Posted: Thu Jan 13, 2011 3:26 pm
I'm not even down with the cinematic gallop. It was painfully greenscreened. Interviews with Roger Deakins cite an almost grudging take on conditions with which he shot True Grit. There are some lovely shots in True Grit, and some lovely passages. It's not that True Grit isn't what we expect from a Western directed by the Coen Bros., but rather it's not what we expect from a Western shot by Deakins. I'm almost inclined to blame the budget and the vistas themselves. They look so painfully ordinary. This may be the single most ordinary-looking film of the Coens' oeuvre. Only the adherence to glorious dialogue and an off-beat sense of mischief distinguish it.
To talk about this being Deakins' time falls somewhere between Marty and Kevin O'Connell territory. Yes, Roger Deakins deserves to win an Oscar, but I don't think a lot of people even know what he did in this film, merely whether or not it was pretty enough. He has two different kinds of films to his oeuvre on the whole: 1) gorgeous looking films he does with anonymous directors (Shawshank, House of Sand and Fog, etc.); and 2) Coen Bros. movies and Kundun. He shouldn't win for making 2) look like 1).
If the ASC nominees line up, and I pray they don't because likely the odd one out will end up being Cronenweth, I think the rundown will go like this:
Cronenweth is out because there has not been a film of such interiors to win in my memory. Perhaps American Beauty, which had a theatricality to it and was shot by an Oscar darling. I think the nearest precedent for anything like The Social Network winning must be Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, though that doesn't jive either. Cronenweth's sensibilities are as antithetical to Oscar-winning cinematography as you can get.
Danny Cohen at least does something stylistic with his work that draws attention to itself. It's all wrong, but he does it. Movies of historic sweep that win usually favor larger scope. The King's Speech is a film of interiors, mostly; and it focuses on dwarfing George in relation to the rest of the world. I think if it wins Best Cinematography, it will be the ugliest film to win since I was born. I mean, I haven't seen Gandhi and several others since then, but it takes work to make bad choices like these. Which tells me it has a leg-up on The Social Network because A) it could win for Art Direction (pretty art direction = pretty cinematography), and B) Oscar voters like to be wrong.
Black Swan has won almost every award for cinematography out there. They shot on Super-16, the Canon 5 and 7D, utilized special effects quite beautifully within the grain, and created an atmosphere detached from watching cinematography (save for a few shots at the end). It is a wholly immersive experience, and also a divisive one. We have now honored digital cinematography twice in the past two years without a second thought, but this is grainy-ass Super 16. My parents thought it looked ugly. A lot of people won't understand or care why the choice was made. It wouldn't astonish me if it wasn't nominated at all.
I think Wally Pfister is going to win because Inception is crazy to look at. He's been nominated three times in the past five years for collaborating with the same filmmaker. It's full of gorgeous imagery that is intricately laced with invisible special effects, so that truthfully an award for cinematography is to honor the special effects. And while I don't think that Inception is great visual storytelling, we can't argue that it's incredibly difficult visual storytelling. Inception is a Vision in a way that no competitive film is within this category.
To talk about this being Deakins' time falls somewhere between Marty and Kevin O'Connell territory. Yes, Roger Deakins deserves to win an Oscar, but I don't think a lot of people even know what he did in this film, merely whether or not it was pretty enough. He has two different kinds of films to his oeuvre on the whole: 1) gorgeous looking films he does with anonymous directors (Shawshank, House of Sand and Fog, etc.); and 2) Coen Bros. movies and Kundun. He shouldn't win for making 2) look like 1).
If the ASC nominees line up, and I pray they don't because likely the odd one out will end up being Cronenweth, I think the rundown will go like this:
Cronenweth is out because there has not been a film of such interiors to win in my memory. Perhaps American Beauty, which had a theatricality to it and was shot by an Oscar darling. I think the nearest precedent for anything like The Social Network winning must be Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, though that doesn't jive either. Cronenweth's sensibilities are as antithetical to Oscar-winning cinematography as you can get.
Danny Cohen at least does something stylistic with his work that draws attention to itself. It's all wrong, but he does it. Movies of historic sweep that win usually favor larger scope. The King's Speech is a film of interiors, mostly; and it focuses on dwarfing George in relation to the rest of the world. I think if it wins Best Cinematography, it will be the ugliest film to win since I was born. I mean, I haven't seen Gandhi and several others since then, but it takes work to make bad choices like these. Which tells me it has a leg-up on The Social Network because A) it could win for Art Direction (pretty art direction = pretty cinematography), and B) Oscar voters like to be wrong.
Black Swan has won almost every award for cinematography out there. They shot on Super-16, the Canon 5 and 7D, utilized special effects quite beautifully within the grain, and created an atmosphere detached from watching cinematography (save for a few shots at the end). It is a wholly immersive experience, and also a divisive one. We have now honored digital cinematography twice in the past two years without a second thought, but this is grainy-ass Super 16. My parents thought it looked ugly. A lot of people won't understand or care why the choice was made. It wouldn't astonish me if it wasn't nominated at all.
I think Wally Pfister is going to win because Inception is crazy to look at. He's been nominated three times in the past five years for collaborating with the same filmmaker. It's full of gorgeous imagery that is intricately laced with invisible special effects, so that truthfully an award for cinematography is to honor the special effects. And while I don't think that Inception is great visual storytelling, we can't argue that it's incredibly difficult visual storytelling. Inception is a Vision in a way that no competitive film is within this category.