OVP: Best Cinematography (2006)
The Nominees Were...
Vilmos Zsigmond, The Black Dahlia
Emmanuel Lubezki, Children of Men
Dick Pope, The Illusionist
Guillermo Navarro, Pan's Labyrinth
Wally Pfister, The Prestige
My Thoughts: One of the weirder traits of the 2006 Best Picture lineup, regardless of what you think of the quality of the movies (we'll get there eventually, but I run the gamut with their fiel), the bulk of them are not particularly stylistic films, save for Letters from Iwo Jima, which does have its own visual palette. The Departed looks a lot like many of Scorsese's other films, but lacks some of the tracking luster you'd find in Raging Bull or GoodFellas, Babel had been done repeatedly at this point with little shakeup in approach, and Little Miss Sunshine and The Queen don't have much in this regard either. As a result, since Letters was a late addition to the Oscar race, this is the extremely rare Cinematography category that doesn't feature a single Best Picture nominee.
Let's start, though, with the film that probably came the closest, as certainly Pan's Labyrinth is getting a nomination in a ten-wide field. The film's coloring has been mirrored, not just by director Guillermo del Toro, but pretty much everyone since it came out, a sign of its influence. The glowing blue and overwhelming white light instantly recall the film, but I honestly loved some of the day shots the best. Navarro knows how to frame every scene of this movie so that it feels like we're wandering into the illustrated pages of a 19th Century book of macabre fairy tales, rather than a modern film. This totally works, and is (visually) del Toro's most successful movie as a result.
The Black Dahlia is a fascinating movie, one I had a complicated relationship with both because it is tonally bizarre (and because I went on a very weird "is this a date?" screening of this with a guy while I was in college that in retrospect was totally a date & I didn't catch on). The film itself is messy, and while it has some fascinating acting (particularly from Fiona Shaw), it doesn't really work. But its cinematography is noteworthy. It captures a lot of the heart of the best neo-noir films of the 1970's that it's clearly borrowing from, but its best attribute isn't homage (because then it would be derivative), but the way that it can occasionally steer the audience away from what we want to see (which is the roundabout moral of the story). The most famous instance of this (and the movie's best scene) is where there is an overhead shot of a mangled Elizabeth Short...and the camera shifts away from the body, in a lot of ways trying to emulate Touch of Evil but doing so in a truly macabre way because it's not a bomb, but a dead woman, that they have at its center. The cinematography is therefore used as an instructor for the story (it's a great moment in an otherwise messy movie).
Children of Men is also not one to rest on its laurels when it comes to cinematography. This is a film that is quite famous for an extended sequence, here where they use a camera inside of a car without breaking, giving us a sense of the true madness happening inside of the vehicle. This is one of three crucial long takes in the film that define our main character Theo's conversion from jaded to someone that is willing to give up everything to help a woman he's never met before. Lubezki knows how to light these scenes, taking full advantage of the visual effects' teams near-invisble work transforming a world of the future, but a world damned for all time (because no human life will exist beyond it). Look at the way virtually every scene has an animal in it, as they reclaim an Earth that will quickly forget humans ever occupied it. Wonderful, detailed stuff.
The Academy is messing with me with these last two nominations, it would seem. The Prestige and The Illusionist are very similar movies in terms of actual plot (both are period pieces about magicians). The better of the two, both in terms of overall movie and its lensing, is The Prestige, Christopher Nolan's "Batman break" which uses a lot of glowing electric light to inform most of the movie. This is Nolan & Wally Pfister trying to hammer home certain things to the audience that will be included in the ending (I won't spoil it for you), but even if it's obvious that doesn't mean it's bad. The use of electricity works in the film, and while the movie is otherwise too dark for my taste (too often there are scenes where Nolan veers from realism into "is the projector on?" with his somber pieces), I get why the Academy went here.
This isn't the case for The Illusionist. I generally love Dick Pope (Mr. Turner is marvelous stuff), and his weird obsession with canary yellow gives the film a strange motif even if it's not unpleasant (it's just omnipresent). However, this is the only real touch that I loved from the movie itself. The movie is too dark, and in the climactic final magic scenes, too straight-forward. There's not enough energy or style in what he's doing here, and it's not a pretty enough set to justify conventional cinematography with an Oscar nomination. This probably allowed Pope to eventually get his Mr. Turner nomination (as this was his first Oscar nod in a chummy cabinet branch), but that's it's only justifiable factor.
Other Precursor Contenders: The American Society of Cinematographers goes with just five nominations and it's generally the classiest of all of the tech precursors. Here, they weirdly skipped Pan's Labyrinth, favoring instead the foreign language work of Apocalypto (and giving their trophy to Children of Men over the Gibson epic, as well as The Black Dahlia, The Good Shepherd, and The Illusionist). Children of Men also triumphed at the BAFTA Awards, here over Pan's Labyrinth, Babel, Casino Royale, Pan's Labyrinth, and United 93. In terms of sixth place, I have to assume it was a battle between the two most plausible Best Picture contenders (Babel and Letters from Iwo Jima), and as he's a favorite with the Academy, I'll guess it was Rodrigo Prieto in the former.
Films I Would Have Nominated: I, however, would have gone with the latter. I know that Clint Eastwood's use of filters doesn't work all-the-time (something he's not always aware of, especially in his most recent work), but this is his best-lensed movie of the decade, and its sepia-stained lensing gives it an historical archive feel that elevates the picture.
Oscar's Choice: Lubezki's precursors were not enough top stop Pan's Labyrinth, which was dominating the ceremony, taking the top prize from his grasp (he'd finally win three-in-a-row a decade later).
Oscar's Choice: Lubezki's precursors were not enough top stop Pan's Labyrinth, which was dominating the ceremony, taking the top prize from his grasp (he'd finally win three-in-a-row a decade later).
My Choice: I, however, will give it to Lubezki, who I think does more advanced work even if Pan's Labyrinth is a grand winner & my silver. Behind them is Black Dahlia, Prestige, and Illusionist.
Those are my thoughts-how about yours? Are you ever with the Pan's Labyrinth crew living in your horror-laced fairy tale, or do you want the modern terror of Children of Men? Which of the two magician tales works better? And which of the Best Picture nominees came the closest to disrupting this "top category free" field? Share your thoughts below!
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