5. Hoyte Van Hoytema – Dunkirk
The photography from Dutch-Swedish DP Hoyte van Hoytema in Christopher Nolan‘s epic war movie is so spectacular and immersive that we can almost forgive it for making format bores out of us all. “Ah, yes, but did you see it in 70mm or ‘only’ IMAX?” became acceptable dinner party repartee, while there was tacit agreement to defer judgment on the film, and indeed everything, to anyone living in the catchment area of one of the 31 IMAX 70mm locations, and to ghost any philistine who watched it in regular-sized DCP. If the film had been one iota less visually impressive than it was, it all would have seemed insufferably precious. But to watch “Dunkirk” (in any format) is to understand immediately the level of painstaking technical expertise that has gone into every frame, in order to give it a you-are-there immediacy that was simply unrivalled in 2017. From the opening shot of the young soldiers walking down the deserted street as propaganda leaflets flutter down, to the long handheld shots jogging along the beach, to the intimate, often claustrophobic interiors, to the dramatic aerial sequences with the cameras mounted on rigs purpose-built for spitfire planes, this is what you get when you let a team of massively exacting geeks loose on a war film. Van Hoytema is an A-lister anyway (he shot Nolan’s “Interstellar,” Spike Jonze’s “Her” and Tomas Alfredson’s “Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy” among other lookers) but even in his back catalogue, nothing rivals the sheer engulfing scale of “Dunkirk.”
4. Alexis Zabe – “The Florida Project”
At a first glance it might seem strange that the DP behind Sean Baker’s anthemic and heartbroken snapshot of childhood and summer and poverty should be the man behind the camera for both “Post Tenebras Lux” and Pharell‘s “Happy” video (indeed it seems strange that one DP shot both those titles, but that’s another story). But actually, perhaps its the hip eclecticism of Mexican cinematogrphaer Alexis Zabe’s filmography that made him so perfect a choice. Indeed, maybe “The Florida Project” gave him a chance to mesh those seemingly oppositional sensibilities to deliver a perfect visual representation of the film’s happy-sad storyline. Mostly shot from a knee-high, child’s-eye point of view, that looks out through squinting eyes at the bright, popping colors of a Florida summer, there’s still always an edge to the saturated, sundrenched palette, an undertone of something ending, something imperfect, something cheerful being compromised in an almost subliminal manner. He shoots the scenes of Moonee and her friends with seemingly offhand spontaneity, yet this is icecream melting quicker than tongues can lick, it is wads of bubble gum raw and sticky on hot asphalt, it’s a battered barbie smiling her pageant queen smile despite missing an arm. They say it’s always darkest before dawn (and the Reygadas film Zabe shot has a title that translates to “After Darkness, Light”) but in “The Florida Project”‘s gorgeous, ostensibly joyous aesthetic, Zabe’s peerless shooting reminds us too, that it’s always brightest just before darkness falls.
3. Elisha Christian – “Columbus”
Prior to director Kogonada‘s gorgeous debut, the highest-profile projects to have had DP Elisha Christian involved mostly had him as a camera operator. In that capacity he’s worked on a selection of well-known video games, like the “Call of Duty” and “Uncharted” series, as well as shooting Inarritu‘s “Carne y Arena” VR project for Emmanuel Lubezki, and even doing mo-cap camerawork duty on 2014’s “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.” But “Columbus” sees him rise to the completely different challenge of Kogonada’s exacting vision: the action takes place unhurriedly, in long takes with usually a static camera observing, so a great deal rides on getting the framing, lighting and compositional balance exactly right from the outset. It’s deceptive, of course, the camerawork is so still that it can almost feel invisible, but it also, as architecture writer Chris Hawthorne points out in this beautiful LA Times piece, signals the film’s themes of rootedness, its indelible sense of how places and the structures that surround us make us who we are. The miracle of “Columbus,” is that despite all these crisp interiors and angular buildings, framed with perfect asymmetry and discussed by the characters with unabashed intellectualism, the film feels so warm to the touch, and a lot of that is due to the Christian’s compositions. They keep their respectful distance, for the most part, but are informed by a perfectly sculptural humanism, that seems to draw fine lines of connection, like on an architect’s plans, between church spires and human hearts and Hayley Lu Richardson‘s sudden smile.
2. Roger Deakins – “Blade Runner 2049”
There’s one major factor counting against the possibility that in 2018, Roger Deakins will, after 13 prior nominations and no wins, finally lift what has to be one of the most overdue Oscars of all time. And that is that when people denied so unjustly for so long finally do win, it tends to be for the wrong movie. In many ways, Denis Villenueve‘s “Blade Runner 2049” would be the perfect movie for Deakins to win for — topping even his previous collaboration with Villeneuve on “Sicario” and “Prisoners,” it’s possibly not since his nod for Andrew Dominik‘s “The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford” that Deakins’ work has so totally defined a film. Sure, “Blade Runner 2049” looks utterly ravishing, but Deakins has never been simply a pretty-pictures DP, and it’s that he can, within compositions of such stunning clarity and beauty, also communicate vital narrative information and augment the story’s complex, mournful vibe that makes “Blade Runner 2049” the film it is. There are so many registers in which he has to be operate here: this dystopian future is one of hard, driving rain, parched dust bowls, still-life interiors and sterile holograms simulating human connection, but Deakins makes them all part of the same desperate, lonely world. And in so doing, he elevates every other aspect of the filmmaking. As Ryan Gosling put it: “Once you are in one of his shots, your job is already half done.”
