Interview with Linus Sandgren on Saltburn: "I want audiences to love going to the movies"

Linus Sandgren is one of the most exciting cinematographers and DoPs currently working. His filmography is stacked full of mesmerizing movies, including American Hustle, Babylon, Joy and the film that secured him his first Oscar win, La La Land.

He has become the master of framing the everyday like a portrait. Each moment from one of his films is worthy of being hung in a museum for admirers to study and unpack.

The precision and attention to detail he has become known for is only amplified in his latest work, Saltburn. From writer and director Emerald Fennell, the film follows an Oxford University student, Oliver, enticed by the world of his charming and aristocratic classmate, Felix, who invites him to spend the summer with his eccentric family in their sprawling estate.

As the film prepares to hit Prime Video, I spoke with Linus about the art of finding beauty in disgust, crafting meaningful light and the eroticism of armpits.

Related: Saltburn Review: A Repulsive, Dirty, Twisted Reflection on Class

Billie Melissa: I’ve seen the film twice now and loved it, and also read through the script — which is fantastic — so I’m curious to know from you what really jumped out on the page when you first read it?

Linus Sandgren: I think everything about it, just the question he asked in the beginning “Was I in love with him?” made me intrigued. The script is laid out very much like the movie and describes how the story goes, how you slowly reveal, sort of, what’s going to happen. I thought it was just brilliantly written and very visually descriptive. I loved how bold it was in how far she goes with things. I feel like it was kind of liberating to feel like wow, here's the film that really tells the story Oliver wants to be told instead of trying to hold back or restrict yourself. I feel like that's very much how Emerald works because it's all grounded in the real character and it feels like everything makes total sense. I even doubt my own thoughts on certain things that happen in the film. I feel like if I “if I see that, is that okay? Or is it not okay?” But then you sympathise with him because she’s made you sympathize with him. So you're torn. I love that sort of tension. Like Venetia has insights in how she sees him, and how he describes his monologue with Elspeth at the end. It was just brilliantly written. It kept me reading from page one, I couldn't stop.

BM: It's definitely a page turner. I feel the film runs like that, too. I was leaning into it wanting to see what happened next but also very repulsed by my own curiosity. I heard you speak about the film wanting to be like we’re peeking into a doll’s house. A theme that I see running through Saltburn, and actually, in your previous work is excess and debauchery, so I'm really curious on why you feel like audiences are so drawn to those kinds of stories?

LS: I guess. I think also, isn't it that we are excessive people? We all want the latest iPhone, or we want the things that we can't get. I mean, it takes a little bit of work to get a person not interested in that. The thing with Oliver is that he comes from the most ordinary, normal background. It’s not poor, it's just normal, and that's the worst. I think that's one of the things Emerald wanted to look into. Our biggest fear nowadays is to be just normal. Everyone wants to be on Instagram and be someone. So why do we have to be someone else? Why do we have to be something that we think is better? Why do we want so many things? It's an interesting subject for the times. I don't know if in this case, this type of family is a little more excessive… and that has to do with Emerald wanting to work in that Gothic story in telling. I don't know. It's hard, isn’t it? That was a tricky question, actually.

BM: It's curious isn't it? It's something that I've noticed particularly throughout generations as we go on. The more we're exposed to others, the more we want. We're very curious about what we don’t have. I’m keen to know about how you, as a cinematographer, go about balancing capturing the juxtaposition of beauty in disgust. There are so many horrible things to look at in this film but they’re framed so gorgeously. How were you and Emerald having those discussions on set, and even before in pre production?

LS: When you create the language for the film I feel like it really has to be grounded in the character's emotions. Part of it is that beauty and disgust are the same. What came to my mind as a reference point was the Baroque painters who oftentimes depicted disgusting stuff in a beautiful way that makes you want to watch it. You stand there in a museum, and you're like, “Wow, this is incredible. Is his head actually in her hand? Is the sword in between being shot off? Yeah. Okay. Well, that's disgusting. But so beautiful.” When you then see things where you, not necessarily say that it’s disgusting, but some people in the audience will think it's disgusting, or some will maybe think it's beautiful. We leave that to the audience by not overdramatizing. For example, the grave. That is just a well composed image of a man in grief. He’s crying, he’s on the grave — which is wrong — but you can right away accept it because it's sad. It’s a dooming dark image. We thought of it as like: let's have this painting right here. Just like this. If we would’ve pushed in, or if we would have a dolly or try to dramatize it more, I think, then you would feel like the director is trying to tell you something. It's up to you to judge what's going on. The only thing we can do is to try to present it, not in a disgusting way, but in an evocative way that hopefully makes you want to watch it more. That's where the conflict comes in, like, “Ah, I like to watch it. But I also, I don't know, this is wrong, what's going on now?” It's fun to play with. That was part of the language, to try to find a beautiful way of portraying something that potentially could be wrong, or disgusting. It could also be things that some people may find erotic. For example, Jacob Elordi is such a beautiful, handsome man, obviously, and he’s lying in the grass and Emerald’s, like, “that's centered on the armpit, right?” And for her, that's maybe erotic, but for me…

BM: Everyone has their preferences.

