Re: Best Cinematography 2004
Posted: Sun Jul 01, 2018 7:14 pm
I thought this was an odd cinematography year for a few reasons. The first is, I remember having NO idea what was going to be nominated -- only The Aviator struck me as a certain nominee. The second is, many of my own favorites were atypically off-Oscar, whether due to ineligibility (Hero, my vote for the year’s most ravishingly gorgeous images), simply not being Oscar-type films (The Return, Bad Education, Birth), or for just not being the kind of movie that places in this category, for a variety of reasons (Eternal Sunshine, The Motorcycle Diaries, Collateral, Million Dollar Baby).
This set of circumstances led to, unhappily, at least one abysmal nominee: The Phantom of the Opera, which I honestly hadn’t even considered a possibility. Slight tangent: I did FINALLY see the Broadway production a couple years back, and I have to concur with something Mister Tee wrote about it -- the staging and lighting were truly exquisite, with one delicately crafted image after another. This only had the effect of enraging me further over this nomination, which was all garish lighting, silly fog, and graceless camerawork. Maybe the worst nominee in this category this decade.
The Passion of the Christ was definitely better than that -- some of Deschanel’s lighting recalls the touched-by-the-heavens look of centuries-old religious art. But as with any Mel Gibson movie, you run into the problem that the images are just so excessively gruesome -- here, in a manner that I found bordering on unbearable -- that it’s tough to honor the film’s look when all you want to do is look away.
I don’t have a terribly strong favorite between the remaining nominees, and might have picked any of them.
In some respects, House of Flying Daggers could almost be seen as a proxy nominee for Hero, which had won the NY crix prize, and might have placed had it been eligible. But Daggers is nonetheless an impressive achievement in its own right. From the opening brothel sequence to the battle in the bamboo forest to the climactic fight in the snow, the film is full of striking, colorful imagery that makes it all a feast for the eyes. Still, I rate it pretty clearly the lesser of Zhang Yimou’s two martial arts films this year, both narratively and visually.
A Very Long Engagement is a lovingly shot film that covers a decent amount of visual ground -- the picturesque beachside homefront scenes starkly contrast the grittier battle sequences, with genuinely beautiful images in both portions of the film. Watching the movie, I definitely wondered if all Jeunet films were going to be so YELLOW -- there is definitely a degree to which it just lifts the Amélie visual scheme and transports it to a new milieu -- but it remains eye-popping nonetheless.
Despite losing ASC, I still thought The Aviator would prevail here almost by default, simply for being the (almost) Best Picture epic storming through the tech categories. Still, it’s quite a strong choice, with genuinely majestic flight sequences, as well as a colorful look that obviously pays homage to Technicolor epics of yore without merely feeling like an imitation. This strikes me as the most impressive achievement in terms of scope on the ballot, as well as a far more excitingly and wittily photographed entry in the genre than many more lumbering epics. I'll give it my vote.
This set of circumstances led to, unhappily, at least one abysmal nominee: The Phantom of the Opera, which I honestly hadn’t even considered a possibility. Slight tangent: I did FINALLY see the Broadway production a couple years back, and I have to concur with something Mister Tee wrote about it -- the staging and lighting were truly exquisite, with one delicately crafted image after another. This only had the effect of enraging me further over this nomination, which was all garish lighting, silly fog, and graceless camerawork. Maybe the worst nominee in this category this decade.
The Passion of the Christ was definitely better than that -- some of Deschanel’s lighting recalls the touched-by-the-heavens look of centuries-old religious art. But as with any Mel Gibson movie, you run into the problem that the images are just so excessively gruesome -- here, in a manner that I found bordering on unbearable -- that it’s tough to honor the film’s look when all you want to do is look away.
I don’t have a terribly strong favorite between the remaining nominees, and might have picked any of them.
In some respects, House of Flying Daggers could almost be seen as a proxy nominee for Hero, which had won the NY crix prize, and might have placed had it been eligible. But Daggers is nonetheless an impressive achievement in its own right. From the opening brothel sequence to the battle in the bamboo forest to the climactic fight in the snow, the film is full of striking, colorful imagery that makes it all a feast for the eyes. Still, I rate it pretty clearly the lesser of Zhang Yimou’s two martial arts films this year, both narratively and visually.
A Very Long Engagement is a lovingly shot film that covers a decent amount of visual ground -- the picturesque beachside homefront scenes starkly contrast the grittier battle sequences, with genuinely beautiful images in both portions of the film. Watching the movie, I definitely wondered if all Jeunet films were going to be so YELLOW -- there is definitely a degree to which it just lifts the Amélie visual scheme and transports it to a new milieu -- but it remains eye-popping nonetheless.
Despite losing ASC, I still thought The Aviator would prevail here almost by default, simply for being the (almost) Best Picture epic storming through the tech categories. Still, it’s quite a strong choice, with genuinely majestic flight sequences, as well as a colorful look that obviously pays homage to Technicolor epics of yore without merely feeling like an imitation. This strikes me as the most impressive achievement in terms of scope on the ballot, as well as a far more excitingly and wittily photographed entry in the genre than many more lumbering epics. I'll give it my vote.