“Our Mildred Pierce is not a remake of Michael Curtiz’ 1945 film noir classic,” says Lachman. “Instead, it sources the book, which is less noir, and more of a psychological character study between a mother and a daughter. The story is set during the Depression, within middle class privilege, and deals with issues of pride and status.
*此片不是翻拍科蒂茨的1945年影片，而是从麦凯恩的原作中汲取，少点黑色，多点精神层面的母女关系探讨，背景在大萧条期间，涉及关于中产阶级身份和自我认知的命题
“Most domestic dramas inevitably concern female characters confronting social constraints, suburban repression and vulnerability,” says Lachman. “Mildred Pierce is an exception. She becomes liberated sexually and finds herself financially independent, but her tragic, unrequited love for her daughter becomes her undoing, and she self-destructs.”
*多数美剧十有八九都是关心女性角色如何面对社会限制、边缘压抑和脆弱本性，但米踱翩(Mildred Pierce)是个例外，她在性生活和经济上都获得了自主权，但她的悲剧源自对女儿的溺爱导致了她的不作为，以致自绝后路；
Lachman and Haynes decided to eschew the consciously stylized dramatic studio look of classic 30s and 40s noir lighting. Instead, they designed a style that echoes neo-noir films of the 1970s, which found a distance in their expressionistic naturalism.
“We saw this neo-noir approach in films like Klute (1971, photographed by Gordon Willis, ASC), Chinatown (1974, John Alonzo, ASC) and the Day of the Locust (1975, Conrad Hall, ASC),” says Lachman. “Those films have noir elements, but there is a relatability and frankness that comes from their naturalism, even when they are slightly expressionistic. Those cinematographers used longer lenses, and light that was more motivated from practical sources as opposed to studio lighting.”
*海因拉尔组合原本想自觉运用30-40年代经典黑色电影的戏剧化棚内布光风格，结果最终成型的颇具表现性的自然主义风格又折射出了70年代新黑色电影的模样；比如《柳巷芳踪》（一灯威利斯 ）、《唐人街》（尊奥龙佐）、《蝗虫之日》（孔拉罕）。拉赫曼说：这些片都有黑色元素，不过也很符合和忠实他们的自然主义，尽管有时他们也略微会带点表现性。这些摄影师都用焦距更长的镜头，且多用景内照明光（practical lights）。
The filmmakers also looked at the work of Saul Lieter. “Lieter was a street still photographer—more like a painter,” says Lachman. “He used found objects, textures and reflections as the content for his images. The images’ abstractions, within a social realism context, became the content of the found objects. On the street and in the world around him, Lieter’s search is less about finding content in the image and more about the feelings these shards of reality evoke.
*参考了纽约街拍达人索莱特的作品，他认为莱特善于将一种社会现实融入作品中，而成为照片的内容；
“For Mildred Pierce, we tried to create a certain distance to her, as if she is being observed,” Lachman says. “The images of Mildred are seen through objects, reflections in mirrors, and through beveled glass doors, fragmenting her world and creating a prismed, dislocating and ultimately broken state. The images become not only a representational view of the world, but a psychological one.”
* 从一定的距离去观察米踱翩这个角色，通过镜子、玻璃门去表现，以构建一个支离破碎的生活状态；
As for the color palette, Lachman and Haynes looked at color still photography of that period, including images commissioned by the Farm Security Administration. In addition to the more familiar FSA photos from the Dust Bowl, they studied images of Los Angeles in the late 1930s and early 1940s taken by photographers including John Vachon, Russell Lee, and Marion Post Wolcott. Color range in these images was more limited, and saturation and contrast was much different from today’s full range color negative films, according to Lachman.
“Another photographer I rediscovered from that period was Paul Outerbridge, who worked in still life, nudes, and stage photography,” says Lachman. “Outerbridge became a master of the tri-color carbo transfer, an early three-color process that resulted in richly muted colors with a limited range of saturation in the green-magenta layer. But his images became almost translucent, and unsurpassed.”
