Biography

[on designing the Cardinal Wolsey scenes in A Man for All Seasons (1966)]: Fred Zinnemann's intention was to present Wolsey as power and authority. That, to me, meant a feeling of claustrophobia which would accentuate the character and power of Wolsey, and would involve the audience with Thomas More as he confronted the great man of his time. So we put Wolsey in a small room to emphasize his largeness. He wears red robes, so we don't want any other colors to lead your eye away from the central figure, so the walls became a darker shade of the same red. There are no corners in the room. The table at which he sits is smaller than it would have been in reality, to accentuate Wolsey's size. We had to have a window, because he looks out of it, a table because he is sitting at it, a candle because he needs light. Nothing else was necessary, emphasizing just claustrophobia and the power of the political cleric. The temptation was to build a palatial set for a cardinal, but we resisted that. Orson Welles, by the way caught on at once. He looked at the set, instantly disappeared, and came back with red rims around his eyes!