Best Cinematography
The Oscar Nominees:
1. Sicario (Roger Deakins): Amazing work by the long overdue master of the camera, Deakins makes the landscapes of Sicario both unsparingly gritty and hauntingly beautiful, like some sort of paradise lost as we descend further and further into hell alongside Emily Blunt's character. There's not a single scene that stands out as being particularly well shot because the whole film is just on such a high level in terms of cinematography; amazing.2. The Revenant (Emmanuel Lubezki): Boy was it difficult to push this into second place, especially considering how many of these categories The Revenant, a film that's increasingly grown on me, has come 2nd in. I'd love to give it a win in somewhere and this would probably be the closest, however, I can't quite put it over Deakins' equally stellar work. Anyway it's a great bit of tracking shots, establishing shots and beautiful imagery put to great use here.
3. Carol (Edward Lachman): Definitely the most unassuming bit of work from the top 3, but no less brilliant in its use of close-ups of Blanchett and Mara's faces, the colour schemes and shadings of various shots, all culminating in the closest thing we have to a 21st Century Brief Encounter in terms of the whole style to cinematography.
4. Mad Max: Fury Road (John Seale): Kinetic, fast-paced, frentic and all in all, just plain brilliant work of bringing us into this chaotic yet beautifully so, world of just shot after shot of immense scope and mad, mad energy.
5. The Hateful Eight (Robert Richardson): I hate to put this last as the cinematography work done on it is amazing too. A great deal of the film's cinematography is spent indoor which is underrated in its own right, since it develops such tension through the close proximities of its interiority shots. The snow scenes too, are wonderfully done and make for one heck of a beautiful, scenery-slewing motif.
Verdict: Probably the best-chosen category of all at the Oscars this year as all 5 films are just brilliantly shot.
My Awards Nominees:
1. Sicario (Roger Deakins)
2. The Revenant (Emmanuel Lubezki)
3. Carol (Edward Lachman)
4. Mad Max: Fury Road (John Seale)
5. Creed (Maryse Alberti): This being a Rocky film, of course the fight scenes were going to be wonderfully choreographed, but here there's a new, dynamic sense of cinematographic innovation brought to the fights themselves which makes each punch thrown have all the more impat. Outside of that, Philadelphia never looked so wonderful onscreen.
6. The Martian (Dariusz Wolski)
7. The Hateful Eight (Robert Richardson)
8. Beasts of No Nation (Cary Joji Fukunaga)
9. Brooklyn (Yves Bélanger)
10. Bridge of Spies (Janusz Kaminski)
Glad to see Sicario as your number one. I really hope Deakins wins this year, but it's gonna be difficult with Lubezki nominated too.
ReplyDeleteThough I love Deakins, Lubezki and Lachman's work just about equally, I'm hoping for Deakins because:
ReplyDelete1. He's really overdue.
2. Sicario love is a must.
Five great nominees, and I'll say it again its quite easily the strongest category this year.
ReplyDeleteWhat did you think of the cinematography in Creed?
DeleteGreat stuff had some subtle flairs in its use of color that really added nicely to the film, and the camera movement in the fight scenes was dynamite.
DeleteCompletely agree. On a separate note, with regards to Mad Max how much credit do you think one should give to the visual effects? Just considering which category I should rank it more highly in, visual effects or editing, production design. Rest assured, it already has a definite win for me in Makeup/Styling, and 2nd place The Revenant is not particularly close.
DeleteA great deal of credit I feel. The computer imagery is impeccably used in just the minor clean up ways, like Furiousa's arm, but also in its major effect the sandstorm. Past that though the practical effects are part of the visual effects. Every giant buzz saw, every real explosion, every car flip, those action scenes are amazing looking in terms of the visual effects, they just happen to have really occured in camera.
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