Claire Mathon, “Saint Omer”
Hire Claire Mathon to shoot your movie, and your movie is bound to look pretty darn good. “Saint Omer,” Alice Diop’s latest, looks downright stately in Mathon’s hands. She’s a master of the camera as an active participant in events happening on screen and as a tool for chronicling those events. In one beat, she’s a fly on the wall; in the next, she’s latched onto her characters, an extension of their perspectives and their emotions. Not that “Saint Omer” is necessarily a movie of high emotions, but that’s what makes Mathon an asset to Diop – her knack for mining interior sentiments unexpressed by the people who feel them. – AC
Greig Fraser, “The Batman”
In a word: Darkness. That’s a contemporary Batman film. Once upon a time, Joel Schumacher made these things look like a carnival tent lit ablaze by weirdos in hockey pads and ski masks. Along came Christopher Nolan in 2005, and the aesthetic went from bright and gaudy to dark, dark, dark, black as pitch, blacker than the blackest black times infinity, all to the delight of DC nerds who can’t accept the Caped Crusader in a context that isn’t grim ‘n gritty. Greig Fraser’s efforts on Matt Reeves don’t exactly stray from that brief, but he does make the dead of night look rich, even beautiful at times, at least the times when Robert Pattinson isn’t beating anonymous henchmen into paste. But in those moments, Fraser bests Nolan in fight photography. The film’s action is coherent. This shouldn’t be a note worth taking down for a movie that cost around $200 million to make, but given how little the average superhero production cares about good action, Fraser deserves commendation. “‘Saw’ by way of David Fincher” is an awkward narrative combination, but “The Batman’s” perfection of that fan expectation, darkness layered on more darkness, is a marvel. – AC
James Friend, “All Quiet on the Western Front”
Quite often, the best cinematography is meant to wow you with beautiful visuals that immerse you in the world on screen. But sometimes, especially in the case of James Friend’s work on “All Quiet on the Western Front,” the visuals are meant to terrify and disgust you. What Friend was able to do with the anti-war film is to use incredible camera techniques and beautiful shot composition to present a world you do not want to be in. A world where death is around every corner. And contrary to many war epics, which rely on grand, epic shots of massive battles, Friend brings the shots closer to the poor souls asked to sacrifice their lives, often for a cause they don’t truly support. The very best shots in ‘All Quiet’ are closeups of the frightened faces, covered in dirt, blood, and tears, wearing the clothes of the dead who came before them. “All Quiet on the Western Front” is one of the most well-crafted, visually captivating works of 2022, and a large part of that is thanks to the thoughtful eye of James Friend. – Charles Barfield
Russell Carpenter, “Avatar: The Way Of Water”
Blah, blah, blah, “Avatar” had no cultural impact, blah, blah, blah, never bet against James Cameron. You hear a lot of these refrains all the time, and while ‘The Way of Water’ is not perfect, my god, when we talk about cinema spectacle, the magic of movies that enthralls all audiences—maybe in a similar way that Tom Cruise’s “Top Gun: Maverick” tapped into the cinematic zeitgeist—this is absolutely it. Like Steven Spielberg before him, Cameron knows how to create spectacle, wonder, a sense of visual scale and overwhelming awe. Where Cameron differs, is the way he tries to push the boundaries of technology to make his visionary films look big. And my god, this is “Titanic”-level scale, “Avatar” on steroids with maybe the most gorgeously wondrous underwater cinematographer ever committed to celluloid. Those 4K 3D, high-frame-rate madness will just blow out your f*cking eyeballs and if nothing else, you want to experience that on the biggest screen possible. -RP
