This interview with Fabio Zamarion is published in the number 37 of Vanity Fair on newsstands until 9 September 2025.
Somewhere in Nepal, the room of a hotel breakfasts. Morning very soon. A young car operator is sitting at a table. In front of him, Bernardo Bertolucci. “We were turning Little Buddha. Bertolucci went down very early, and I pretended to be a morning too. It was to be with him, he could talk about everything », he says Fabio Zamariontoday a master of light. “On the last day, when he got up, he said to me:” See you on the set. ” Then he went back, and added: “Thanks for these beautiful mornings” ». Zamarion is still excited when he thinks about it: “He had understood it since the beginning that I was there just to listen to him”.
It had to be fate: it was proper Twentieth century of Bertolucci to convince a very young Fabio to choose the road to director of photography. Or rather: del master of lightto emphasize the authority of a role that very often is not recognized. He will soon leave for Venice, where he will be a guest of the event Behind the screen organized by Vanity Fair: it is in a moment of rest, rare in a trade in which The world is around, from one set to another, with very long shifts. “If you work with people who are, those hours are easier to face,” explains Zamarion. Troupes are like small families. And the workers are «Bambinoni. At dinner, while you are shooting a movie, talk to the director of the next project: we do not settle for what we already do for 12 or 13 hours a day ».
His role is often misunderstood: there are those who think the stage photographer, who instead quotes the Duccio of the series Boriswho just screams “open everything” to the machine operator: «Boris is very funny, and I love who wrote it very much. But I haven’t known photography directors, fortunately. “
How would you tell your work to those who are not part of the sector?
«I have not yet managed to explain it even to my children … without my work, it would be all dark if you are in an interior or all too illuminated if you are in an exterior. I give a balance to light, which helps to tell a written story, that is, the script ».
What was the image that made her understand that she wants to do this job?
«Olmo, one of the protagonists of Twentieth century of Bertolucci, is a child and walks on a table of peasant families who eat together with sunset. I was struck. I left what I was doing and I dedicated my life to the attempt to become director of photography ».
Then he really worked on with Bertolucci.
“I remember him with enormous affection.”
How was the first day of set with him?
“The film was The last emperorI was 24 years old and I was doing the operator help. 100 people moved around the first shot. Bernardo used the camera like a pen and I was there with Vittorio Storaro, the greatest director of photography in the history of cinema. For a boy such a set was a bliss ».
Did you ask him for advice?
«At the time the hierarchies of cinema were much stronger. Bertolucci was a God, Storaro was a God. The relationship with Bernardo became a whole other thing when I did the machine operator for Little BuddhaI was bigger. He called me his cook, a French photographer. Every time I went to do the images with the second unit he stopped the working group and said: “Let’s see that he did my cook” ».
What were his masters?
“The set is an open construction site, anyone can give you an idea. But my only teacher is Vittorio Storaro. He taught me everything. It was a sort of dad: I had lost mine when I was not yet graduated from the Experimental Center. I started working life without a father, and he supported me. With severity, with expectations, but he traced the road to me because I didn’t miss me ».
Storaro said that cinema is an art made of art, and that he closed himself at home to read for a year before working.
“He forced me to do the experimental center and, while I gave the exams, to take a year of physics, mathematics … he taught me to never leave anything to chance. He does not struggle: he goes to the set and what he does is almost natural to him ».
What was the call you didn’t expect?
«The first for the cinema, for Breath by Emanuele Crialese. I had done a small thing for television, and I don’t know how this script received. We met on a Saturday at his house, I remember that there was a crazy hot, and I told him about the things of the text that, apparently, others had not noticed. We went to Lampedusa a month, at half past four in the morning I was on the boat. When we started shooting we didn’t even need to talk to each other, we already knew everything ».
And how was the meeting with Giuseppe Tornatore, with whom he often collaborates?
«Totally random. He had seen a movie I had made, Evilenko. He invited me to his studio, we talked for four hours. He gave me the script of La Vestuuta. Now we have fun more and more when we work together ».
