Ranking the Oscar Nominees: Best Cinematography

It's an interesting year for the best cinematography category. With the shadow of Roger Deakins for Blade Runner 2049 looming over the rest of the nominees, even though his competition are certainly no slouches.

This is the master of the still painting's 14th Oscar nomination - and the narrative here is all about him being 'overdue' for a win. I couldn't agree more, though I should note that all the previous times he's been beaten, the winner has been a worthy one (case in point: his fantastic work on both No Country for Old Men and The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford came in the same year as There Will Be Blood). He comes in with equal parts reputation and acclaim for his 2017 work, not unlike Gary Oldman in the Best Actor category, and it makes their wins for their respective films seem almost certainty.

Deakins and Bruno Delbonnel for Darkest Hour are the 'awards veterans' of the lot. Delbonnel's nomination may seem to be a surprise in context of awards season on the whole, as Delbonnel has only received a few awards noms and critics citations, and of the significant precursors only the BAFTAs, which usually favours British period pieces like Darkest Hour anyway. In context of the Oscar nominations though, the Academy clearly adored the film, with 6 nominations, and thus the cinematography nomination comes less of a surprise when you take into account its success in other areas. Delbonnel has previously been nominated for his work on the Harry Potter films, his collaborations with Jean-Pierre Jeunet on Amelie and A Very Long Engagement, and one of my top ten films of all-time Inside Llewyn Davis which is just stunning to look at in every regard, and I don't think gets enough praise for that.

The rest of the nominees are Oscar newbies. Hoyte van Hoytema, nominated for Dunkirk, had collaborated with Christopher Nolan previously on Interstellar, as well as other high-profile projects like Tinker Tailor Solider Spy and the original Let the Right One In which was presumably what put him on Hollywood's radar. It was always a guaranteed nomination, given Dunkirk's universal acclaim and its cinematography being one of, if not the, most widely praised elements. I don't think it'll win, but I'd put my money on it coming second out of the voting lots.

Rachel Morrison's nomination for Mudbound makes this not only her personal first Oscar nomination, but also the first ever female cinematographer ever to be nominated in the category. Good stuff, Academy. Morrison's work has up till this point been focused largely on the indie/small-budget film scene, her most prominent work being in Ryan Coogler's Fruitvale Station which was a pretty well-shot film, and was close to getting awards traction that year. Here thanks to the success of Mudbound (surprisingly given its Netflix roots), she's carried over several nods throughout awards season to a nomination here. Her next project, by the way is Black Panther with Coogler - pretty big leap, in terms of scale at least, from any of her previous work.

(skip from the minute mark to 1:30 for the clip above, by the way, if you haven't seen the film) Also receiving his first nomination is frequent Guillermo del Toro collaborator Dan Laustsen, nominated for The Shape of Water. Past few years he's been doing stuff like Crimson Peak, and John Wick 2 this year, he also did Silent Hill a while back which I'll probably never watch, but anyway he's got a solid reputation. Definitely the cinematographer here I know the least about on the whole though, and I have to say I'm glad that so many relative 'unknowns' are getting nominated this year (though none of them are newbies by any means - you don't get many Timothee Chalamets in this category).

I should also note that there don't seem to be any real 'snubs' this year among the films in contention, at least in terms of the films I've seen, though many a Phantom Thread fan seems to have expressed disappointment at the mysterious Keyser Soze-esque DP of the film being snubbed due to some strange Academy rules (I'll get onto that more at some point).


Ranking the nominees -

5. Darkest Hour

Very strong set of nominees here. Delbonnel is kind of the 'weak link' here, mostly because I think Darkest Hour, despite being a very strong film on the whole, suffers a bit from some directorial and stylistic excesses from Joe Wright, and some of that passes on to the cinematography. The use of dim, musky lighting works well for some scenes, like Churchill's meetings with the war cabinet, and I love the one striking shot of him on the phone to Roosevelt in a cubicle where it perfectly shows the dark, solitary state Churchill and England find themselves in. It does feel a bit odd though in the scenes where Churchill is just shooting the breeze with his wife, or particularly when he's meeting with the king. I did like his work on the whole, though it might not always seem appropriate it adds well to the tense atmosphere, and when it achieves its intended effect it's quite great, although like many of the other technical elements of the film, it is not quite the standout.

4. Mudbound 

Beautiful period work as well. Morrison's work here is quite straightforward, but in a very good way, and I'd say those shots of Mississippi fields are beautiful works of art in themselves. The camerawork in terms of movement is not the most daring, nor did it need to be, and Morrison does well to make it fit well with, if not necessarily amplify, the performances and screenplay which is the main focus of the film, and are more of a mixed bag than the lens that films them. The cinematography work here is largely immaculate, if not quite as innovative as the above three, but it most importantly never seems to show off for the sake of showing off. It's at its strongest with the panning shots and establishing shots, and less so in the more intimate scenes, but very stellar work that is the most consistent part of the film.

