Categories One-By-One: Cinematography

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Sonic Youth
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Post by Sonic Youth »

I don't have much hope for Deakins winning this one.

Going through the past years, I've noticed that double-nominees in the technical categories don't often win. It could be they cancel each other out. I tend to think it's just one of those flukey things. But if you're superstitious, it doesn't bode well for Deakins.

But putting that aside, NCFOM would have to be a VERY heavy Best Picture favorite to win this category. This is a whole new Academy we're talking about here. We're past the days of juggernauts. Except for the "Return of the King" year - or totally anomalous reasons - AMPAS hasn't allowed any one film to sweep the Oscars for the past seven years. Remember that list I posted a few weeks ago? (If you do, could you tell me where it is? I don't remember where I posted it.) "No Country" doesn't look like the sort of film that would break that trend. If it DOES win this award, then PT Anderson fanboys can turn in early. But the only tech award NCFOM's winning is Editing, and I even have my doubts about THAT one.
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Post by Akash »

Mister Tee wrote:However, perhaps there's some possibility of voters wandering from Jesse and coalescing around this nod -- the way, presumably, some Soderbergh voters did in 2000 to give him his best shot at a win. I say No Country has a very decent shot at the award.

This is the precedent I'm going with Mister Tee. Even though "Assassination" has more impressive work here, I think No Country's huge critical acclaim, front funner status, and unanimous Guild support will make it easy for admirers of Deakin's work to place their votes for this film. And I think his double nominee status will win over anyone else who isn't sure where to place their votes.

No Country isn't just ahead, it's WAY ahead. The last film to sweep the Guilds in a similar way -- PGA, DGA, WGA, SAG Ensemble -- was American Beauty, and not only was that film a slam dunk for Picture, Director and Screenplay with a relatively modest nomination lead tally (just like No Country), but it also managed to snag Cinematography as well.




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Post by Big Magilla »

I think it's between There Will Be Blood and No Country for Old Men, the former on merit, the latter either because they want to award Deakins for one of his two efforts this year or they want to vote No Country beyond the top eight categories.
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Post by The Original BJ »

This is one of the most impressive categories this year. Even my least favorite, Atonement, is hardly a point-and-shoot affair -- I don't think the Dunkirk shot is entirely successful, but it represents a technical rigor and ambition that far surpasses the typical period prettiness that can often Memoirs of a Geisha its way to bummer wins in this category.

The nomination is the reward for Diving Bell. Despite its exciting visual imagination, I just don't think the film looks "beautiful" enough to truly compete here. I think it's the least likely to win.

I think Deakins's overdue status could be a factor -- unlike in some technical categories (oh, let's say...Sound?), top cinematographers are relatively well-known, and I think people know Deakins has been overlooked numerous times before. I think the problem he faces is a little different from Soderbergh '00, though. Soderbergh was lucky enough to have his flashiest direction appear in the film that likely came VERY close to winning Best Picture; Soderbergh winning for Brockovich was never remotely a prospect. For Deakins, Assassination of Jesse James is the more visually impressive picture, but No Country is the one with the Best Picture prospects. While I think No Country has terrific cinematography in its own right, I can't see too many people voting for it except based on enthusiasm toward the film (which there certainly seems to be.) Conversely, I can see voters reacting in awe to Jesse James's visuals, as I did, but the film's low profile hampers its win chances. (I even wonder how many voters have seen the film, though I'd hope Affleck's nod would cause them to check it out.)

I'm with Mister Tee in thinking There Will Be Blood is the favorite here. Blood's visuals are gorgeous, and have already been recognized by ASC. Plus, Blood is obviously a well-liked film that will probably fall to No Country in many of its categories, and this seems like a likely place to give it another major trophy. Of course, I hate to see Deakins lose again, but Elswit would be a wonderful winner -- his work on Blood is marvelous (I particularly love the shot of Daniel reuniting with his son in the background while his machinery dwarfs them in the foreground). Plus, I'm still bitter about his loss (AND Lubezki's AND Prieto's) in '05.

