OVP: Best Cinematography (2016)
The Nominees Were...
Bradford Young, Arrival
Linus Sandgren, La La Land
Greig Fraser, Lion
James Laxton, Moonlight
Rodrigo Prieto, Silence
Linus Sandgren, La La Land
Greig Fraser, Lion
James Laxton, Moonlight
Rodrigo Prieto, Silence
My Thoughts: While we're focusing so much this week on the 2019 nominees, and the many (some valid) complaints that the nominations are too staid, too male, and too white, we shouldn't forget the 2016 nominees, which we're marching through and looking at again today as it's Wednesday. Today we turn our heads to the cinematography race, which pitted four Best Picture nominees against one film getting its sole nomination (somewhat coincidentally, the same makeup of the 2019 Cinematography race). Both races featured one name in particular, though: Rodrigo Prieto. We'll start today's discussion with him.
Silence is a film I liked better than pretty much anyone else-it made my Top 5 films of 2016. As a result, I'd probably be partial to over-praise regardless of what nomination it accrued, but cinematography in particular feels like a good choice if you're only going to cite the category for one attribute. The film looks incredible, and of a different time. The way the lighting happens, and the choice to focus on more medium and wide shots than an endless array of closeups gives us not just a sense of the place of Silence but also the time. Most period movies have a tendency to look as crisp and modern as possible, but here he finds a balance, ensuring that the weathered sets and the abundant landscape come front-and-center, so you get a sense of the era we're in as you're watching. Combined with great shots (not to spoil the movie, but the last one was a doozy) that are instantly iconic, Prieto crafts a remarkable bit of storytelling into his camerawork.
Linus Sandgren is also tasked with telling a tale with his camera. La La Land works in large part because it's told in chapters, and Sandgren is able to craft individual motifs in his movie to distinguish these chapters. The film is robbing An American in Paris and The Band Wagon wholesale, but you wouldn't necessarily know it with Sandgren painting the face of Emma Stone blue in the moonlight, finding angles that such musicals wouldn't have acknowledged (feeling occasionally like he's falling into a Douglas Sirk melodrama). The movie doesn't always have a unifying theme (occasionally the lighting feels too stark, as if we're watching multiple different movies, particularly the more conventionally-lensed scenes between Ryan Gosling and JohnLegend), but Sandgren discovers the beauty in this movie more than he finds the ordinary.
This isn't quite the case for Greig Fraser, finally nominated after way-too-long in the wilderness for Lion. Fraser's work in pictures like Bright Star, Zero Dark Thirty, and Killing Them Softly is so inventive & natural, it's a pity that he got his first nomination for something as conventional as Lion. The movie has some great sequences from a cinematography lens (some of the wider shots with Patel at the center, the train sequence), but almost everything in Australia is without note, and I struggle with this nomination as it's really the only one that feels like a gut instinct "it's a Best Picture nominee in a foreign country!" citation rather than one that's genuinely earned, as all of the other films are distinguishing themselves impressively.
This includes Moonlight, which like Lion has a lot of scenes shot outdoors in urban environments, but unlike Lion, creates a painting with those sequences. The lighting plays more with color here than any other picture (black, blue, and yellow pop throughout the film, telling the story of Chiron's life), but it also manages to both show the world through the main character's eyes, and then slowly show us how the world sees the main character. Laxton's ability to find Chiron through water, through angles like the way that we always seem to be looking up at Mahershala Ali, but slowly eye-to-eye with Naomie Harris is smart, and takes some of the heavy-lifting from the writers. While it doesn't necessarily have the jaw-dropping aspects of Silence or La La Land's best shots, Moonlight crafts the most cohesive story.
The final nod went to Arrival, the only one of these nominations that shares at least some of its win with the special effects branch (obviously La La Land and Silence both have a VFX team, but they're not particularly relevant to the cinematography of the pictures). This is another movie that plays with light and color (blue & white in particular) in a way that instantly recalls the movie's ambience, and which gives us more insight into our leading character of Louise. Think of the way that Bradford Young just sets Amy Adams' face awash the first time she's meeting the aliens, her entire purpose in life coming clear, and the haziness that continues to fall on her when she's not going after this destiny. Arrival is, like Moonlight, telling a story through its cinematography, in addition to looking rain-soaked gorgeous.
Silence is a film I liked better than pretty much anyone else-it made my Top 5 films of 2016. As a result, I'd probably be partial to over-praise regardless of what nomination it accrued, but cinematography in particular feels like a good choice if you're only going to cite the category for one attribute. The film looks incredible, and of a different time. The way the lighting happens, and the choice to focus on more medium and wide shots than an endless array of closeups gives us not just a sense of the place of Silence but also the time. Most period movies have a tendency to look as crisp and modern as possible, but here he finds a balance, ensuring that the weathered sets and the abundant landscape come front-and-center, so you get a sense of the era we're in as you're watching. Combined with great shots (not to spoil the movie, but the last one was a doozy) that are instantly iconic, Prieto crafts a remarkable bit of storytelling into his camerawork.
