Oscar Volley: Oscar's Choice for "Best Cinematography" (and more)
Tuesday, February 28, 2023 at 10:05PM The team is pairing off to discuss each Oscar race. Here's Glenn Dunks and Eric Blume...
ELVIS Cinematography by Mandy Walker OSCAR NOMINATED
GLENN: Hi Eric, let's talk all things camera and light—it's Best Cinematography. Can I just start by asking one big question regarding this particular category. What happened to Top Gun: Maverick here? Claudio Miranda, previous Oscar winner for Life of Pi, was supposed to be our runaway favorite and yet on nomination morning, Lydia Tár claimed one final scalp amid her reign of terror. And a second question, I suppose. Did that Top Gun miss just hand this trophy to All Quiet on the Western Front? As much as I am craving a win for Mandy Walker (for many reasons including how historic it would be), I just can't see anything but the German war movie coming out on top here.
ERIC: Glenn, two excellent questions. Let's tackle the first...
TOP GUN MAVERICK Cinematography by Claudio Miranda
Indeed Claudio Miranda was the "Julliard student" in this situation. Personally, I was thrilled that Florian Hoffmeister nabbed the nomination, as I think his cinematography is crucial to maintaining that tricky knife-edged tonal balance that Todd Field suspends us in for two and a half hours. His crisp grayness keeps us cool and distanced, while knowing the exact distance to keep us from Blanchett's face (sometimes, blessedly, none).
TAR Cinematography by Florian Hoffmeister - OSCAR NOMINATED
While Miranda's contribution is perhaps equally crucial, I think some in the cinematographer branch view it as standard-issue-action stuff: burnished oranges, those oil-on-the-runway hazes, the videogame-like compositions. Miranda was a deserving winner for Life of Pi, and he's one of the best out there. He acquits himself admirably, but ultimately the cinematography branch is a little more highbrow than some other branches and it makes sense to me that they passed in favor of TÁR and another film that richly, richy deserved it, Bardo (courtesy Darius Khondji).
EO Cinematography by Michal Dymek
Before we get further to the nominated five and the race itself, were there any films you'd been rooting for that sadly didn't make it? For me, it was Michal Dymek for EO, where he made animal, human, and nature feel beautiful in ways both mundane and profound. He found unity across many visual terrains and worked with Skolimowski to create images that were haunting and mysterious. I also liked Linus Sandgren's work in Babylon. He resisted shooting everything with a glossy sheen and gave a nice grit to the film. What were your forgotten faves?
GLENN: I so very much would have loved for EO to make it in. Its images struck an incredible balance of the beauty that that donkey perhaps sees of the world and the reality that the audience knows she exists in. I was also quite a fan of Benoît Delhomme's work on the little-discussed Lady Chatterly's Lover on Netflix. Delhomme does such wonderful things with color grading (remember A Most Violent Year's green palette?) and in this, the latest adaptation of the famous Lawrence novel, he conjures up striking, crisp images that feel unexpected for such a property and allows the bodies of both Emma Corrin and Jack O'Connell to be struck by the most heavenly of light. It's a shame the film was relegated to Netflix where it was easily slept on with All Quiet on the Western Front, Glass Onion and Pinocchio soaking up the attention and the marketing dollars.
BONES AND ALL Cinematography by Arseni Khachaturan
Both it and EO would have made my top five. Another one I love is the extremely era-appropriate work of Arseni Khachaturan on Bones and All. You mean to tell me movies can look like that and they're deliberately choosing not to? Dereliction of cinematic duty, I say!
ERIC: Those are some inspired alts. Before we get to the predictions, I'd love to hear your thoughts on all five of the nominees. I've already espoused my love for my two, TÁR and Bardo. Bardo especially is a knockout. Inarritu's gamble is to say "I'm going to invite you inside my mind...how I see the world in visual terms because I make movies." It's Khondji's job to deliver on that, and the "fantasy" segments grow naturally out of the "reality" of the scenes.. He just lets one set of images flow into another, the way Inarritu actually thinks. I think it's a stunning achievement.
BARDO Cinematography by Darius Khondji - OSCAR NOMINATED
Roger Deakins is pretty much beyond reproach, and Empire of Light sure looks handsome. Who's mad about light flickers across Olivia Colman's face? But I think he's nominated more for his reputation than for his specific work. We're divided on Elvis, which I think is a hot mess, but Mandy Walker's work is one of the best contributions to the picture: she keeps the film in carnival mode throughout and her crisp work in the dialogue stretches help you forget how limited Luhrmann is with actors and actual scenes. I'll be interested to hear why you liked her work so much. I do love James Friend's work in All Quiet on the Western Front, and discussed it at length during a Split Decision argument with Claudio here on the site. The film feels both "old" and "new" and it feels like Friend is making use of the most technological advancements out there with cameras, not for flash but for dramatic purposes that suit the story. Let me hear your thoughts on the five, please...?
