American Cinematographer - August 2010 - 17

conventionally beautiful.’ This is a movie I couldn’t have done when I was younger … the more I learn, the less lighting I want to do.” He won the ASC Award and earned an Oscar nomination for the film. Super 35mm. 3) Saving Private Ryan (1998): Janusz Kaminski. With a depiction of America’s D-Day landing on Omaha Beach that was unprecedented in its detail and ferocity, Steven Spielberg’s World War II combat film immediately set the bar for the genre several notches higher. The goal, Kaminski told AC in Aug. ’98, was “to make this look like it was shot in 16mm by a bunch of combat cameramen,” and to create that sense of chaos, he used techniques that included shooting with mismatched lenses, varying the camera’s shutter angle, and using an Image Shaker to add vibrations to shots. To desaturate the palette, he also flashed the negative and applied Technicolor’s ENR process, his favorite lab treatment. Kaminski, who was collaborating with Spielberg for the fourth time, noted, “We’ve all got the ability to do groundbreaking work, and nothing is stopping us from using very experimental techniques in a major Hollywood movie if the subject matter allows it and the director is willing to go there.” He won the Oscar and earned an ASC nomination for the film. Upon hearing of its place in AC’s poll, Kaminski said, “I am thrilled and honored. This is good company to be in!” 35mm. 4) There Will Be Blood (2007): Robert Elswit, ASC. Tapping a creative partnership that both men acknowledge is often as fractious as it is fruitful, Elswit and director Paul Thomas Anderson teamed for the fifth time on this stark frontier drama about a misanthropic oil prospector (Daniel Day-Lewis) who makes his fortune in the early 20th century. “Cinematographers want to control things as much as we can, but what I’ve learned from Paul is how much better it can be to let accidents happen, rather than try to force everything to be a certain way,” said Elswit (AC Jan. ’08). The mostly day-exterior shoot enabled the filmmakers to make the most of slow film stocks, which Anderson favors, and, in a notable break from today’s norm, the team screened 35mm dailies and did a photochemical finish. Elswit won the ASC Award and the Oscar for the picture. Commenting

The science-fiction drama Children of Men (top), shot by Emmanuel Lubezki, ASC, AMC, and the World War II combat film Saving Private Ryan, shot by Janusz Kaminski, placed second and third in the poll, respectively.

on its place in AC’s poll, he noted, “Each of the other films on this list is a remarkable testament to the skills and talents of some very gifted cinematographers, and it’s an extraordinary and unexpected honor to have my work included with theirs.” Anamorphic 35mm. 5) No Country for Old Men (2007): Roger Deakins, ASC, BSC. Deakins landed on AC’s ballot for four films, more than any other cinematographer, and he was voted into the Top 10 for this rigorous cat-and-mouse tale involving a Vietnam veteran (Josh Brolin) who absconds with
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stolen drug money, the hit man (Javier Bardem) who pursues him, and the Texas lawman (Tommy Lee Jones) who is always a few steps behind them. The film, Deakins’ eighth collaboration with Joel and Ethan Coen, also serves as a meditation on the changing of the West, and this theme made the project especially attractive to the cinematographer. “I felt this was the nearest a contemporary film might come to a Peckinpah Western,” he told AC (Oct. ’07). “Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid, The Wild Bunch and Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia are … much more than the sum of their stories.
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American Cinematographer - August 2010

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