Jarhead - 'a horse comes towards him out of the desert, out of the blackness'

Today, one of the best scenes in Jarhead - if not one of the best scenes out of all of Jake Gyllenhaal's movies - features in the UK newspaper The Guardian. Cinematographer Roger Deakins, who has been nominated for no fewer than 7 Oscars, was asked to pick the 'five favourite shots of his career'. One of these is the strangely beautiful and disturbing scene in which Jake as Swoff encounters a horse in a black rain of oil.


'Some people loved this movie, while some people hated it. The whole film was quite a challenge and I'm quite proud of the way it turned out. The brief was to create night-time scenes where the platoon was within half a mile of the oil fires in Kuwait during the Gulf war. I wanted to create a feeling of a dense, smoky atmosphere through which you could see the light coming from the fires. There are extended sequences of this type of effect throughout the film, but my favourite scene is the one in which Jake Gyllenhaal leaves the rest of the platoon, walks off alone and a horse comes towards him out of the desert, out of the blackness, and it's dripping in oil: an amazing, surreal image.'


'We thought about trying to shoot it on location out in the desert, but we knew we wouldn't be able to control the smoke if it was a windy night, so we ended up shooting most of that material on a sound stage; we blacked out the walls and put sand on the floor of the stage, then filled it with smoke sitting at a certain level, to create a landscape of endless night. I created the effect of the oil fires using columns of bare bulbs as a 360-degree light source for a flame effect. In post-production we replaced the light source with an actual shot we'd done of an oil fire and, incredibly, it matched perfectly.'


This scene in which Swoff calms the horse may be my favourite scene in Jarhead (well, my favourite Jarhead scene that doesn't feature a Santa hat) but for a whole film of favourite scenes then that would be Zodiac. So, because it's been a while since I gave Zodiac a mention here, here's a video of Jake (preceded by Mark Ruffalo) at the NYC screening of Zodiac, last Spring. This video has its charms for Rendition lovers as well because this is Rendition Jake taking a break from filming in Morocco. Jake sounds relieved that his character is spared the extravagance of Mark Ruffalo's 70s' attire - after Moonlight Mile, Jake had probably been expecting the worse.




Maggie heading for the UK

Maggie Gyllenhaal has pulled out of The Private Lives of Pippa Lee because the shooting in Connecticut had been extended from two to five weeks. 'But when the new scheduling stretched out her shoot over five weeks, she chose to stay with Peter Sarsgaard and their newborn as he films "An Education" in the U.K. The departure was amicable, given her close friendship with co-star Julianne Moore and the producers, who also made her acclaimed indie "SherryBaby." Gyllenhaal is considering other screen roles in the coming weeks.' So Pippa Lee's loss is Peter's and London's gain.


And finally

As promised, Paul, here is Trumpet Jake! I must thank (I think...) GHO for her surprise gift of Guitar Jake in a message today.


Includes pictures from IHJ.