Movies

Cinematographer Rodrigo Prieto Talks “Tricky” Killers of the Flower Moon to Barbie Transition

Rodrigo Prieto went right from working on Killers of the Flower Moon to Barbie.
barbie-killers-of-the-flower-moon.png

Martin Scorsee’s next feature film, Killers of the Flower Moon is heading to theaters in October, and it shares something very important with Barbie: Rodrigo Prieto. The Oscar-nominated cinematographer is known for many films, including 8 Mile, Brokeback Mountain, and Argo. He’s also worked as the director of photography on multiple Scorsese projects, including The Wolf of Wall Street, Silence, and The Irishman. Despite the fact that Barbie was released months before Killers of the Flower Moon, the Scorsese movie was actually filmed first. In fact, Prieto recently spoke withย The Wrapย and revealed it was a “tricky” transition.ย 

Videos by ComicBook.com

“It was right away,” Prieto said of the transition between films. “And in fact, right after Barbie, I jumped into the movie that I’m editing now โ€“ I’ve directed a film called Pedro Pรกramo, which is yet another completely different project. It happens during the time of the Mexican Revolution and has to do with people who are dead and now they’re ghosts. I’m kind of used to doing that. After Silence, I did Passengers. But it wasn’t too bad, and we started talking about the ideas of Barbieย while I was still actually prepping Killers of the Flower Moonย โ€“ that was a little tricky for me. I had one moment I said, ‘Greta I can’t anymore. I have to focus on Killers. Let me just finish it, and then we can keep on talking.’ But we did talk enough that the basis of what we then developed was in place. So by the time I finished Killers of the Flower Moon, I guess I felt kind of ready. I knew what it was. I had an idea of what Barbieย was going to be and almost immediately went to London and started prepping.”ย 

He added of Killers of the Flower Moon, “It was a very long process. It started with a very different script, and then it evolved and in between that there was a pandemic, so that was more than a year just prepping that film and participating in all of that transition to what the script ended up being. Then diving deep into the Osage world and learning of their culture and being welcomed by them. It was really wonderful, because Scorsese, for him it was very important โ€“ and rightly so โ€“ to go deep into the research and understand the culture properly, and not look at it as just “OK, we’re gonna do a movie about this horrible thing that happened and here we go, we know how to do this.” It was very respectful of the families that lived this.”

What Is Barbie About?

Inย Barbie, to live in Barbie Land is to be a perfect being in a perfect place. Unless you have a full-on existential crisis. Or you’re a Ken. From Oscar-nominated writer/director Greta Gerwig comesย Barbie, which hit theaters on July 21st.ย Barbieย stars Oscar-nomineesย Margot Robbieย andย Ryan Goslingย as Barbie and Ken, alongsideย America Ferrera,ย Kate McKinnon,ย Michael Cera,ย Ariana Greenblatt,ย Issa Rae,ย Rhea Perlman, andย Will Ferrell.ย The film also stars Ana Cruz Kayne,ย Emma Mackey,ย Hari Nef,ย Alexandra Shipp,ย Kingsley Ben-Adir,ย Simu Liu,ย Ncuti Gatwa,ย Scott Evans,ย Jamie Demetriou, Connor Swindells, Sharon Rooney, Nicola Coughlan,ย Ritu Arya, Grammy Award-winning singer/songwriter Dua Lipa and Oscar-winnerย Helen Mirren. Gerwig directedย Barbieย from a screenplay by Gerwig & Oscar nomineeย Noah Baumbach, based on Barbie byย Mattel.ย