Better late than never! Barbie was placed in Adapted at the Oscars but is in the Original Screenplay category here,...
Read moreThe Academy should take a bow this morning for bringing back the Oscars, restoring them to their former glory in...
Read moreThe Golden Globes went off well enough this past year that CBS has signed a five-year deal with the Globes...
Read more
Oops. I have Inception written twice.
Question: Who’s job is it to frame the shot?
Another question: When directors are also in front of the camera at the same time, like Ben Affleck in Argo, does the director let the DP take control?
—-
My top 5 cinematography of the past 4 years (2010 – 2013)
1. Life of Pi – Claudio Miranda. (Life of Pi might go down as the most beautiful movie of the decade, and possibly of all-time, at least in my opinion. It’s artfulness and creativity is legendary.)
2. Inception – Inception – Wally Pfister
3. Hugo – Robert Richardson
4. Gravity – Emmanuel Lubezki
5. Drive – Newton Thomas Sigel
Shocker, my top 4 are the last 4 winners at the Oscars, but I think they got them right for a reason. I strongly considered Zero Dark Thirty, but to compare the last 50 minutes isn’t fair enough to compare against the entirety of Drive.
whoops. beaten by Binx!
love Ellen Kuras’s work, too.
Christopher Doyle and Russell Boyd are also absurdly gifted.
has anyone mentioned James Wong Howe and John Alcott?
because… James Wong Howe and John Alcott. =)
Late to the game:
Freddie Young
Vittorio Storaro
Haskell Wexler
Caleb Deschanel
Emmanuel Lubezki
James Wong Howe
Nestor Almendros
Charles Rosher
Giuseppe Rotunno
Vilmos Zsigmond
Gordon Willis
Greg Toland
Conrad Hall
Roger Deakins
Robert Krasker
Armand Thirard
Michael Chapman
Geoffrey Unsworth
Rudolphe Mate
Jordan Cronenweth
Kazuo Miyagawa
Sacha Vierny
Burnett Guffey
Bruce Surtees
Shit, how could I forget Russell Carpenter. He was only the DP for my all-time favorite movie! (Titanic).
Also great:
John Seale – Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone (2001)
Wally Pfister – Memento (2001), Insomnia (2002), Batman Begins (2005), The Prestige (2006), The Dark Knight (2008), Inception (2010), The Dark Knight Rises (2012)
Jeff Cronenweth – The Social Network (2010)
and
Claudio Miranda – Life of Pi (2012)
I realize as I make my list, this post was only for (since) 2000. But still…
Gilbert Taylor – Star Wars (1977)
Gordon Willis – The Godfather (1972) & The Godfather: Part II (1974)
Geoffrey Unsworth – 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)
Bill Butler – Jaws (1975)
and
Mauro Fiore – Avatar (2009)
They are some of my favorite.
Suschitzki also shot by far the best looking STAR WARS film, EMPIRE STRIKES BACK. Seeing AFTER EARTH, I was repeatedly reminded of IN TIME, both movies are trash, but they look pretty good.
==> Robert Elswit <==
James Wong Howe
Caleb Deschanel
John Alcott
Geoffrey Unsworth
Robert Burks
Boris Kaufman
Haskell Wexler
Jordan Cronenweth
Peter Suschitzky is so underrated! Although below-the-line artists on films usually are until they receive Oscar nominations. Unfathomable to think that he hasn’t. His work with David Cronenberg marks one of the strongest director-DP partnerships in contemporary cinema.
I fucking love Agnes Godard’s cinematography. I posted the trailer for The Amazing Catfish on my blog yesterday and noted her work immediately. She’s a great talent. And her work on Bastards was stunning – those opening shots of driving rain under artificial street lighting were so beautiful.
“Peter Suschitzky”
+1
And dare I say still underrated?
BASTARDS was one of last year’s best. The Cinematography is aces. I believe I gave it notice when we were doing that kind of junk a weeks ago.
This is a nonsense video. Where’s Agnes Godard? No tribute to contemporary cinematography is complete without reference to her inimitable work, never mind the fact that this video features not a single shot by a female DP.
My current favourites are (in no particular order) Godard, Emmanuel Lubezki, Gokhan Tiryaki, Robbie Ryan, Sayombhu Mukdeeprom, Vittorio Storaro, Anthony Dod Mantle, Christian Berger, Fred Kelemen, Timo Salminen, Christopher Doyle, James Benning, Liao Pen Jung, Peter Suschitzky, Vilmos Zsigmond, Edward Lachman, Lee Ping Bin, Robby Muller, John Toll, Michael Ballhaus and Roger Deakins. And probably many more I’m forgetting.
Kazuo Miyagawa
Azakazu Nagai
This is really tricksy because the list should consist of DP’s with “illustrious careers” but some of the most amazing cinematography comes from films whose DP’s have little more than one impressive credit. (i.e., Jeff Cronenweth’s BLADE RUNNER, Luis Cuadrado’s THE SPIRIT OF THE BEEHIVE)
Also in some sense there has never been a better cinematographer than director Stanley Kubrick, I mean sure there was always -nominally- a cinematographer in his movies. But there just isn’t a single detail in the look of his movies (framing, lighting, lenses, etc) that he didn’t personally decide. And his films are -collectively- the most impressive *at least* from a visual point of view of any director in the history of cinema.
Vittorio Storaro
Vilmos Zigmond
janusz Kaminski
Nestro Almendros
Rodrigo Prieto
John Seal
Vadim Yusof
Darius Khondji
Giuseppe Rotunno
Carlo di Palma
Dante Spinotti
Have fun!
Ugh I’m workin
100 greatest cinematographers of all time. Go.
Vittorio Storaro
Vilmos Zsigmond
Greg Toland
Freddie Young
Sven Nykvist
Raoul Coutard
Tak Fujimoto
Michael Chapman
Emmanuel Lubezki
Roger Deakins
Robert Richardson
Wally Pfister
Gordon Willis
Jack Cardiff
Conrad L. Hall
Nestor Almendros