Best Cinematography - 2007

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Best Cinematography - 2007

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The essence of cinema is born out of the motion picture camera, and the task of capturing a film’s visual dynamics falls upon the shoulders of the cinematographer. Here is an individual whose artistic choices – from lighting to camera positioning to choice of film stock – influence a film in immeasurable ways. Truly great cinematography also serves the director’s vision. A good relationship between director and cinematographer is integral to a film, making it not surprising that many directors re-team with a particular D.P. (director of photography) after previous successful collaborations (the great Roger Deakins’ relationship with the Coen brothers immediately comes to mind).


The Academy Award for Best Cinematography is always one of the races I look forward the most every year. This is not only because I admire the work so much but also because I am truly happy to see these individuals rewarded, even when personal favorites fail to make the cut. I’ve found it to be a nice touch that the five nominees have been shown on the television screen in the past three years in the same way that the directing and acting nominees are shown together before the envelope is opened.


The cinematographers’ branch is certainly a group within the AMPAS that singles out favorites year after year. Roger Deakins, Caleb Deschanel and Robert Richardson have all accumulated their fifth career nominations this decade, for instance. But paradoxically, they also spread the wealth around a great deal. With the exception of the late, great Conrad L. Hall, there hasn’t been a cinematographer who has reached a career tally of more than five nominations in over 20 years!







While memorable landscapes and gorgeous vistas are certainly commonplace among a typical list of nominees, films with such beautiful scenery on display are certainly not the only sort to find recognition. Just last year, for instance, the branch nominated the creative and intense work of Wally Pfister on “Batman Begins,” as well as Robert Elswit’s moody and intimate lensing of “Good Night, and Good Luck.”


So who should we expect to be seen in contention this year?


Robert Richardson may actually break that elusive six nomination barrier come January. The 20-year veteran, who has won Oscars for his outstanding photography of both Oliver Stone’s “JFK” and Martin Scorsese’s “The Aviator,” will this year be lensing Robert De Niro’s “The Good Shepherd.” Richardson has experienced considerable Oscar love, but he’s also missed for memorable work on “The Horse Whisperer” (for which he was singled out by the American Society of Cinematographers), Best Picture nominee “A Few Good Men,” and visual feast “Kill Bill,” among others.


Tom Stern worked in camera departments for over 20 years before Clint Eastwood adopted him as his cinematographer of choice earlier this decade. Having lensed Best Picture nominees “Mystic River” and “Million Dollar Baby” for Eastwood, he will have his most Oscar-friendly effort to date this year with “Flags of Our Fathers.” Also the D.P. of “Letters from Iwo Jima,” the timing would seem right for Stern’s first nomination should the films live up to their visual potential.







Also seeking a first nomination this year is Tobias Schliessler, working on Bill Condon’s “Dreamgirls.” This is an endeavor that will necessitate exquisite lighting in a variety of musical numbers. The cinematographers also love musicals, having nominated every such film nominated for Best Picture. This is not to mention such mediocre nominated efforts as “A Star in Born” (1976), “The Wiz” and “The Phantom of the Opera.” I’d say Schliessler, despite having had a relatively low profile in the business to date, must be considered in solid shape this year.


Rodrigo Prieto earned his first nomination last year for Ang Lee’s “Brokeback Mountain” after an early, blossoming career sporting entries like Julie Taymor’s “Frida,” Alejandro González Iñárritu’s “21 Grams” and Oliver Stone’s “Alexander.” This year, Prieto again collaborates with Iñárritu on “Babel.” Failing to win last year (especially after being considered the frontrunner in the eyes of many) could very well help Prieto in a bid for a second nod.


Also seeking a second nomination after garnering his first just last year is Wally Pfister. His aforementioned nomination for “Batman Begins” remains, in my opinion, one of the coolest Oscar notices in recent years. This year, Pfister will be working for Nolan once more, on the genre magician drama “The Prestige.” This movie may be of a rather commercial nature, but then so was “Begins.” And, once again, his camera work will likely be integral not only in fashioning the mood but also in creating a sensation of effects when such work would often be done with computers these days.







