American Cinematographer - February 2017 - 55

Images courtesy of Edward Lachman, ASC and the ASC archives. I'm Not There photo by Jonathan Wenk. Carol photos by Wilson Webb, SMPSP.

Opposite: Edward
Lachman, ASC is
the recipient of
this year's ASC
Lifetime
Achievement
Award. This page,
left: Lachman on
the set of Carol.
Below: Camera
operator Craig
Haagensen and
Lachman ready a
shot with Rooney
Mara during the
production of
Carol.

dward Lachman, ASC, recipient of
this year's ASC Lifetime
Achievement Award, admits he's
always felt like something of a
visual gypsy in the motion-picture
industry. Though he grew up in
Morristown, N.J., the cinematographer's influences, early credits and accolades read more like the CV of a
European émigré. To name just a few of
his international honors, he's the only
American to have received Germany's
Marburg Camera Prize; last year, he
received a BAFTA nomination and a
BSC
Award;
he's
received
Camerimage's Bronze, Silver and Gold
Frogs, as well as a CinematographerDirector Duo Award from the festival;
and he's taken home a Golden Osella
cinematography award from the Venice
Film Festival. Furthermore, he's worked
with many known European directors,
including Werner Herzog, Wim
Wenders, Volker Schlöndorff, George
Sluizer, Ulrich Seidl and even French
New Wave auteur Jean-Luc Godard.
He has also exhibited photography,
videos, and art installations in galleries
and museums throughout the world.
Lachman's extensive and eclectic
list of credits includes such visually
arresting independent features as Far

From Heaven (AC Dec. '02), I'm Not
There (AC Nov. '07) and Carol (AC Dec.
'15), all with director Todd Haynes; The
Limey (AC Nov. '99) and Erin
Brockovich, with Steven Soderbergh;
Light Sleeper and Touch, with Paul
Schrader; and The Virgin Suicides, with
Sophia Coppola. He stresses, though,
that his work is the result of his collaborations with his crew that he's worked
with over many years, particularly gaffer
John DeBlau, key grip Jim McMillan,
and operators Craig Haagensen and
Mitch Dubin.
Both Lachman's father and
grandfather worked in the film-exhibition industry, the former converting
vaudeville houses to movie theaters, the
latter running cinemas in New Jersey
and distributing carbon-arc projector
lamps for a French company and, later,
having the foresight to introduce xenon
bulbs and projectors as their replacement. However, Lachman insists that
this early introduction to the medium
had no bearing on his own career path.
"When I was young," he recalls, "I used
to go to movies with my father and sing
to the musicals on the screen and fill the
bags with popcorn at the concession
stand. So I was around film my whole
life, but I didn't take it very seriously. My
www.theasc.com

father was also an amateur photographer, but as a child I shied away from
and actually abhorred cameras. I always
had the feeling, like Eastern thought,
that your photographic image could
steal your soul - now I know it does!"
Instead, his artistic impulses
steered him in the direction of art
history and painting. While taking
courses at Harvard and Columbia, he
began to see film as an art form, and he
ultimately completed his education at
February 2017

http://www.theasc.com

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of American Cinematographer - February 2017