Among the places he saw, what light has hit the most?
«That of the Morocco desert. Drainer, with pink dunes and cold sky: of embarrassing beauty. I was a boy on the set of IshtarI started first and ended last, and I remained another twenty minutes to see the animals that came out at that hour, they felt protected ».
What is the nightmare situation for a master of light?
«Two actors with a white wall 50 centimeters from their heads, on the bottom. There you have to take it with the director, you can’t get anything good. Maybe you have a wonderful actress, like Vanessa Redgrave, who made me move several times while I was a car operator, and those wonderful eyes you lose them. So I dream of one thing at night ».
The worst moments on the set?
“There have been many, but when they say” wrap “, that is, the end of the filming, forget everything that happened. It’s my way of recharging myself ».
Removes even the most exciting moments?
“I have one. When I entered the cinephonic, the Cinecittà room where they make the mixing of the films. In order not to disturb I sat behind. There was this trolley that started and Ksenia Rapoport (protagonist of The unknown, ed) who sang a lullaby, the music of Ennio Morricone, the light made by me. For the first time I felt a director of photography. Tornatore saw me upset and asked me: “What’s the case?”. And I said to him: “I think I made it” ».
He also spent time with Ennio Morricone, when you made Tornatore’s documentary together.
«The first filming were at his home. He said to me: “Fabié, come to hear, this is If you call”, And he mentioned it.“ I didn’t invent anything: feel, they are two notes, they change and here is the theme of Once upon a time in America“. We let him play to the end. Then he turns: everyone cried, from the 60 -year -old driver to the boy of 20. And Giuseppe said to him:” Look that I combine “. And with the gaze of a child who does not understand what he did he look at us as if to say” I? “. He did not realize his genius”.
Has it found a particular understanding with other directors?
«I shot films with very good, very sensitive directors. Ferzan Özpetek, Francesca Archibugi … I made four projects in a row with Gabriele Muccino, who is Tornatore’s antithesis. Opposite languages, opposite styles. And I work with one and with the other, having fun. “
How did it start?
«I worked a lot with Gabriele in advertising, then it was for 12 years in America. When we found ourselves, we sniffed how to do it between animals, we did not bike. We had a lot of fun together. He has a very strong exponential energy and forced me to review everything I thought. He had the ability to rejuvenate a head that had become too stubborn too early ».
We talked about the human factor on the set. What do you think of the increasing use of AI in cinema?
«For the documentary on Brunello Cucinelli I went to Silicon Valley with Giuseppe to interview Reid Hoffman (LinkedIn foundereditor’s note), one of those who work on artificial intelligence. It is a huge possibility that the world gives itself, it is necessary to see how it is used. Everything will change in our sector, the workers will disappear. But it is the course of history. The important thing is that they continue to make good films ».
Do you imagine how could you change your role?
«It will disappear. The role of absolute creative will remain. In Italy, in 10 years we will still be there, in America perhaps between five or you are already there we will no longer be there. Hoffman said some images we had seen: “It’s old stuff”. They are much ahead ».
So what would a young man who wants to start his profession today?
«If you like it so much enjoy it as long as you can. Take advantage of the time that remains. Then there will still be the author’s cinema, which goes in theaters in 70 mm. The cinema of Iñárritu, of Cuarón, Malick, Scorsese … ».
More short -term, what new projects does it have?
«The latest Muccino film and the documentary on Tornatore Cucinelli are about to come out. Projects coming, Sergio Rubini’s next film, a beautiful story. Then I am old, I have been on the set for 45 years, I could also enjoy life a little. Don’t travel, though. I spent my life traveling and for me it is not a holiday. Even if my wife disagrees on this wife ».
Does the need for rest leave room for someone he would still like to work with?
«Paolo Sorrentino and Luca Guadagnino. I find them really brilliant and I haven’t worked on it yet. And Martin Scorsese. There is nothing to do: he is the best in the world ».
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Source: Vanity Fair
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