10. Matthew Libatique – “mother!”
Darren Aronofsky‘s blistering headfuck “mother!” is such an extravagantly batshit movie that one wonders how anyone involved in its making managed to keep their sanity. And that goes double for Aronofsky’s regular DP Matthew Libatique, who, though he also shot the director’s not-exactly-low-key “Black Swan” and his not-your-momma’s-bible version of “Noah,” has to have been at least a little daunted by the sheer intensity required for “mother!” With Jennifer Lawrence‘s character being attacked on all sides, first by her husband’s indifference, then by their invasive houseguests and finally, literally, by partygoers with no regard for unbraced sinks, crazed religious zealots, soldiers, terrorists and Kristen Wiig, it would be a big enough ask to simply have the camera observe all this mounting chaos. But here the camera is part of it, it’s in the thick of it, it sometimes almost seems to be egging the action on. It’s also such a clever, gradual subversion of the very idea of point-of-view shooting: for the whole, relatively sedate first half, we are so closely allied to Lawrence that the focus on her becomes claustrophobic: we hover close by her like a constant dull headache as she pinballs around that increasingly prisonlike house, yet this is not first-person sympathy — the camera has little pity for her. It’s only a matter of time before its obsessive focus on her turns against her, the way everyone turns against her. There’s a lot of great camerawork in this list, but this might be the only entry where the cinematographer should maybe also be up for Best Actor.
9. Hélène Louvart – “Beach Rats”
It’s a measure of the influences of director Eliza Hittman that rather than picking an American DP for her second feature “Beach Rats,” she went to Europe: the film feels closer to Euro-arthouse than U.S-indie (with the influence of Claire Denis’ “Beau Travail” looming particularly large), and Hélène Louvart, whose credits include work with Agnès Varda, Wim Wenders and Denis herself, was the perfect fit. Hittman’s woozy, sensual, queer coming-of-age drama is a film that’s physical and intimate in a way that feels incredibly rare, and Louvart’s camera is forever pushing into that: getting closer to Harris Dickinson’s lead and its other subjects than often feels comfortable, lingering on fleeting touches, open mouths and the ripples of muscles. And while we tend to feel that every movie should be shot in Super 16, it’s the perfect fit here: giving the film a timeless, ageless quality despite its subject matter of selfies and online hook-ups, and letting characters loom out of the darkness like cut-outs in the film’s haunting ending. It looks to have made Louvart even more in demand than before: she’ll not only reunite with “The Wonders” director Alice Rohrwacher, she’s also lensing Mia Hansen-Løve’s “Maya.”
8. Dan Laustsen – “The Shape Of Water”
If you’re finding it hard to put your finger on what exactly is so special about Dan Laustsen’s dreamy photography in Guillermo del Toro‘s captivating “The Shape of Water,” the opening sequence provides a clue. It’s a dream sequence in which Sally Hawkins is asleep in her obsessively designed, richly imagined cozily Gothic apartment, but it’s full of water and she’s suspended several feet above her sofa, with shafts of light rippling around her. While it’s literal in this moment, the rest of the film is shot as though the camera were underwater too, so it doesn’t just move from one set up to the next, it practically flows. Of course, the film also gave Laustsen (whose other 2017 title, “John Wick 2” proves his extraordinary versatility) the chance to shoot in a whole different register, in the black-and-white Fred ‘n’ Ginger-style musical dance number. But for the most part, his glowy fluid camerawork is a different sort of dance, a fluid, swoony, romantic waltz, shot in the richest turquoises and warmest golds with striking ruby accents. Originally del Toro had wanted the whole movie to be in black and white, and while it undoubtedly would have been gorgeous in its own way, we wouldn’t forego the velvety embrace of the color palette Laustsen achieves here for anything.
7. Mikhail Krichman – “Loveless”
The transition from film to digital has brought about it a lot of hand-wringing, but we don’t as often discuss what a privileged time it is in terms of cinematographic arts too, in that we get to see seasoned professionals embrace and explore the possibilities of a new format, often with rejuvenating effect. Andrey Zvyagintsev’s regular cinematographer, Mikhail Krichman, has only worked in digital once before (all Zvyagintsev’s previous movies were shot on film) but freely admits in interview that there were elements in visual approach to the bruising, despairing, diamond-hard “Loveless” that he would not have been able to achieve on 35mm. Of course, “Loveless” could also stand as a manifesto for the coldness of digital — it makes Zvyagintsev’s previous masterwork “Leviathan” seem warm and fuzzy in comparison — but that chilliness is a tool wielded expertly here, like a scalpel made of ice. Krichman’s compositions are as rich and complete as ever, whether vast exterior shots of volunteers combing snowy woods for the missing child, or magic-hour interiors when the blue half-light is drained of any Malickian warmth and almost corrodes these cruel characters like something caustic. And the photography communicates not just menace but mystery: Krichman volunteers that the camera’s few movements are never unmotivated, it moves with action, with actors or with “a special purpose that belongs to the scene.” Here, that special purpose leads him to pan to an empty pathway or linger in a room after the protagonists have left and it gives “Loveless” its quasi-horror-movie sense of the uncanny.
6. Sean Price Williams – “Good Time”
This is a list of best cinematography of the year, but if it were a list of best cinematographers, for sheer ubiquity, we might have to put Sean Price Williams even further up this list. However, turning in memorable work in no fewer than three totally different 2017 indie titles (Michael Almereyda‘s sedate “Marjorie Prime“ and Nathan Silver‘s Sirkian melodrama “Thirst Street” being the others), Williams’ most remarkable 2017 achievement is definitely in the Safdie brothers‘ energetic and propulsive “Good Time,” which careens insanely from heist movie to chase movie to hallucinatory head-trip to heist movie again, before slowing rapidly and gracefully to an unexpectedly moving finale. It’s a take on the “one crazy night” genre, as a revelatory Robert Pattinson pounds through the streets and houses and tatty funfairs of Queens, and Williams’ cinematography is key in creating not only the escalating stakes, but also an insider’s vision of the borough that is as critical as it is fond. Neon-streaked and down-at heel, the nighttime sequences especially sing with a kind of sleazy poetry that Williams, apparently not slowed for a second by working for the first time in 35mm as opposed to the grainy close-up digital style that made his name, brings to every scintillating moment.