Emmanuel Lubezki is yet another cinematographer who is coming off a nomination in 2005. The only individual cited by the Academy for Terrence Malick’s “The New World,” this was Lubezki’s third nomination after Alfonso Cuarón “A Little Princess” in 1995 and, most notably, Tim Burton’s visually amazing “Sleepy Hollow” in 1999. That all three of these nominations have come for films that were minor Oscar players in their respective years shows that the branch obviously respects Lubezki’s singular style. His latest effort on Cuarón’s “Children of Men” has already been received with much acclaim at Venice where he won the “Outstanding Technical Contribution” Award.


Also in the realm of three-time nominees awaiting a first win would be Michael Ballhaus, who has collaborated with Martin Scorsese for the sixth time this year on “The Departed.” The praise for the technical aspects of this film has been loud and consistent. The work may not exactly be the sort of sweeping vistas that would normally help in a bid for Academy recognition, but time and again we’ve seen examples of this not being a necessity. We’ll see how much traction in this year’s race this film can garner.


The great Vilmos Zsigmond will be attempting a comeback this year after 22 years away from Oscar love. After winning an Oscar for Steven Spielberg’s “Close Encounters of the Third Kind” in 1977 and, following it up with nominations for Michael Cimino’s “The Deer Hunter” and Mark Rydell’s “The River,” the Hungarian cinematographer largely disappeared from the Oscar race. His efforts on 1996’s “The Ghost and the Darkness” ten years ago stirred minor buzz, but beyond that, nothing. Zsigmond’s work on Brian De Palma’s “The Black Dahlia” has been acclaimed as appropriately stylized and utterly gorgeous, though it remains to be seen if the branch will nominate such a critically disdained film. But that didn’t stop “Memoirs of a Geisha” from across-the-board technical praise last year.







Lance Acord has already worked on many films that have experienced Oscar glory in his young career, most notably “Adaptation” and “Being John Malkovich” for Spike Jonze and “Lost in Translation” for Sofia Coppola. Acord is once again collaborating with Coppola this year on “Marie Antoinette,” and his work has received considerable notice following a world premiere at the Cannes International Film Festival. But aside from technical accomplishment, the overall reaction to the film was not particularly kind in Cannes.


Xiaoding Zhao received an Oscar nomination for his first effort as a D.P. on Zhang Yimou’s “House of Flying Daggers” two years ago. This year, he’ll have another Yimou historical action epic to lens in “Curse of the Golden Flower.” Such endeavors are always opportunities for visual splendor, and the cinematography category has certainly proven itself open this decade to foreign-language films, having nominated seven in the past six years.


Eduardo Serra is one of our finest working cinematographers in my humble opinion, with splendid efforts such as “What Dreams May Come,” “The Wings of the Dove” and “Girl With a Pearl Earring” in his repertoire (earning Oscar nods for the latter two). Serra rarely ventures into English language films, but this year he’ll have the opportunity to capture the chaos of war-torn Sierra Leone in Edward Zwick’s “Blood Diamond.” While “The Last Samurai” strangely missed in this category (John Toll is a typical favorite), two previous Zwick efforts – “Legends of the Falls” (also lensed by Toll) and “Glory” (from the legendary Freddie Francis) – have ultimately won here.







And then we come to Dean Semler. The Australian D.P. won an Oscar upon receiving his first nomination for Kevin Costner’s “Dances with Wolves” sixteen years ago. And frankly, he hasn’t really ever been close to contention since. This year may very well provide Semler’s best opportunity to return to the awards scene as Mel Gibson utilizes his talents on “Apocalypto.” No matter what one thinks of Gibson’s storytelling ability, there’s no denying he has tremendous visual flare as a director. His last two films have both earned nominations in this category (with “Braveheart” winning the award) and “Apocalypto” will also surely be epic in scope. Then again, one cannot help but wonder if Gibson’s drunken antics will hurt his film’s chances across the board.


On a final note, it should be mentioned that the cinematography branch occasionally embraces black-and-white efforts. Janusz Kaminski’s work on “Schindler’s List” won the award. Roger Deakins’s noir-rooted atmosphere on “The Man Who Wasn’t There” won the ASC award and was also nominated by the Acdemy. And Robert Elswit’s nostalgic work last year on “Good Night, and Good Luck.” also claimed a spot amongst the final five. All of this may lead many to think that “Peter Andrews” (a.k.a. Steven Soderbergh) could make a run for what appears to be unique, homage-style cinematography in “The Good German.” Many branches, however, have rules against nominating people working under pseudonyms. To boot, the craft categories tend to be protective of their own. So it might be safe to wait that possibility out for the time being.
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