In style, tone and technique, The Punisher evokes the taut, vigorous action storytelling that thrived in the 1960’s and 70s. Says Hensleigh, “I greatly admire the tradition of action filmmaking laid down by Sergio Leone, Clint Eastwood, Sam Peckinpah and, in particular, Don Siegel. I love the spareness of those films. I love the classic camerawork, and the fact that it’s based solely on storytelling.”
Hensleigh and the film’s producers put together a crew of key collaborators who thoroughly understood that aesthetic, beginning with director of photography Conrad W. Hall. The film marks the second feature credit for Hall, who had previously shot Panic Room for David Fincher. “Jonathan wanted to do a film in a more classic visual style, with an unobtrusive camera and dramatic lighting that would enhance the tension of a scene. That was exciting to me, because it’s easy to fall into the trap of trying to outdo whatever the fashion of the moment is,” comments Hall. Hall acquired an appreciation of the storyteller’s art from his father, the late, much-admired cinematographer Conrad L. Hall. “My father was a great filmmaker, and he was really about pointing the camera at the story.”
During pre-production, Hensleigh and Hall looked at dozens of action films, crime sagas and westerns made between 1960 and 1978, including the Dirty Harry series, The Getaway, The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, The Godfather and Bonnie and Clyde. Those films helped establish the cinematic vocabulary Hensleigh and Hall developed for The Punisher. “We wanted to situate The Punisher as a larger-than-life character,” explains Hall. “Without copying these films, they gave us a common ground from which to communicate.”
Hensleigh and Hall chose to keep the cinematography of The Punisher as naturalistic as possible, which suited both the muscularity of the story and the realistic style of the comic. They largely avoided pre-determined color palettes; occasionally Hall introduced blue tones to underscore emotional themes. “Jonathan really felt that we should deal with color as the locations and nature dictated,” Hall explains. “Ultimately, we fell upon a style that we felt was original for The Punisher. The idea behind this picture was that it ought to be bleak –this is a dark story – but beautiful.”
The film’s flinty realism is enhanced by a strong undercurrent of dark humor. Frank Castle may be a man of few words, but he does have a way with a wry quip. “The story at its heart is a very emotional tale of incredible loss,” Jane reflects. “The challenge was to keep the tone relatively close to the bone, and yet find the humor in the situations. It was important that we mixed a sense of fun in with the horror. The movie is intended to entertain people. We all need to be able to laugh. We need that emotional release.”
From the outset, Hensleigh was determined that the film’s action sequences would be the province of actors and stunt people. Every chase, fight and shootout had to exist within the boundaries of human possibility. “I like practical gags, gags that can be pulled off by stunt people without CGI enhancement,” he says. “I spent a great deal of time going back over my old notes about all the things I’ve wanted to do. I didn’t want to write some massive stunt that would run contrary to the laws of physics.”
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