Romanek’s Avante-Garde Visual Sense Aided in Developing ‘Photo’

Before making the new psychological thriller “One Hour Photo,” writer-director Mark Romanek was best known for his stylized, avant-garde rock videos for such stars as Michael Jackson, Janet Jackson (“Scream”), Macy Gray (“I Try”) Madonna (“Bedtime Story”) and Lenny Kravitz (“Are You Gonna Go My Way?”). But perhaps his most famous video was for Nine Inch Nails’ “Closer,” which features a monkey grimacing in what appears to be pain while hanging from a crucifix.

Romanek brings the same daring visual sense and disturbing style of that video to “One Hour Photo,” which stars a hauntingly creepy Robin Williams as a lonely photo developer named Sy who works at an antiseptic discount megastore. For a decade, he has developed the snapshots of what he believes is a picture-perfect family, the Yorkins (Connie Nielsen, Michael Vartan and Dylan Smith), and becomes obsessed with them.

Though the film is dressed up to be a thriller, “at its heart it’s a character study,” says Romanek, 42, who manages to be simultaneously quiet and intense. “I was thinking of it as almost a very sad love story. Sy is desperately in love with this family. Not even one element in the family--he is just in love with this idea. It was just crushing to him that they don’t live the same lives as the snapshots. I found that sort of sad and pathetic.”

On this hot afternoon, Romanek is sitting in a cabana poolside at a retro-trendy Beverly Hills hotel. With his untrimmed beard and low-key demeanor, Romanek doesn’t look like a typical film director. And despite the fact that it is hotter than blue blazes outside, Romanek is bundled up in a jacket.

Prior to “One Hour Photo,” Romanek had written a few screenplays, including a biopic about photographer Diane Arbus, the great chronicler of the absurd and the grotesque. “I also had worked with writers on some other pieces,” he says. “The protagonists of those projects had a lot in common with Sy. It seems that there was a common thread as I look back. They were all about outsiders who aren’t comfortable being outsiders. They are struggling with being on the fringes.”

Romanek came up with the idea for “One Hour Photo” a few years ago. “There was a guy who worked in the Rexall where I lived in West Hollywood,” he explains. The man, he recalls, was overly effusive with his customers. “He was trying too hard. The way he was dressed, he was out of touch. He was a perfectly nice guy, but there was something compelling and sad about him.”

With that character in mind, Romanek needed only three weeks to write the screenplay. Upon completion, he gave it to producers Pamela Koffler and Christine Vachon of “Boys Don’t Cry” renown.

Koffler admired the script for its “clear cinematic vision.” She also found it refreshing that Romanek knows “what he wants, but he’s extremely open to a collaborative way to get there and always open to an idea that might make it better.”

Besides being a “fantastic” character piece, says Koffler, the film works as a thriller. “It really felt very contemporary in that it wasn’t obvious what he was doing with the genre,” she says. “The premise was fascinating. In the script I was really struck by how sensitively the characters were drawn--certainly Sy. Your heart breaks for him so many times during the film. As much as you might be repelled by what Sy does, I never stopped feeling his loneliness.”

Early in the casting process, William’s manager got hold of the script, recalls Romanek. “He said, ‘I want to show this to Robin. He is looking for new challenges. I think he might respond to it.’ ”

He did. A week later, Romanek was having lunch with the Oscar winner, and 45 minutes into the meeting, Williams agreed to play the part. “We were both from Chicago,” says Romanek. “I think we both have a very kind of unjaded, no-nonsense outlook about things.”

Williams is almost unrecognizable in the film, with his blond, balding pate, glasses and nondescript polyester wardrobe. “I told him initially he needed to change his look physically, so the audience would have the opportunity to forget they were watching a big movie star,” Romanek says.

“There is paradox for any actor playing this part,” says Romanek. “He has to be compelling and moving enough to carry the whole movie and charismatic enough to hold your interest. Yet the character is essentially meant to be this hyper-banal, forgettable man who almost blends into the woodwork. That is a paradox for any actor, and it’s even harder for a movie star.”

Initially, Romanek was afraid to tell Williams how he envisioned the character. “I didn’t want to step on his toes. But he said, ‘No tell me what you see.’ I said, ‘I think he’s pale. He’s never in the sun. I would like him to be very pale so he disappears. His hair should be blond, balding.’ ”

In terms of how to play the scenes, says Romanek, from the very first rehearsal Williams read the lines the way he had imagined them in his head.

“He understood there was no room for sentimentally,” says Romanek. “He started to find the bittersweetness in his character. He knew there was no place for his particular improv and humor.”

Nielsen (who played Lucilla in “Gladiator”) says Romanek knew exactly what he wanted on the set. “He would be very specific,” she says. “It is really kind of great to work when you are with someone who knows what they want.”

Romanek surrounded himself with the same cinematographer (Jeff Cronenweth), production designer (Tom Foden) and costume designer (Arianne Phillips) he has worked with on his music videos. The only major new player to the mix was editor Jeff Ford. “I wanted to change the rhythms from the video rhythms, which can be very hyper-accelerated. I wanted someone who was going to help me focus on the integrity of the characters.”