* 调色上参考了美国联邦农业管理局（大萧条时期罗斯福命令摄影师们上山下乡体察民情反映生活，FSA走在前列，以记录大萧条时期民生状态为主）派和洛杉矶30-40年代街拍客的作品。拉赫曼觉得这些人的作品虽然色彩宽容度很小，但是饱和度和对比度不是今日那些全色的照片能比的。
后期转印上则借鉴了另一位三色碳转印的始祖人物，他把原先传统转印法里面绿色层变得更为通透饱和。
Another aspect of their approach was the format. “We decided to shoot Mildred Pierce using the Super 16 film format,” Lachman says. “I know everyone is interested in digital formats, and the advances that digital cameras are making today. I have shot two films with digital cameras – Prairie Home Companion and Life During Wartime. But for me, the tests I’ve done show that film still has a greater exposure latitude, and the way it renders color is different, whether in color temperature or using gels. The exposure latitude is greater than with digital formats, and we also thought that the grain structure of Super 16 was more like 35 mm film in the 1970s, reminiscent of the 70s neo-noir films we were inspired by.”
*自觉地选择了超级16mm而不是数码拍摄，因为曝光宽容度高于数码格式，而超16更接近70年代35mm的感觉，这点源自新黑色电影的启发；
Lachman used Kodak VISION3 500T Color Negative Film 7219 and Kodak VISION2 250D Color Negative Film 7205. He also shot some exterior scenes on Kodak VISION2 50D Color Negative Film 7201. Using two cameras helped the crew produce five and a half hours of material in 70 days. The cameras were the new ARRI 416s, and the lenses included Cooke S4 primes, and a Zeiss 16.5-110 mm zoom. The filmmakers also made extensive use of a zoom that had been converted from a 35 mm format Cooke 20-60 mm T3.1 lens to a Super 16 format 10-30 mm T1.6 lens.
*技术细节（柯达广告），70天拍完5个半小时的所有内容素材；
Despite being set in California, Mildred Pierce was filmed on exterior locations on Long Island and in Connecticut, and on stages at Steiner Studios in New York. Lachman mimicked California sunlight with PAR T-12s, lamps that produce an extremely intense light. He says he concentrated on lighting the environments, as opposed to the individuals. He allowed windows and cars to be dirty, and let Translites overexpose to avoid the impression of total control.
“Often in period films, there’s a tendency to over-romanticize,” he says. “We did everything to capture a reality and naturalism of light on the set, including the atmosphere, the pollution and the grittiness. Even the mansions we filmed in are portrayed in their frayed decrepitude, because these characters are barely holding on.”
*除了在加州取景，本片也在长岛和康涅狄格拍摄了部分外景，并在纽约的Steiner Studios拍内景。拉赫曼用PAR T-12模拟加州阳光。同时在布景中有意让部分道具染上尘土，并让Translites（交叉光？）过曝，以减弱摄影的斧凿痕迹，因为拉赫曼觉得很多古装片都有过分浪漫化的表现倾向，而他则试图用一种自然主义手法将场景中的那种真实感和粗砺感带出来，连那些别墅也考虑到片中角色无心打理而加以老化处理；
Lachman says that Haynes thinks of film as one language, even when he is using different visual references and styles to tell his stories. “Mildred Pierce is a domestic drama of the 1940s set during the Great Depression,” he says. “But it mirrors the times we live in today.
“Our job is to allow the audience to enter this world with their emotions,” he continues. “The Super 16 film format was chosen with this in mind. I like the idea that light etches the different layers in the film, like an etching, and the randomness of the grain structure contributes to the sense of depth. To my eye, film still lends more depth and emotion to the image than digital formats.”
*拉赫曼转述海因斯装逼说：电影是一种语言，尽管他借鉴了其他的视觉表现形式来讲述故事。影片年代背景设定于1940年代的大萧条时期，但也能影射当下的美国境况。拉赫曼喜欢那种光线蚀刻出的胶片层次感，而这种随机的颗粒质感又能建构一种景深。胶片比数码还是能带来更多的深度和情感