LS: Which is interesting! That's the point. Everyone is gonna have different tastes, but it’s understandable. She does such a great job in making you sort of sympathize with all the characters as much as you could also be disgusted by them. That’s the complexity of human nature. I think in Promising Young Woman too you really sympathize with Carey Mulligan’s character, but at the same time, she's kind of a psycho herself, too. It's double nature to most people. I think that's a big part of what's interesting, too, with how Emerald creates her characters. I would say that we tried to make the images more appealing, rather than the other way around.

BM: I also wanted to ask about the light. When I was reading through the script, there were so many descriptions of light. Like “light streams through the window” or “light catches on Felix”. What conversations were you having about light, and how did you go about crafting such a designed look?

LS: First of all, in prep, we discussed the tone of the film, and we came to those conclusions of the Baroque paintings, which is sort of Caravaggio and that type of lighting that is sort of dramatic, natural light coming through the windows and you don't expose for the shadows, but you expose for the light so the rooms gets dark. That way you get a lot of negative space. It’s almost making the house feel more mysterious, that there may be someone standing in the darkness in the room watching you. So, when we found the locations and we saw these big windows in the house, we always created the spaces for different scenes in parts of the house where we had windows in the best position. We built Farleigh’s bedroom upstairs in a little office room they had so that we could get that shot from a distance of the window. We had a reason for why the light was the way it was. One thing that's fun, and that we found by accident… you know, the scene when Felix is in the bathtub and he's watching him? We wanted to illuminate him so it looks really sweaty and shiny and hot and sexy, then the light from his body bounced off the walls and then we augmented that but it gave a light to the face of Oliver.

BM: Wow.

LS: So it was like, Oliver is in the shine of Felix’s body. Felix illuminates him. When we did the scene in the bedroom in Saltburn, Oliver is in the room and Felix comes in and when he sits on his bed his shirt is yellow and light hits his shirt, and bounces off into Oliver's face illuminating him. He looks, I would say, a little bit flattered or a little bit aroused, but he somehow enjoys it. Then Felix leans back, and the light disappears, and he comes back up and the light returns to Oliver's face. Then he walks behind him, and he talks to him from behind, and we never cut, right? You may remember that scene as if it's many shots. It’s a closeup of Oliver, but then it's a two shot of them then it’s an image of Felix back there, then a close up of Oliver again, but it's all the same shot, the characters move around. It looks like it's changing. What's nice with the light on Oliver from Felix is that it’s like Felix is playing with him, and he knows it and it gives him light. Oliver enjoys it. I think that is so fun, to do those kinds of things. It gives the lighting a meaning, too.

BM: I loved it because in a way, it felt Biblical as well, like the way light comes through a church window with the stained glass. There are so many colours throughout to play with. It just seemed like such an impressive thing. I feel like there is a similar theme running throughout many of your films in that they are very human stories in extraordinary settings. I'd love to know if that's something you are consciously seeking. What really pulls you into a story when someone approaches you with a project?

LS: I love cinema, and I think cinema can be so many things because I can love so many genres. I can love fantastical superficial things, and naturalistic, but it all has to be cinematic. To me, the cinematic is an impression of life. It can't be completely real, even if it's a documentary. It still needs to be impressionistic, and that doesn't mean it's unrealistic. It's the true emotion of it. So, if it's emotionally true, then you're connecting with the audience. The directors I've been lucky to work with all think that way. I feel like what engages me is really the first talk I have with the director. I can read a script and be like “Oh, this was a good script” or “This was amazing” but it would still be that first discussion I have with the director, where they are explaining the film, the vision, why this film is relevant, and how they think about it. In that discussion, I get excited for the film. When I met Damien, I loved Whiplash, I thought it was an amazing film. When we met, I had read the La La Land script and I really liked it but I had no idea about the vision being what it was, right? So, when I met him, he explained. He’s really good at explaining things. As is Emerald. She’s really, really good at explaining quickly and efficiently. She doesn’t need to use many words for you to understand exactly what she wants, the same with Damien. He played me music they had already done, and I got the vibe right away. I got really emotional about it. It was impossible not to like it. The same with Emerald. I just get really excited. What I try to do in collaboration with directors is create the most appropriate cinematography for that particular story. Like in First Man, it's very documentary style. In La La Land, it's very whimsical and you feel the camera all the time. So it can have very different styles but I feel like what they have in common is a love for cinema. I always want the audience, when they go to films I've shot, I feel like I want them to love going to the movies.

Saltburn will release on Prime Video on December 22.