For the clothes worn by the U.N. delegates, Edwards and her crew wound up receiving a total immersion in global fashion. “Right now there are 191 nations represented at the United Nations, so we had to research the aesthetics of every single nation! We took photographs of each delegation, all 191, and carefully studied them so that each and every extra would look completely authentic,” Edwards explains. “I think we hit every single store in the New York area, from Bloomingdales to the discount stores.”
Edwards continues: “Most delegates wear suits but some wear national dress, so we had to buy that, too. We especially had fun with the Nigerian delegation, which really let us be creative. But above all, we worked to be true to what Sydney wanted: for every single element to be very real, heightening the sense that these are events that could happen.”
Realism was also at the heart of the costumes Edwards designed for Nicole Kidman, Sean Penn and Catherine Keener. “Sydney was very clear that he wanted Nicole, Sean and Catherine to look as much as possible like real people,” she comments. “So we created clothes for them that mixed everyday things with more expensive items here and there. We wanted their clothes to be like an actual person’s wardrobe and I think we succeeded. Nicole’s clothes are classic and simple, but not glamorous, mostly blazers and trousers, that suit Silvia’s intelligence and professional sophistication. Catherine’s look is also simple. She’s always in pant suits, but with a certain flair. For Sean’s character, there wasn’t a lot of leeway. He wears what all federal agents wear—suit, tie, white shirt—but the clothing comes alive in what Sean Penn does with the character.”
The look of the film all comes together in the rich, kinetic work of innovative cinematographer Darius Khondji, whose previous credits have ranged from the stylish thriller Seven to Bernardo Bertolucci’s Stealing Beauty. Khondji has always wanted to shoot a political thriller and jumped at the opportunity to work with Sydney Pollack. He supplies, “I’m a huge fan of all those ‘70s thrillers like Sydney’s Three Days of the Condor, as well as films like All the President’s Men and The Parallax View. I love the style of the storytelling which is so committed and intense. For a cinematographer, it’s also very, very exciting to have a chance to shoot such fantastic actors as Nicole and Sean.”
Khondji collaborated closely with Pollack in devising the film’s visual intensity. “The emphasis with Sydney is always on keeping the visuals very story-driven, but with an edge,” says Khondji. “Whether we were bringing out the incredible poetic beauty of a place or capturing the gritty streets or creating an atmosphere of terrible danger, the first thing on our agenda was always to keep it palpably real. And then the stylization of it came on top of that because I just have a tendency to stylize all my images. Sydney gave me a lot of freedom with the mood, which shifts from rough and raw in the African scenes to more subdued and softer inside Silvia’s life. And then, as the danger grows and the excitement builds and the truth begins to be revealed, the photography changes and evolves with the heightened tension.”
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