The Iron Claw is a heartbreaking exploration of brotherhood and the power to survive. One of the late breaking films of the year headed into the award season, but a true stand out for the year. Mátyás Erdély, the cinematographer spoke with us about collaborating with writer-director Sean Durkin, capturing the emotional core of the film, and creating a universal story for audiences to resonate with.

Jillian Chilingerian: I’m very excited to be chatting with you. I love this film. I’ve seen it about three times. There is something about this world that keeps you coming back.
Mátyás Erdély: That’s super nice. I’m super happy that you have seen this three times. Already very, very good. Thank you.

Jillian Chilingerian: For me, this was a story I was not familiar with at all.
Mátyás Erdély: Same here. So basically, when Sean and I were doing The Nest in England, he turned to me and said, I know what my next film is going to be, it’s going to be a wrestling film, and I honestly started to laugh. I thought he was joking because I did not know this about Sean. That he was interested in wrestling and I wasn’t aware of the fact that he would be interested in making a film about anything wrestling related. Wrestling was something that was not part of my life in any way shape or form. So and then when it turned out that he was not joking. I was like, Oh, wow, okay, so yeah, great. So let me let me let me go on this journey with you because it was very, very alien.

Jillian Chilingerian: Figuring out the wrestling world is something that even, I never took real note or interest in. What did you do to kind of research like this family? Did Sean have things like material already to give you?
Mátyás Erdély: I don’t do that. I don’t want to create noise in my mind by over-researching. I focus on the script because I believe that that’s the most important part. Sean is an expert, he knows every single detail about every single fight and every single one of the brothers. I knew that whatever came from him was genuine and it was correct and if it was not then it was changed for the film itself, so I didn’t need to be an expert to be close. I could just trust him. I have to say that just circling back to, to my surprise, if Sean would tell me that he’s gonna make a movie about a cookbook or the phone book or the manual for your TV, I would say yes, I would. I would be 100% excited about any of these ideas. There was no convincing needed on my part to kind of get excited like I knew that if he chose this story, there is a reason for it. I didn’t need to immerse myself in this world because I knew that first of all, the production designer James was gonna do all the visual research that how the Sportsatorium looks. All of those are gonna be created, compiled, and put together and I knew that in terms of the story, Sean’s work is gonna be impeccable. I approached this film as I would approach any movie, I focus on the script and I just want to make sure that whatever we create is the most impactful and, try to help the director formulate the language of the scene that we’re about to make.

Jillian Chilingerian: That is very apparent when you watch it. Sometimes when we watch true stories about people, it’s so specific to show everything that happened and this one is not necessarily like a retelling, but you can feel the spirit of the characters, and like, really connect with them emotionally as you’re watching. The camerawork mixed with like the editing treats them as they’re real people, but there’s such a respect for this story and you play it understated and not a spectacle. One of my favorite scenes is when it’s revealed what happens to Kerry.
Mátyás Erdély: I think what you just said is exactly the whole goal. I’ve seen so many of these movies that read the Wikipedia page, and then you make scenes based on those and that’s a film supposedly, and it’s not. The facts are not interesting in themselves what is interesting is the emotion and the human stories. That is why Sean is so amazing about what he does, he’s focusing on true emotions, and the facts and the plot of how things happen is secondary to the emotional journey of these characters. If you follow the emotional if you’re true to the emotional journey of the characters, you’re going to create something true for the audience as well. It’s fascinating to me, and the reason for that is that it is not about wrestling. It’s a very tragic story about a family and how flawed we all are as human beings. I am a father of three, so how we are fathers struggling to push our kids? I’m constantly asking questions myself, and hopefully, I’m not like Fritz in the film, like something to react to be pushed in a certain way, and some, maybe your other child would be different. So it’s a constant fear that like how do you raise your kids and that’s why it’s so universal and that they’re a bad father. Everybody’s complaining about his or her father because being a father is I find it very difficult. I think that’s what this film is about and that’s why it resonates with people who have no idea about wrestling. That’s why I was so much in love with this project.

Jillian Chilingerian: Yeah, I love how like you’re able to bring in all of your own experiences, because, again, it relates to this idea. It’s such a human story and if it doesn’t meet this idea of brotherhood and fatherhood, it doesn’t have the same impact that this film has had on a lot of people. I’ve never seen wrestling before and so like I love how you kind of like using the emotion of Kevin to guide us as the audience, it’s not just about the action, but it’s about how he’s thinking like we go back and forth between this subjective point of view of him and then like the TV angles to get the action.
Mátyás Erdély: I think it’s not very different from any scene that you shoot because, in any scene in any movie, there’s gonna be action. A person is doing something and you will photograph that and you can approach shooting the scene by basically, I call it like sports coverage, you can shoot any action by showing where the ball is. So basically, you point the camera to where the action is, but that’s not filmmaking. You understand what the scene is about and what the emotion is about what the subtext is. You come up with an image that represents the subtext, and that is the image that shoots. I do see a massive difference between pointing the camera toward the action and just photographing the person who’s talking or having a very strong understanding of what the scene is about, what it means, and then and then creating an image that represents that idea.

Jillian Chilingerian: Well, thank you so much for speaking with me on this film again. I was surprised I loved it. It is connecting these different ideas of humanity with these characters as you’re watching the tragedy unfold, but it never feels over dramatized. I just really admire that and how the film is crafted to kind of communicate that through a lot of the visuals.
Mátyás Erdély: Very happy to do that. Thank you.

The Iron Claw is currently in theaters.
You can find our review of The Iron Claw here.