Re: Best Cinematography 1962
Posted: Sat Nov 03, 2018 4:28 pm
Hey, a year where I've seen all the nominees.
On the Color side, though this is getting back to my early youth, I actually saw four of the five in a theatre (Gypsy the exception). Apparently the branch was nominating the kinds of movies my parents were taking us to.
My memory of Hatari! is dim, but I presume the African settings were picturesque. No Out of Africa, however.
Gypsy had a lot of interiors and even some cheesy studio sets (like the train station); I don't recall anything impressive about it.
The Brothers Grimm had Period and Fantasy going for it, but still managed to be average looking.
The Bounty remake was utterly unnecessary, but it had some good-looking images.
Handicapping this category, though, is a charade: we all know Lawrence of Arabia is the hands-down choice. You can argue that Doctor Zhivago saw Lean tilting too far into "photographer not director" territory, but here he found perfect balance: Lawrence is a powerful piece of direction enhanced by Young's breathtaking work.
As I got older, of course, I found most of the movies I truly loved from 1962 were black and white. Only a very few did I see on a big screen, one of which I'll cite as an alternate no one else is mentioning: The MIracle Worker. Others I've only seen on TV or home video that would make solid candidates: Through a Glass Darkly, Cape Fear, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, and The Manchurian Candidate.
Two for the Seesaw is one of those films whose qualifications for this category were so puzzling that you have to assume the cinematographer was a branch favorite. I guess Ted McCord, with two other nominations, vaguely fits that slot.
The other nominees are all acceptable, at least. Birdman of Alcatraz does a nice job of making its cramped setting feel big enough to hold a rather long movie.
The Longest Day has varied locations and wartime activity to create visual interest. I'm not as in its corner as Magilla, but I can live with it.
Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? has some powerfully Gothic images inside the Hudson household, and that last scene on the beach is beautifully lit.
But I'll go with To Kill a Mockingbird, at least partly because it's so clearly the best movie of the bunch -- but also because it sets a visual tone that lets us view this world of very real (and contemporary) racial strife at least sometimes through the eyes of a child. Beautiful work that rates the win.
On the Color side, though this is getting back to my early youth, I actually saw four of the five in a theatre (Gypsy the exception). Apparently the branch was nominating the kinds of movies my parents were taking us to.
My memory of Hatari! is dim, but I presume the African settings were picturesque. No Out of Africa, however.
Gypsy had a lot of interiors and even some cheesy studio sets (like the train station); I don't recall anything impressive about it.
The Brothers Grimm had Period and Fantasy going for it, but still managed to be average looking.
The Bounty remake was utterly unnecessary, but it had some good-looking images.
Handicapping this category, though, is a charade: we all know Lawrence of Arabia is the hands-down choice. You can argue that Doctor Zhivago saw Lean tilting too far into "photographer not director" territory, but here he found perfect balance: Lawrence is a powerful piece of direction enhanced by Young's breathtaking work.
As I got older, of course, I found most of the movies I truly loved from 1962 were black and white. Only a very few did I see on a big screen, one of which I'll cite as an alternate no one else is mentioning: The MIracle Worker. Others I've only seen on TV or home video that would make solid candidates: Through a Glass Darkly, Cape Fear, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, and The Manchurian Candidate.
Two for the Seesaw is one of those films whose qualifications for this category were so puzzling that you have to assume the cinematographer was a branch favorite. I guess Ted McCord, with two other nominations, vaguely fits that slot.
The other nominees are all acceptable, at least. Birdman of Alcatraz does a nice job of making its cramped setting feel big enough to hold a rather long movie.
The Longest Day has varied locations and wartime activity to create visual interest. I'm not as in its corner as Magilla, but I can live with it.
Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? has some powerfully Gothic images inside the Hudson household, and that last scene on the beach is beautifully lit.
But I'll go with To Kill a Mockingbird, at least partly because it's so clearly the best movie of the bunch -- but also because it sets a visual tone that lets us view this world of very real (and contemporary) racial strife at least sometimes through the eyes of a child. Beautiful work that rates the win.