Linus Sandgren is also tasked with telling a tale with his camera. La La Land works in large part because it's told in chapters, and Sandgren is able to craft individual motifs in his movie to distinguish these chapters. The film is robbing An American in Paris and The Band Wagon wholesale, but you wouldn't necessarily know it with Sandgren painting the face of Emma Stone blue in the moonlight, finding angles that such musicals wouldn't have acknowledged (feeling occasionally like he's falling into a Douglas Sirk melodrama). The movie doesn't always have a unifying theme (occasionally the lighting feels too stark, as if we're watching multiple different movies, particularly the more conventionally-lensed scenes between Ryan Gosling and JohnLegend), but Sandgren discovers the beauty in this movie more than he finds the ordinary.
This isn't quite the case for Greig Fraser, finally nominated after way-too-long in the wilderness for Lion. Fraser's work in pictures like Bright Star, Zero Dark Thirty, and Killing Them Softly is so inventive & natural, it's a pity that he got his first nomination for something as conventional as Lion. The movie has some great sequences from a cinematography lens (some of the wider shots with Patel at the center, the train sequence), but almost everything in Australia is without note, and I struggle with this nomination as it's really the only one that feels like a gut instinct "it's a Best Picture nominee in a foreign country!" citation rather than one that's genuinely earned, as all of the other films are distinguishing themselves impressively.
This includes Moonlight, which like Lion has a lot of scenes shot outdoors in urban environments, but unlike Lion, creates a painting with those sequences. The lighting plays more with color here than any other picture (black, blue, and yellow pop throughout the film, telling the story of Chiron's life), but it also manages to both show the world through the main character's eyes, and then slowly show us how the world sees the main character. Laxton's ability to find Chiron through water, through angles like the way that we always seem to be looking up at Mahershala Ali, but slowly eye-to-eye with Naomie Harris is smart, and takes some of the heavy-lifting from the writers. While it doesn't necessarily have the jaw-dropping aspects of Silence or La La Land's best shots, Moonlight crafts the most cohesive story.
The final nod went to Arrival, the only one of these nominations that shares at least some of its win with the special effects branch (obviously La La Land and Silence both have a VFX team, but they're not particularly relevant to the cinematography of the pictures). This is another movie that plays with light and color (blue & white in particular) in a way that instantly recalls the movie's ambience, and which gives us more insight into our leading character of Louise. Think of the way that Bradford Young just sets Amy Adams' face awash the first time she's meeting the aliens, her entire purpose in life coming clear, and the haziness that continues to fall on her when she's not going after this destiny. Arrival is, like Moonlight, telling a story through its cinematography, in addition to looking rain-soaked gorgeous.
Other Precursor Contenders: The American Society of Cinematographers was a carbon copy of the Oscars this year, a rarity for the body (they usually add at least one name to the equation), though they did go with Lion as their victor. The BAFTA Awards got a bit more creative, throwing out Silence and Moonlight and instead including Hell or High Water and Nocturnal Animals (La La Land won). Predicting a sixth place is hard. Nocturnal Animals has Oscar favorite Seamus McGarvey, which makes sense, but I predicted this at the time exactly right, and most of the other big-name DP's like Roger Deakins and Robert Richardson were making films that didn't really click with Oscar (Hail, Caesar! and Live by Night, respectively), so McGarvey's probably the only choice that makes sense.
Films I Would Have Nominated: I want to say right away that this is a solid list-this branch is one of the better ones in the Academy in terms of consistency, and this ranks among the better groups in 2016. That said, I'd throw out at least two. Stephane Fontaine gives Jackie a true sense of memory, and feels like we're recalling scenes with the same haziness or clarity as Natalie Portman's title character, her recollections the same as how we also block out certain chapters in our stories. And I'd find room for Emmanuel Lubezki's Knight of Cups, yet another illuminating installment in his partnership with Terrence Malick, here making urban and suburban landscapes come to life, and of course the cinematographer is the main barometer of success for a Malick movie (I loved Knight of Cups).
Oscar's Choice: Sandgren took the prize for La La Land, some might argue because of the stampede of that movie, but I have to wonder if this wasn't a hard-fought battle against Lion.
My Choice: Like I said, this is a solid list and one I'm not shy to say I would've nominated La La Land within. However, my vote is for Moonlight, which found beauty in its setting, but also a tale to go with the lensing. Follow that with Silence, La La Land, Arrival, and Lion in the back (but really in the middle).
Those are my thoughts-how about yours? Are you more in line with the Academy's choice of La La Land or are you with me that Moonlight takes this trophy? Do you think the Academy will ever nominate another Terrence Malick picture in this category after having a crush on him for so long? And genuinely-who was sixth place in this field? Share your thoughts below!
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