Focus Features' Hamnet is set in 1580 England, where impoverished Latin tutor William Shakespeare meets free-spirited Agnes. The pair, captivated by one another, strike up a torrid affair that leads to marriage and three children.
As Shakespeare pursues a budding theater career in London, Agnes anchors the domestic sphere alone, and when tragedy strikes, the couple’s once-unshakable bond is tested.
The film is based on Maggie O’Farrell’s award-winning novel “Hamnet,” and was directed by Chloé Zhao. It stars Jessie Buckley, Paul Mescal, Emily Watson and Joe Alwyn. It received eight Oscar nominations, including those for Directing, Writing (Adapted Screenplay), Production Design, Best Picture, Music (Original Score), Costume Design, Casting and Actress in a Leading Role.
Zhao called on director of photography Łukasz Żal to shoot the project, which was captured using Arri’s Alexa 35 camera. Their initial conversations weren’t technical, however, but thematic, exploring the larger concepts that lie at the film’s core.
“We were talking about relationships, just dealing with everything this film is about to determine what we were looking for,” Żal recalls. “We were asking, ‘What is masculinity? What is femininity? What is this dance between this man and this woman?’ We were talking about death, love, about their family, this life cycle, and how we were going to show this.”
This helped in determining the best point of view from which to photograph the story.
“We were talking about how to shoot this film with a sense of freedom to reflect the spirit of Agnes, to capture how she sees this world,” says Żal. “I wanted to create this feeling that we are immersed in their lives. These two people meet, they find love and it’s so intense. I wanted to create the feeling of being immersed in those feelings. Then we jump out and see them from a distance, and we see the struggle of those two human beings.”
Żal’s approach to lighting was simple and straightforward yet evocative. For the scenes out among the trees, the beauty of the natural world shines through. By contrast, the candlelit interiors are rich with atmosphere, yet free from noise or distraction. The focus was always on the actors, who were frequently shot in close-up to capture the intensity of the emotion playing out across their features. It was an approach that developed over time as Żal and Zhao discovered and evolved the story’s visual language.
“Being honest and just looking at people, looking at what’s happening with their eyes, [conveys] so much,” Żal says. “This is magic.”
Once filming was complete, Zhao moved to the edit bay, where she assembled a rough cut.
“The editing is the heartbeat of a film,” says the filmmaker. “The script is the blueprint, but a very loose blueprint. Life happens while we shoot, not just my life, but the lives of everyone who is involved. So with that energy, it’s really important to go back and look at it, not only as an editor with the pacing, [to determine] how the heart is beating at the moment, but also as a writer to try to incorporate the things that we found along the way. The feelings we felt on the day that we couldn’t possibly have imagined. The first pass has always been very important because I’m trying to recapture the feeling I felt when I was directing each scene.”
She recruited editor Affonso Gonçalves to further collaborate on the edit.
“I chose Fonz because he has edited some of my favorite films and worked with some of my favorite filmmakers,” Zhao says. “I could tell that the rhythm of his heartbeat, his temperature, are very similar to mine, and I think that is very important. Also, he has a wide range of experience of working with filmmakers who are trying different things, and with Hamnet, truly, I was combining influences that I have not tried in my previous films. To really bring everything together into harmony, I thought Fonz was a perfect person.”
Gonçalves was just as keen to work with Zhao.
“I’ve been a fan of Chloé’s work since her first movie,” says the editor. “I had a chance to meet Chloé at the Sundance Lab, and I saw how passionate and creative she was with everyone around her. I jumped at the chance to
work with her.”
Gonçalves reviewed Zhao’s early cut of the film, and after intensive discussions with her, created his own pass. When that was ready, Zhao gave her notes, and the pair then discussed ideas and themes they wanted to underline through the editing process. Those conversations continued all the way through the final cut.
“Chloé is a great editor,” Gonçalves says. “She thinks and shoots for the editing room. She knows exactly what she’s looking for, and most of all, she has such a great eye for performances. She has such a great feel for rhythm and for the shape of the scenes, plus the way she thinks about the use of music and sound to elevate each scene helps to expand the world of the
characters.”
The world of Hamnet was shaped in the editing room by creating a very specific and rich reality within the movie. This included the sounds of the world, the pace of their lives, the use of music and silence, and the choice of camera angles.
“Every single tool in the editing room was used to best be able to tell this story,”says Gonçalves.