Cinematography Honors
Tuesday, January 11, 2011 at 6:42PM The seasonal wheels keep turning. I can't keep up. I literally have three, count them, THREE interviews to type up. Plus the top ten list. But awards news waits for no man. Not even Nathaniel, man. If you don't peruse every awards website known to man, the following info regarding visual work that's somewhat safely on the Oscar nomination track will come as fresh news to you. If you do, you've already sussed out what you think it all means and you're ahead of us.
I Am Vertigo
First, a moment of silence for I Am Love's Yorick Le Saux who was not nominated for ASC's cinematography prize despite having better Vertigo hair bun homages than Black Swan! I only partially kid because both movies are byootiful (biutiful?) but...come on. I Am Love is not going to get any Oscar nominations and that is going to make me jump off my web cliff.
AMERICAN SOCIETY OF CINEMATOGRAPHERS
ASC Feature Nominees
- Danny Cohen for The King's Speech
- Jeff Cronenwerth for The Social Network
- Roger Deakins for True Grit
- Matthew Libatique for Black Swan
- Wally Pfister for Inception
127 SpeechesThis list could transfer intact to Oscar -- they're all handsome movies for sure -- but you never know. ASC nominees, like all guild honors, generally differ a bit from the final Academy pronouncement. [2009 FLASHBACK - LOOKOUT!] Last year for example Oscar dumped Dion Beebe's ASC nominated work on Nine for Bruno Delbonnel's work on Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. If you ask me it was a downgrade. Sure everyone hated Nine and blah blah blah... but awards aren't supposed to be about whether you loved the film (that's Best Picture) but what was done in that category. And Nine was beautifully shot. The weirdest thing about Rob Marshall's oeuvre is that the art directors are always getting credit for how well the DP's shoot those big cavernous somewhat empty stages.[/FLASHBACK] The King's Speech and The Social Network are probably the vulnerable ones here as they're the least showy and "best" often equates with "most" in awards season. You may see either or both of them replaced by Robert Richardson's work on Shutter Island (I'll never forget Nick calling that one "gangrenous") or the two gents from 127 Hours (who might get credit not just for the beautiful lighting but also for the inventive setups given the claustrophobic environs. But me, I'm rooting for a surprise foreign attack from I Am Love. Stop laughing! Popular foreign films sometimes show up here. Especially the visually wondrous ones.
The question on everyone's mind: Is Deakins EVER going to win an Oscar? It won't be an easy get this year either.
ASC TV Nominees
(announced last month)
- Eagle Egilsson for "Shell Game" Dark Blue
- Jonathan Freeman for "Home" Boardwalk Empire
- Christopher Manley for "Blowing Smoke" Mad Men
- Kramer Morgenthau for "Family Limitation" Boardwalk Empire
- David Stockton for "Pilot" Nikita
- Michael Wale for "Shield" Smallville
- Glen Winter for "Abandoned" Smallville
Sigh. I miss Mad Men so hard, don't you? The nominated episode is the one where Midge (awesome Rosemarie DeWitt) returns all drugged up.The ASC Awards ceremony is on February 13th.
Reader Comments (15)
Just remember, there's always Art Direction for I Am Love. If the voters actually watch the film, they can't ignore those plates of food. They just can't.
Totally off topic but Rosemarie Dewitt was snubbed twice for the Emmy (United States of Tara) and once for the Oscar (Rachel Getting Married). She pretty much plays the same character in both but she does it so well. She hasn't been in the biz long but I think she's overdue for SOME kind of credit.
Just wanted to share these mock up posters that Sam Smith created fo his top 10 movies of 2010...(he designs covers for Criterion)
http://samsmyth.blogspot.com/search?updated-min=2011-01-01T00%3A00%3A00-08%3A00&updated-max=2012-01-01T00%3A00%3A00-08%3A00&max-results=7
Nathaniel, I still have hope for the sumptuous lensing of I AM LOVE. I mean, in the past fifteen years alone so many longshot foreign gems have made the final cut…
HENRY & JUNE
THE LOVER
FAREWELL MY CONCUBINE
RED
SHANGHAI TRIAD
MALENA
Plus, Vilmos Zsigmond scored a nom for BLACK DAHLIA (over Best Picture nominees BABEL and LETTERS FROM IWO JIMA, no less) despite zero precursor attention. Crossing my fingers Yorick Le Sux gets enough #1 votes.
Speaking of Mad Men, are you aware of the terrifying rumours that it won't be returning until January 2012?
bite your tongue. i do not want to hear this. LALALALALALALALALALALA
Nine's cinematography was fine, but I think Delbonnel's work on Half-Blood Prince was much more vivid and evocative than the more standard shadow plays in Nine. It just looked like something that's been done before...in 1942...
Ibbs -- i guess my problem with all the Harry Potter movies in terms of cinemaotgraphy is that they look SO computerized. How much is really the lighting, you know? It seems so processed after filming.
I generally love Dion Beebe (Memoirs of a Geisha was friggin' gorgeous) but i thought some of the shots in Nine could've been better. Especially during the Overture when the ladies revolved around Guido or during Unusual Way where there were shots of Nicole Kidman's back and wider shots instead of close-ups. I thought it would've been better to use close-up shots considering the more intimate nature of the song.
Still did a marvelous job though.
King's Speech is my personal favorite for cinematography (have not seen True Grit)
That was such a sad/terrific sequence in Mad Men when Don goes back to her place and finds out what she's really about.
Jan 2012??? For some reason I had mentally penciled in June of this year. Or maybe that's Breaking Bad I'm thinking of...
I'm with you on jumping off the web cliff. I Am Love is SUCH a gorgeous movie, and it deserves the recognition that it probably won't get. Just the camerawork of the ending alone merits some kind of award, IMO.
Nine is such a disappointment. I don’t consider Chicago a masterpiece by any stretch but I now see it as the lightening in the bottle it really is. Nothing Rob Marshall or Dion Beebe has done since compares.
Side note: My heart is broken “chipmunk cheeks” Renee Zellweger has fallen under the trap of plastic surgery. It’s never done anyone any favors with the exception of Cher.
I always wonder about awards that do both tv and movies- do these people watch much tv? There was room for 2 episodes of Smallville but not for any Breaking Bad- odd unless they haven't seen the show.
You don't think Deakins will win this year? True Grit needs something, and I think is the year Deakins takes it. The only remote threat would be Pfister for Inception, but that film has other tech oscars coming its way and doesn't need one more. I also personally thought the lensing was nothing special. I remember the whole thing being so gray and drab and ugly... but that's just me.