Roger Deakins is one of the most important cinematographers in the film industry. Best known for his work with directors like the Coen Brothers, Sam Mendes, and Denis Villeneuve, his filmography includes “The Shawshank Redemption,” “Fargo,” “Blade Runner 2049,” and “1917.” He has won the Academy Award for Best Cinematography twice and has been nominated fifteen times. And it turns out that he is a huge “Interstellar” fan.
Roger Deakins and his wife, James Deakins, recently started a podcast called Team Deakins. The podcast explains practical filmmaking topics and features interviews with industry professionals. In a recent episode, he invited cinematographer Hoyte Van Hoytema to talk about Christopher Nolan’s “Interstellar.” Well, actually, it was more fanboying than talking.
While discussing the film’s opening scene, Deakins raved about the cinematography. “The opening sequence in the cornfield and with the house is one of the most precise and beautiful sequences of film in the last however many years,” Deakins said. “It’s really brilliantly done and feels so precisely constructed. I wonder how much is storyboarded and how much is worked out with actors in the morning.”
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Hoytema replied by explaining how Nolan is “an extremely intuitive filmmaker.” Hoytema went on to say, “There are few people that are so good at making something so adequate out of a situation that occurs in front of him. He is very untouched or intimidated by things that go wrong or change very extremely. He has strong ideas what he wants and is so secure in it that in those situations he can step away from being a micromanager.”
Nolan isn’t the only one with strong ideas. Deakins is positioning himself as an authoritative voice on filmmaking, from his filmmaking podcast to a two-hour filmmaking masterclass with the Louis Lumière film school in France. With his esteemed reputation as an eminent cinematographer, his endorsement of the cornfield chase in “Interstellar” is a gift to film bros everywhere.