking scenes in Origin is when we go to India, and we see the Dalit man; he’s being covered in oil and being prepared to enter the sewage and perform that horrifying service. What was it like to shoot that scene and be in that space, emotionally and physically?
MJL: That scene was particularly difficult. Those are real Dalit people who are subjected to that occupation and that station in life, and it is horrifying to think that this is still going on in this day and age.
And their sort of tenderness and awareness of what the goal was, and their connection with Ava in that moment, and allowing us to capture this very delicate ritual that they have to protect each other and bless each other before this horribly dangerous task. The degree of risk that these men are subjected to every time they perform this service is unimaginable.
Ava took a lot of time upfront to bring them in, show them what had been constructed, and get input on exactly how it would function. The Dalits were clear and present in their participation in that recreation. They said to Ava that it was as real as it could be. They were happy to have eyes on it and to have some awareness of their situation and the horrors that are inflicted upon that population.
So, it was with great difficulty and deep reverence that those images were created. I think for all of us to see this moment, this ritual that they have before climbing in, and to show their spirituality with each other and protect themselves as best they can. It was so enlightening.
AD: What other scenes or moments stood out to you in making Origin?
MJL: You know, I’m always particularly struck with the weight of portraying the final moments of Trayvon Martin [before] his murder.
For all of us of a certain age and who were present when that occurred, that was a high watermark to some degree for a consciousness shift. And to have to relive the sheer terror of the final moments of that young man’s life was one that was sitting heavily on me and everyone involved in making the film on the technical side. I just hope that we were able to give it the intensity that it needed, the reality that it needed, to really let people know the feeling of being hunted for no other reason than the color of your skin. And the street that you’re walking on. And for that to happen when it happened, in the country it happened in, is still totally shocking. And I just hope those images resonate and we start to understand that more needs to be done.
AD: I spoke to [Origin’s composer] Kris Bowers, and one thing that we talked about is, when I saw the film, I left with this feeling of, five, ten years from now, there are going to be a lot of movies that will try to do what Origin did. And we’re going to look back, and we’re going to say, ‘This movie opened the door for like a new kind of filmmaking, a new kind of storytelling.’ Does that ring true for you and your experience?
MJL: Certainly, for me, the playbook on how to make a serious motion picture has been rewritten after this. I have a sense of my experience, having witnessed an artist at her absolute peak creative moment. There was lightning that struck. And we were all watching a once-in-a-generation artist create something unique. And, as you say, five, ten years from now, will we look back on the film and think, ‘Wow, [Origin] really defined the parameters for how to go about making things.’ And also for the language that is being used in cinema to articulate very conceptual intellectual ideas with poetry.
I think Ava was the artist to make that attempt, take that on, and give you this film. And I’m just so blessed to have been present to watch that happen. Hopefully, many people will be inspired by that language and approach and will try to further the cause with their own work.
AD: Any final thoughts?
MJL: I’m hopeful that as people see [Origin], word of mouth will spread and that we can hopefully start to have a larger conversation about the themes of this book and this film and how we are treating each other in the year 2024, going into what could be a very difficult immediate future. I just look forward to people taking what they can from the work and hopefully broadening the conversation.
Origin expands to theaters nationwide on January 19.