Ralf D. Bode Dressed to Kill
Ralf Detlef Bode (1941-2001) was a German-born American cinematographer who shot Dressed to Kill. His other major credits include Saturday Night Fever (1977), Coal Miner's Daughter (1980, Academy Award-nominated), and The Accused (1988). He died of lung cancer at 59 despite being a non-smoker.
Bode came to De Palma through Rocky and Saturday Night Fever
Bode arrived in the United States at fourteen, studied at the University of Vermont, taught combat photography with the U.S. Army Signal Corps, and briefly pursued acting in the New York theater before studying directing at the Yale Drama School. He began landing commercial cinematography jobs in the early 1970s. A second-unit job shooting the Philadelphia Museum of Art steps sequence in Rocky (1976) led to his first studio feature, Saturday Night Fever (1977), which established his reputation for shooting actors in motion -- a skill directly applicable to Dressed to Kill's wordless pursuit sequences. (imdb, blogspot)
Bode's soft-lens, color-rich style suited De Palma's erotic thriller
The Criterion Collection's 2015 Blu-ray included a new profile of Bode featuring filmmaker Michael Apted. Bode's approach to Dressed to Kill favored soft focus, warm color saturation, and careful lighting that emphasized skin tones and fabric textures -- a style that made the film's eroticism tactile and its violence sudden by contrast. The museum sequence, shot in the Philadelphia Museum of Art's naturally lit galleries, uses available light and long focal lengths to create the intimate sense of Kate being observed from a distance.
Bode shot the Philadelphia Museum of Art for the second time in four years
Bode's connection to the Philadelphia Museum of Art is a minor coincidence: he had shot the building's exterior steps for Rocky's iconic training sequence in 1976, and four years later he returned to shoot its interior galleries for Dressed to Kill's museum sequence. The first time, the camera followed a boxer; the second time, it followed a housewife. Both sequences depend on the building's architecture to create a sense of physical space through which a character moves with purpose.
Bode died in 2001 after a career that spanned five decades of American film
After Dressed to Kill, Bode shot several films for director Jonathan Kaplan, including The Accused (1988), which earned Jodie Foster the Academy Award for Best Actress. He received an Emmy nomination for the television film Annie (1999) and taught cinematography at the Los Angeles Film School before his death. (wikipedia)