3. The Shape of Water

Like Morrison, very beautiful and immaculately 'pretty' work that captures del Toro's fairytale tone perfectly. What puts his work a few steps further is just how much his work helps to amplify the story. This is a story that is heavily reliant upon its visuals, given that its two principal characters are a mute janitor and a fishman, and though there are other technical elements which contribute to that, the cinematography is an essential part of making this tale come to life. There is the period detail to 1960s Baltimore which is perfection, as it feels very much of its time and yet also with a touch of something different, something magical. I particularly love the lighting he uses in the cafe scenes, and the scenes at the government facility. The use of colour is amazing, with the use of green and blue for of course, water, but also many other things, to create this otherwordly feeling, yet very much ingrained in the 'real world' of the film, and the harsher colours of red and grey which provided the perfect juxtaposition. Just as icing on the cake, the camerawork is also great, with particular highlights being the 'silent film' sequence, the tense scenes of getting the fishman out of captivity, and of course the beautiful opening and closing shots where we are transported into the depths of the water.

2. Dunkirk

Dunkirk and Hacksaw Ridge are two of my favourite films of the decade, and also two of my favourite war films of all-time. I mention this because stylistically they are so, so very different, with Hacksaw deliberately focusing on the grim, grimy and goriest parts of warfare while Dunkirk is less bloody, but no less viscreal in its portrayal of violence. Now while Hacksaw bests Dunkirk in several regards for me, Dunkirk's cinematography quite easily blows it out of the water. The main difference here I'd say is that Hoytema's grander scope allows him to compose a portrait of war like few seen before. He works in perfect co-ordination with Nolan's vision of what is effectively a silent film in spirit - with a lot of noise -, and the particular standouts here are those magnificent dogfights in the sky, which are perhaps the highlights of the film. Hoytema grants such an incredible beauty to these shots, without losing the intensity of the motion, and I have particular affection for how he juxtaposes the long-distance shots of the planes engaging in battle with the claustraphobic close-ups of the pilots' faces.

Then there's the rest of the film where he captures the intensity of being underwater, being surrounded by fire, and those beach scenes where finds that grand scale of the beaches and the horizon, while also honing in on the emotions of the soldiers. I loved every second of his work, where he creates a real feeling for the grim predicament of the soldiers on the beach, the careful and precise use of lighting in the nighttime scenes, the ending scenes of the film where it captures that bittersweet feeling of survival at a huge cost, and that beautiful scene of a burning plane (which if you haven't seen the film, just showing a picture of it will compel you to). Undoubtedly one of the highlights of this decade in terms of cinematography, and you could probably make an argument for it being the best shot war film that's not The Thin Red Line.

1. Blade Runner 2049 

Though Dunkirk is incredibly well shot, I give the first place out of the nominees to Roger Deakins without a moment's hesitation. I had more than a few quibbles with Blade Runner 2049 the first time I watched it, having re-watched it twice since, some of them remain, but on the whole I've come to like the film a great deal. One aspect of the film I loved from the very first viewing, though, was Deakins' work. It is first and foremost an absolutely stunning work of art in the most basic sense, in that every frame - and by that I mean every frame - is beautiful to look at. The original Blade Runner was so iconic in influencing the neo-noir aesthetic of so many subsequent films, and here Deakins takes that influence, while adding several touches of his own to make 2049 very much a successor to the original, while carving out its own path. He's stated in interview that he didn't try and emulate Jordan Cronenweth’s work in the original film, but rather tried to pay homage to it in his own way, while fitting the aesthetic to suit Denis Villeneuve's direction, and it's a complete success.

For the interior shots, Deakins' strategic use of lighting is just incredible. Though I'm not a fan of most scenes in Wallace's (Jared Leto) lair, the blend of shadows and selective light works perfectly for the purposes of the film. I also love the little touches he adds into scenes that could've been otherwise quite routine, like the opening fight between K (Ryan Gosling) and Sapper Morton (Dave Bautista) where a little shudder of the camera shows the offscreen impact of Morton's body hitting the ground, or the cellar scene where K discovers a remnant of his 'past' where in such darkness Deakins creates such a nightmarish sequence. Then there's the more overtly beautiful shots, where in the kinetic Chinatown sequences, to the desolate Las Vegas landscape and perhaps most stunning, Dekkard's (Harrison Ford) little Elvis Presley hideout, the motion of colours, the slow and deliberate pans of the camera, are all spectacular. Even the final water-based fight, which I'm not the biggest fan of, is incredibly well shot, down to the subtle and clever uses of the dutch angle to create that disorientating atmosphere. Every frame is a painting here in Blade Runner 2049 and I'd say it's quite easily one of the best-shot films of this decade - no hyperbole.