GLENN: To be perfectly honest, I am at a bit of a strange place with this year's batch of nominees. That could very well be because Bardo and Empire of Light both feel like they're taking the spots of titles that would be far more exciting or interesting—movies that would really make me sit up and know they were paying attention to more than just the names behind the camera.
EMPIRE OF LIGHT Cinematography by Roger Deakins
Maybe I'm just being a grouch. All Quiet on the Western Front definitely looks great, but a war movie with intense color grading isn't what I'd call a nomination to perk me up. I like that TÁR's inclusion shook things up, and it at least has a distinctly visual point of view that sets it apart from everything else released last year..
My favorite, almost entirely by default, is Elvis. I have been a fan of Mandy Walkers for such a long time. Her work going way back to The Well in 1996 should have been an award-winning international calling card. It's wild it has taken this long for a nomination. I hope she wins, not just for the historic nature of such an award, but because, as you say, she keeps the film on such a visually consistent playing field that when Luhrmann's storytelling fluctuates (as is his wont), it never feels as if it is spinning off of its axis. Much like Donald McAlpine's lensing of Moulin Rouge, she throws a lot at you, and yet the camera plays a mighty part in controlling the chaos. Would I be wrong in assuming you'd be happy with a win for just about any of the titles barring a (quite frankly unbelievable) third win for Deakins?
ERIC: Yeah, I mean the actors have their favorites that they nominate whether or not the performance is great, and the other branches are the same. Deakins has become the Streep/Dench/Washington of this category. But yes, I'm happy with a win from any of the other four. Which brings us to our close.
Here are my calls for the category:
- Will win: All Quiet on the Western Front
- Should Win: TÁR
- Spoiler: Elvis
GLENN: I mostly agree.
- Will win: All Quiet on the Western Front
- Should win: Elvis
- Spoiler: Elvis
ERIC: I’ve enjoyed our time together, as always.
ALL QUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONT Cinematography by James Friend
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Reader Comments (11)
What a woeful lineup this year, I wouldn't have nominated any of them. BARDO wasn't even Khondji's best work of 2022, for crying out loud.
Elvis' nomination in this category is a real mystery to me.
Terrible and our of place, like everything in that mess they call a movie.
All Quiet is the best of this lineup, by far. It's going to be a deserved Oscar.
My runner-up is Tar, so subtle and so precise.
All Quiet cinematography is good in camera movements but I don't like all that blue Netflix colour and the lights in the interiors are too much stagey.
Elvis is ok.
Tàr has wonderful camera movements, great images and the light is so beautiful. I think that this movie is a love letter to Haneke and cinematography and editing helped to reach the point.
The two "great" snubs Maverick and The Batman marry the actual trend that suppose that orange means great cinematography. Allen did it for years and I never heard anyone shouting "Oh my God is so orange! This is a masterpiece"
All Quiet cinematography is good in camera movements but I don't like all that blue Netflix colour and the lights in the interiors are too much stagey.
Elvis is ok.
Tàr has wonderful camera movements, great images and the light is so beautiful. I think that this movie is a love letter to Haneke and cinematography and editing helped to reach the point.
The two "great" snubs Maverick and The Batman marry the actual trend that suppose that orange means great cinematography. Allen did it for years and I never heard anyone shouting "Oh my God is so orange! This is a masterpiece"
The Bardo/Empire of Light noms bore me, AQOTWF still has that gross Netflix sheen, the Elvis nom is fun, the TAR nom is great and inspired. Feels like AQOTWF or Elvis have this.
My 5 would have probably been Armageddon Time, Babylon, Decision to Leave, EO, and Top Gun: Maverick. Decision to Leave should have generally been in the conversation more for most of the categories, but especially cinematography.
Can All Quiet on the Western Front win without a nomination from the American Society of Cinematographers? That hasn't occurred since 2006 when Guillermo Navarro won an Oscar for Pan's Labyrinth. We'll see how this unfolds.
These nominations are either terrible or boring. Elvis is so increibly ugly and gross.
Out of these my vote goes to Tar by far.
Finbar, and Pan's was another international movie that was well loved (and not even as much as All Quiet in terms of nomination haul).
This line-up leaves much to be desired. TAR is easily the standout for me.
If I had a ballot, I'd have nominated
AFTERSUN - Gregory Oke
BLONDE - Chayse Irvin
DECISION TO LEAVE - Ji-Yong Kim
EO - Michael Dymek
NOPE - Hoyte Van Hoytema
Very happy for Mandy Walker's nomination though.
It’s an interesting lineup in how bad it is, and yet I’m mostly on an island by myself for my love of Bardo’s cinematography, the only thing I loved about it. I think it should be running away with the award. I’ll be rooting for it but I’m not hopeful.
The rest of my lineup would probably keep Tar, and then drop the other 3 and replace with Top Gun: Maverick, Avatar: The Way of Water & The Batman.
I think All Quiet on the Western Front wins easily and will become a boring but not bad winner. But runner up is definitely Elvis which would be a really bad winner. Still baffled that flaming pile of garbage received any Oscar nominations.
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