OVP: Best Cinematography (2010)
The Nominees Were...
Matthew Libatique, Black Swan
Wally Pfister, Inception
Danny Cohen, The King's Speech
Jeff Cronenweth, The Social Network
Roger Deakins, True Grit
My Thoughts: For most of these write-ups, I start knowing where I'm going to finish. I knew who my ultimate choice was for Costume, for Editing, etc. However, for Cinematography, I go into it with three films that I'm still weighing against each other, and so I'm hopefully going to convince myself through writing things out which one gets to win, as there are no ties in the OVP.
One of the films that I'm considering is the excellent work of Roger Deakins in True Grit. As we're settling into the nominations, and True Grit was one of the major nominees of 2010, I should probably spell out that I wasn't overly impressed by the film. We'll get to the why's behind that in the Picture, Writing, and Acting categories, but it's important to note that there weren't a lot of elements of the movie I was greatly taken with, with the big exception being Roger Deakins work behind the camera. Deakins has famously never won an Academy Award in nine nominations (he just scored his latest loss for Skyfall this past year). Deakins frames his film so well, with giant, expansive shots capturing the grandeur of westerns, but then honing in on his marauders when he needs to build tension onscreen. Think of the way that he fills dusk with light, giving us a haunting, midnight glow. It's a strong piece of work, helped further by the way he doesn't miss the beautiful, empty wilderness of the West.
While Deakins uses the sun to gage his film's light, Danny Cohen relies on fog and clouds, which give an entirely different ambience to The King's Speech. I feel like when I'm doing these write-ups and I have to frequently discuss certain movies that I was largely indifferent to (in 2011, The Artist, here it's The King's Speech) that I end up coming off as disliking the films more than I do, which is not the case here. I liked The King's Speech considerably better than The Artist, for the record, though neither is what I'd call a superb movie. Cohen's work, for example, is better than most of the technical aspects of the film, though it's not one of my Top 3 contenders. I love the way that he uses the nature of the film to cast gloom across the proceedings and the way he makes the rooms of his movies look more cavernous than they really are, making King George's struggle appear even more difficult than it actually is. Cohen's work fails a little bit when he's not making these clever observations with the camera, as a number of sequences are pretty routine, but there are definitely moments to admire in his work, and it's not boilerplate.
Jeff Cronenweth's (am I the only person who always wants to put two R's in his last name?) impressive work in The Social Network shouts off the screen when we're watching it. I love the way the camera frames the glowing, warm light in the opening scene with Rooney Mara, where it's imperative that the audience become enraptured with her enough that two hours later, with just one other scene to carry her, we can believe that Mark would still be in love with her. The film may be a bit literal when it comes to having the weather and the lighting completely chart the moods of the characters (the crew race being coated in cloud cover, the grey haze that seems to follow Sean Parker), but it's beautiful to behold, particularly since it doesn't have the advantages of wide, natural shots, or large castles and period apartments to assist in the loveliness.
Wally Pfister gets these advantages, and I'm going to plead ignorant on one aspect of Pfister's work (something I feel I can do since a chunk of the Academy would as well). I'm not always certain where the Cinematography ends and the Visual Effects begins with some motion pictures, and so I apologize if I'm rewarding the wrong team here, but there's so many gorgeous shots in this film that it seems appropriate to congratulate Pfister as well. Pfister has the challenge of us instantly needing to know what level of the inception we are in, and he does this with very distinct camera angles and lighting. The elevator sequence with Joseph Gordon-Levitt wouldn't work nearly as well if it weren't for Pfister's steady hand, guiding us through the suspense. I also loved every second of the lumbering, washed-up on the shore scenes, which may have been a good chunk CGI, so I'm not giving Pfister all the credit for them, but I'm putting a little bit of those memorable sequences in his corner. All-in-all, Inception is a better film for his involvement.
Our final film is Matthew Libatique's Black Swan. Here, again, we have a true master (I'll admit that while none of these films wowed me in the way that The Tree of Life did, there isn't a dud in the lineup) knowing his subject inside-and-out. He knows the blacks, greys, and lavenders of the background, and has the tricky job of (along with the editors) framing all of the mirrors and reflections to ensure that we are getting the picture of the emerging black swan without that metaphor being shoved down our throats. I also love the way that he keeps his close shots of the suffering Nina, so we get uncomfortable in the audience-it helps with the overall mood of the film. Like Cronenweth, he doesn't have as many traditional cinematography tricks to fall back upon (nature shots, magnificent buildings), but he still sells it, though if I'm being honest, it doesn't quite have the distinctive "this is The Social Network" mood that Cronenweth manages to sustain.
Other Precursor Contenders: In an odd twist, the American Society of Cinematographers went 5/5 with their nominees, and gave the top trophy to Inception. I'm not recapping the BFCA's for two reasons: 1) they don't put the tech awards in the broadcast, which I think is tacky and 2) they just seem to want to predict the Oscars and not actually award what they want to award, and that's what journalists may do, but it's not the purpose of an awards body. The BAFTA Awards, on the other hand, don't always go lock-step with Oscar and so I will point out that they went with 127 Hours as their fifth nominee (in place of The Social Network) and picked Roger Deakins as their award recipient. Considering Anthony Dod Mantle's recent Oscar win and 127 Hours' position as a Best Picture nominee, my hunch is his fifth place at BAFTA meant he was in sixth place with Oscar.
Films I Would Have Nominated: While it's not the splendid raving triumph that its Costume design is, I Am Love is most definitely worthy of inclusion here. Think of all of the trips to Italian villas and cathedrals that play with light and shadow so effortlessly, or the glowing, rich way that they highlight the food and the kitchens and of course Tilda. Considering that Oscar figured out how to honor this jewel of a movie in one category, it's a pity it didn't recognize it in others.
Oscar's Choice: Wally Pfister took the trophy for Inception-Oscar loves an effects-driven cinematographer as of late. It's hard to tell who was taking second place, though my gut tells me that Roger Deakins lack of a win and his adoration in the Academy makes him a probable guess for second, though it could have been Danny Cohen.
My Choice: The decision got a bit easier, but not completely with the write-up. I'm giving Libatique fifth and Cohen fourth, and after the write-ups I'm going with Pfister for third. In a close race, I feel like I favor Deakins's iconography a bit more than Cronenweth's, so I'm going to give this award to True Grit, though I check that box knowing that it was a very close race. And so, while Oscar alludes him, Roger Deakins has barely taken top honors in the OVP.
Whew-that was the closest one so far for me, but what about you? Did you have trouble picking your favorite of the nominees, or was this an easy decision? Do you also wonder how the Academy separates the visual effects from what the cinematographer is doing? And if you're cutting someone, what movie do you throw in as a replacement?
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