Aside from music, beautiful photography has always been one of our favorite elements of films and the Oscar for Best Cinematography has always been a category we’ve been preoccupied with (and everyone makes their Best Picture picks, which aren’t hard to figure this year). So without further rambling the Playlist picks for the five Oscar nominations and two that probably won’t make the cut, but should.
There Will Be Blood – Robert Elswit
For those amazing oil-fire and silhouette shots alone, Robert Elswit is a lock for a nomination here and it’s well deserved. The way his camera captures the hardscrabble landscapes, and the hand-worn characters and costumes, you can practically feel the dust in your teeth when watching this epic.
No Country For Old Men – Roger Deakins
Likewise and for a number of the same reasons ‘Blood’ will get nominated in this category, Roger Deakins panoramic landscapes, gritty West-Texas locals and noir-ish nighttime shoot-out visions will earn him an fitting Oscar nomination. He could easily take it all the way to the podium as well.
The Diving Bell & The Butterfly – Janusz Kaminski
While we’re not one for flat out predictions, we believe and hope that ‘Butterfly’ will not only get a nod, it will win this category come Oscar night-of February 28. Filmed by longtime Stephen Spielberg collaborator Janusz Kaminski, the film has a look that we’ve maybe never seen onscreen before. His evocative images are stunningly artful and the way he creates the characters trapped and claustrophobic ocular point-of-view, with its blurry eyed shutter blinks, skewed framing and warped perspective is staggeringly powerful and beautiful. As Newsweek wrote in their review, “Kaminski have found a way to take us inside Bauby’s mind–his memories, his fantasies, his loves and lusts–transforming a story of physical entrapment and spiritual renewal into exhilarating images.”
Into The Wild – Eric Gautier
While we were slightly underwhelmed by this film and it’s respectable, but nothing-we-haven’t seen photography, the Academy loves these types of outdoor, man against nature films in the cinematography field, so even if ‘Wild’ gets shut-out elsewhere (which is definitely possible), it’ll earn a nod here.
Atonement – Seamus McGarvey
Let’s face it, this movie will likely get a nomination for its impressive 5-minute tracking shot that has tongues wagging, but otherwise, it’s mostly unremarkable (or at least looks just as pretty as 10 other films this year).
Wild Cards
The Assassination of Jesse James: In a perfect world, ‘Assassination’ get a nomination. The problem? Cinematographer Roger Deakins also lensed ‘No Country.’ The Jesse James film is actually the more photographically impressive film, but ‘Country’ is a bulldozer critically. Ideally, they both get noms, but that might split the vote and lessen Deakins’ chances at an Oscar opening it up for others to win. But that’s if it happens and we’re so skeptical about Hollywood (even though they’ve seemingly proven wrong so far awards-season wise), it’s definitely within the realm of possibility that ‘Assassination’s amazing cinematography is overlooked. The various cinematographers that have worked with Terrence Malick would be proud, however.
I’m Not There: This one doesn’t really have a snowball’s chance in hell, but cinematographer Edward Lachman should be commended for commanding so many different looks, tenors and film stocks. Dude was basically shooting seven different films for each of the seven different versions of Dylan that were seen in the film – from the documentary style of the early folk days (Christian Bale), to the color saturated turbulent ’70s ala Godard (Heath Ledger) and the Fellini-inspired black and white grain of Dylan’s electrified amphetamine era (Cate Blanchett).