Speaking of which, this category has produced more depressing wins for me as of late than most others. Some of the winners have been just plain dull (Memoirs, Master and Commander), and others, while impressive (Fellowship, Perdition, Pan's) couldn't hold a candle to the stunning work they trumped (Man Who Wasn't There, Far From Heaven, Children of Men). And sometimes a couple of the nominees were so bad ('04) that all the fun was over from the get-go.

All of this is to say, I wouldn't rule out a tracking shot win for Atonement over Elswit and the Deakins one-two punch.
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Post by Mister Tee »

First off, kudos to those who've started others of these threads. I've been way too busy to generate my usual quota, and appreciate the efforts.

The glamour category of the techs, and I'd say a pretty distinguished slate this year:

The nominees

"The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford" (Roger Deakins)
"Atonement" (Seamus McGarvey)
"The Diving Bell and the Butterfly" (Janusz Kaminski)
"No Country for Old Men" (Roger Deakins)
"There Will Be Blood" (Robert Elswit)

Quick history: In the 40 years since they merged the previously separate black-and-white and color prizes, roughly 3/4 of the winners have been best picture nominees. Oddly, losing nominees have done better, winning just about half the time (though in the decade or so before that -- the golden age of epics and musicals -- best picture winners dominated, so it may just depend on where you draw your statistical line). And, to muddle it further, wins by non-best picture contenders have been more numerous in the recent past -- to wit, three of the last five.

I think, despite the "Gimme an Oscar!" bravura of the Dunkirk sequence, Atonement is the weakest candidate. The film on the whole looked kind of washed-out to me; plus, it didn't -- outside of Dunkirk -- have the sort of impressive vistas that have traditionally done well in the category. Finally, if there's any sort of cronyism involved in the voting, barely-known McGarvey isn't likely to score as well as the eminent others.

Two-time winner Kaminski does solid work, and there's obviously huge affection for Diving Bell that might emerge somewhere. But, as with Atonement only moreso, the film doesn't offer the opportunities for showmanship that his previous wins did.

Roger Deakins for Jesse James. I know so many of us want this to be the answer inside the envelope, on sheer merit. But history argues against it. First, there's the general 1-in-4 odds against any non-best picture contender I mentioned at the start. Then there's the film's catastrophic box-office performance -- blame Warners if you want, but this film was a flop on an I'm Not There scale. And the fact is, most of those films that won cinematography without best picture help were hits of a modest (A River Runs Through It, Memoirs of a Geisha) or significant (Road to Perdition, Pan's Labyrinth by subtitled standards) nature.

The sole precedent for a Jesse James win would have to be Days of Heaven -- though I'm not sure even that was, in relative terms, as big a failure. But there's a further rub: Days of Heaven was widely seen as the most ravishing film in years, the clear best choice. There was only one critics' cinematography award at the time, the National Society, and Heaven won it hands down. Doe everyone realize that, despite the adoration here for Deakins' work, he won exactly no critics' prize for it? That, at the National Society, it didn't even finish in the top three? We can certainly all HOPE the academy disregards all precedent and vote for him anyway…but, as they say, hope is not a plan, and to bet on a win for this film is quite risky.

Deakins did finish third at the Society for his second entry, the somewhat lesser but excellent on its own No Country for Old Men. That No Country is a best picture favorite makes it a more potent contender here…though it doesn't have quite the eye-catching visuals of either Jesse or There Will Be Blood. However, perhaps there's some possibility of voters wandering from Jesse and coalescing around this nod -- the way, presumably, some Soderbergh voters did in 2000 to give him his best shot at a win. I say No Country has a very decent shot at the award.

But, in the end, I have to bet on Elswit for There Will Be Blood. It's a major best picture contender; it's spectacular to look at; it's been a major winner in the critics' derbies; and Elswit has career credentials, both from this year (Michael Clayton) and the past (Good Night and Good Luck).

As I mentioned elsewhere, I think all the techs this year are highly debatable, but There Will Be Blood is my final call here.
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