1. Darius Khondji – “The Lost City Of Z”
One of the more ridiculous little byways of Academy Award lore (and the Cinematography category seems to have quite a few) is that regular Haneke, Fincher and Jeunet/Caro DP Darius Khondji, as sure a superstar as the profession has yielded, has been nominated only once, and that was for “Evita” (he lost to John Seale for “The English Patient” — oh, Oscar, what a fickle old goat you are). We have to hope he lands his second nod for James Gray‘s shimmering, gorgeous, searching epic “The Lost City of Z.” Not only does it represent a leap on even from their beautiful last collaboration, “The Immigrant,” it is also just one of two exceptionally well-shot 2017 films (the other being Bong Joon-ho’s “Okja“) he has under his belt after a slightly fallow period making bad Woody Allen movies look better than they deserved. Across the rest of this list there are examples of every different type of cinematography, but within “The Lost City of Z” Khondji seems to encompass them all, with his magnificently supple camerawork breathing life and sinuous grace into the often staid period film. The English sections are by turns stately and homely; conversations between characters are shot with warmth and dexterity; and the many astonighing jungle scenes are nourished by an almost anthropological fascination that makes them so much more than pretty, verdant, dramatic compositions. And it builds to that extraordinary finale in which it almost feels like the film leaves the camera the way a soul leaves a body: this ending achieves symphonic levels of metaphysical grace and wonder in which, and it’s the highest compliment we can pay, the cinematography becomes indivisible from the editing, the scoring and the sound design in delivering a sensory, sublime rush of purest, holiest cinema.
Honorable Mention – TV: “Mindhunter”
Yes, we’re not including this TV series in our film list, because, no, it’s not a film. But the much-debated 2017 war about television and film is drop dead boring to be honest. Much of it feels like stay in your lane, rigidity about how certain visual storytelling isn’t cinema which is perhaps technically correct given the dictionary definitions, but the mediums are evolving. And this show’s visuals — from the unshowy camera movements to the mise en scene — are exquisite; David Fincher’s “Mindhunter” is as compelling, well shot and hypnotic as anything you’ve seen this year. He doesn’t make traditionally good-looking films— there’s obviously more to cinematography other than beauty shots—but in the browns, yellows and muted grays of his most recent films possess their own natural appeal through composition, framing, blocking and exact staging. Look, who can make a basement lit with fluorescent lighting look so absorbing to look at? Fincher finds the beauty in drab and perhaps, more importantly, isn’t interested in conventional prettiness. “Mindhunter,” a mostly talky affair shot almost exclusively in dank rooms, takes the ideas presented in “Zodiac,” and expands them over a sprawling canvas that finds its way into the cracks and crevasses of the dark, dusty, basement windows of the soul. Lensed by Erik Messerschmidt (a gaffer on “Gone Girl,” “Mindhunter” is his first official DOP credit) who shot the bulk of the series with Christopher Probst (a DOP on music videos and the “Limitless” TV show shot two eps), these lighting directors keep a visual continuity throughout the series,which was helmed by different directors including, Andrew Douglas, Asif Kapadia and Tobias Lindholm. “Mindhunter” may not be a film, that we know, but its moving pictures are still as mesmerizing as anything you’ll see in a theater, a TV screen or a smartphone this year.
Honorable Mentions – Film: Very nearly making the list, was Phillippe Le Sourd‘s beautiful, often candlelit photography on Sofia Coppola‘s “The Beguiled”; Ed Lachman‘s work on Todd Haynes‘ “Wonderstruck“; Leo Hinstin for “Nocturama“; Pascal Marti‘s black-and white cinematography on “Frantz“; Fredrik Wenzel for “The Square“; Sam Levy for “Lady Bird“; Jakob Ihre for “Thelma“; Peter Flickenberg for “Woodshock“; Ruben Impens for french horror breakout “Raw“; and Michael Seresin‘s stunning blockbuster cinematography on “War for the Planet of the Apes.”
Speaking of big movies, we also considered: Larry Fong for “Kong: Skull Island“; John Mathieson for “Logan“; Thierry Arbogast‘s maximalist vision for ‘Valerian‘; Janusz Kaminski for “The Post“; Bruno Debonnel for “Darkest Hour“; Barry Ackroyd for “Detroit” and Toby Oliver for “Get Out.” We could go one forever but we probably shouldn’t (oh look, we already have!) so do let us know what your favorites of the year were in terms of cinematography, even/especially if they differ from ours.
—with Rodrigo Perez and Oli Lyttelton.