2018 saw the passing of a cinematography legend in Robby Müller, a regular collaborator of Wim Wenders and Jim Jarmusch, who with his work on “Paris, Texas,” “Down By Law,” “Dead Man” and Lars von Trier’s “Breaking the Waves” was responsible, perhaps more than anyone, for defining and expanding the aesthetics of the 1980s and 1990s arthouse. It is a sad note in a year that has been otherwise a banner year for the craft he perfected and elevated, and so as our small tribute, we dedicate our list of the Best Cinematography of 2018 to him.
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The 2018 documentary about Müller’s work is appropriately called “Living The Light,” and though he is gone, the light lives on. Here are the 20 films from the past 12 months in which we felt it burn the brightest.
READ MORE: The 25 Best Films Of 2018
Click here for our complete coverage of the best and worst of 2018.
20. “The Ballad of Buster Scruggs” – Bruno Delbonnel
It’s no coincidence that the stronger segments in the Coens‘ uneven western anthology take place largely during the day: there is such pictorialist pleasure to be had in DP Bruno Delbonnel’s command of parched desert vistas, verdant valleys and hinky Wild West townships that you miss it when it’s gone or shrouded in darkness. Indeed, some of the stories here derive as much of their mordant Coensian wit from deadpan framing and elegant sight gags as they do from the ornery dialogue and rootin’-tootin’ yee-haw action. The James Franco segment is one of the slightest, but it’s given a kind of existential-predicament depth by that vast wide of the empty horizon, broken only by the single tree to which our horseback hero is awkwardly attached by the neck. Similarly, the Tom Waits storyline makes most sense from far away as the prospector methodically parses his little patch of paradise for that elusive pocket of gold, while Zoe Kazan‘s wagon-trail tale derives much of its pathos from the slender connection that is made beneath Delbonnel’s crushing stonewashed skies, amid the unfriendly expanse of scrubby earth. The best chapters in this cowboy storybook are the ones that go back to basics about this much mythologized period, when women in faded bonnets and leathery men in sunbleached chaps tried to eke out an existence in an unforgiving and almost comically unimpressed landscape.
19. “The Little Stranger” – Ole Bratt Birkeland
To its credit (but also its detriment in giving the marketing department a trickier task than they seemed willing to embrace), Lenny Abrahamson‘s adaptation of Sarah Waters‘ gothic novel is more driven by mood than plot. In fact, you could say that the mood becomes the narrative, as we gradually realize that maybe the ghosts here are a function less of the story’s reality, than of how it’s being told and who is doing the telling. This places the storytelling onus on Ole Bratt Birkeland’s photography to an unusual degree, and he delivers a masterclass in manipulated subjectivity and the manufacture of period-dressed unease. Queasy angles and mildly bilious color grading undermine the stately compositions to give the film a texture of decay, as though the faded drapes and peeling wallpaper of the once-grand mansion are concealing a festering illness within its very walls. Is Hundreds Hall haunted? Or is it, simply, sick, with a disease that only Domhnall Gleeson‘s repressed Dr. Faraday seems immune to — perhaps because he already has it? Birkeland, who also shot “American Animals” this year, evokes an atmosphere so acrid with loneliness and covetousness that Abrahamson’s deeply underrated psychotropic horror becomes a cautionary tale about believing what you see, when a genteel facade can harbor so much rot.
18. “Mandy” – Benjamin Loeb
A textbook lesson in maximizing impact on a minimal budget, Benjamin Loeb’s work on Panos Cosmatos‘ sustained feedback-crunch of a revenge B-movie is refreshingly old-school in its approach to creating the effects of, well, the old school. Though the desire to shoot on film, in homage to the film’s many clear reference points, is almost palpable throughout, the cinematographic techniques applied to the digital camerawork give a near-as-dammit look and remind us of the lo-fi pleasures of lurid crimson and deep sapphire filters, anamorphic lenses and highly directional lighting, emanating from practical sources like car headlights and makeshift funeral pyres. It is also a visual approach more attuned than possibly any other to the spectrum of rage, derangement, suffering, and apoplexy of which Nicolas Cage is capable — rarely has there been a film in which the experimental capacity of both director and DP is big enough to contain even his excesses. But here, even Cage’s most outre moments are of a part with the whole project, which in Loeb’s sure hand becomes bizarro beautiful too, from the shots of Andrea Riseborough flitting wraith-like through the nighttime woods, to the scene of Cage pouring vodka into his wounds and bellowing in an over-lit bathroom, to those interstitial moments when for a second the taillights of a car driving off to some gory assignation look like devil’s eyes flashing under a doom-laden heavy-metal-album-cover sky.
16. “At Eternity’s Gate” – Benoît Delhomme
It’s a crowded season so something like Julian Schnabel‘s “At Eternity’s Gate,” a look at troubled final days of Vincent Van Gogh is getting neglected, but it’s an engrossing, poetic piece of expressive artistry. Delhomme does for art and inspiration what Terrence Malick and Emmanuel Lubezki do for nature and existential struggle and of course, there’s a lot of overlap there thematically, emotionally, and visually. Delhomme takes a painterly approach, naturally, flowing with the rhythms and inspirations of Van Gogh’s distressed mind (beautifully played by Willem Dafoe) and long shots with few cuts soaking in the gorgeous landscapes around him. Much of “At Eternity’s Gate” is relatively silent with long stretches featuring no dialogue and thus it’s up to Delhomme’s camera to contemplate the interiority of its fractured protagonist—sometimes encouraged, other times despairing, and occasionally frustrated and angry with not only the unenlightened world around him, but his inability to properly seize on the beauty of nature. Shot with wide-angle lenses and a roving, restless camera that swoons and swooshes around his subject, this technique may feel a little old hat and pat in the films of Malick now, with some audiences exhausted by the trick, but here, it feels invigorated and moving and a mesmerizingly inquisitive look into the soul of a visionary. – Rodrigo Perez
16. “Black Panther” – Rachel Morrison
Already destined for trivia immortality as the first woman ever nominated for a Best Cinematography Oscar, Rachel Morrison not only proved her staying power in 2018, but her versatility, strolling away from the stark, muted earthiness of Dee Rees‘ Depression-Era “Mudbound” and straight onto the riotously colorful and action-packed landscapes of “Black Panther.” One of the things that makes Ryan Coogler’s film such a standout in the Marvel Cinematic Universe to date is that it is one of the few in the mega-franchise that has dared to push its visual look away from brushed-steel anonymity. And Morrison’s style — as well as her facility for lighting black actors — proves perfectly adaptable for the purpose, giving the lower key moments the intimacy we might expect but also delivering some of the most effective action sequences of the year. Here, even massive set-pieces, from car chases to climactic battles, are not necessarily about large-scale spectacle, but about a whole lot of smaller brawls in which (we’re surprised to discover) we’re equally invested. And establishing the geography and then moving between those various positions is where Morrison really excels. Perhaps the most inventive moment is one such transition: a sweeping camera move, during the casino fight, from the fisticuffs and gun-fu downstairs up onto the mezzanine where Danai Gurira is dispatching several baddies at spearpoint, and then back down again, following the billow of her red dress.