FYC: Claire Mathon for Best Cinematography
Monday, January 6, 2020 at 5:10PM 
Two years ago, Rachel Morrison made history when she became the first woman to be nominated for Best Cinematography at the Oscars. By no means does that imply Mudbound's wondrous DP is a pioneer. There are many awards-worthy female DPs working in cinema, past and present, and the Academy's sketchy record should be understood as nothing more than the industry's internalized sexism and biases. Where were the nominations for Maryse Alberti, Agnès Godard, and Ellen Kuras, among others?
This year, critics have been united in their praise of a particular DP whose double dose of photographic genius could make History, just as Morrison did in 2018. However, Claire Mathon is fighting against even more of the Academy's treacherous biases, including their disinterest in African cinema, LGBTQ stories, and non-English speaking narratives…
First up, we have Mati Diop's Atlantics, a Best International Feature finalist for Senegal and one of the most audacious genre experimentations of the decade. This ghost story of migrant precarity and female oppression starts with a perfect shot of urban development crushing the smallness of the human lives that work on it, and it only gets better from there. Whether she's pointing her camera at the crashing waves of the Atlantic or peering at bodies intertwined on a last embrace, Mathon's work is always a marvel of naturalism transformed into poetry.
The dual quality of her lensing, both tethered to a material reality and interested in lyrical imagery, makes the film's cinematography a mirror of the script's tonal plasticity. A moonlit landscape can be photographed like a postcard of urban turpitude one moment and become a fantasy land of vengeful spirits the next with just a slight change of focus. It never feels incoherent, but rather organic, fluid in a way that's only possible when the magic of cinema is being conjured by master filmmakers.
Still, even with nightly gravedigging and fiery wedding parties, the most visually astounding parts of Atlantics are the interludes in a beach bar. In there, the walls are mirrors were the dead can see their true faces and the lights paint black bodies with neon stars. It's a space that invites dreamy reverie and the eroticism of dancing lovers and Claire Mathon shoots it all with an eye attuned to its sensorial possibilities. It's spellbinding and Oscar-worthy, no doubts about it.
Céline Sciamma's Portrait of a Lady on Fire is a horse of a very different color. While Diop's film weaves magic out of realism, this 18th-century lesbian romance is a study on the inherent eroticism of looking. Its images are never particularly natural, always heightened by a painterly staginess and the hot desire coursing through its protagonists' veins. Pardon the cliché, but it looks like a collection of moving paintings.
The painterly quality of Portrait of a Lady on Fire is thematically necessary, too. The story might be of two lovers, but only one of them is showing the audience the way to look at this world. Noémie Merlant's Marianne is a portraitist whose latest project blooms into an unexpected romance. If Atlantics conveyed a point of view closer to atmosphere than to character, Portrait of a Lady on Fire is all about the subjectivity of the eye that beholds.
The film submerges the audience in the observations of a woman falling in love with another, teaching us how to regard someone else, not just as a painter but as an enamored devotee to a body and mind. The experiment is intoxicating and full of feeling, the power of its images and saturated colors rubbing against the period restrictions and compositional rigidity of every tableau. If there's ever been a cinematographer capable of making the process of falling in love into a cinematic language, that's Claire Mathon.
As Oscar voting closes, we dearly hope Mathon's work will be given appropriate consideration. That said, which one of her two masterpieces would you nominate if you had to choose just one?
Reader Comments (8)
I still have some movies to catch up on, but PORTRAIT OF A LADY ON FIRE is my likely winner and ATLANTICS my runner up. If only one, I choose the former, but she very much deserves two nominations this year.
PORTRAIT OF A LADY ON FIRE deserves 70mm prints struck.
I haven't seen Portrait yet but Atlantics has some of the best cinematography of the year. I'd be very happy to see her nominated... and if she isn't I have a feeling she will be soon.
I wish I had a chance to see Portrait of a Lady on fire before I complete my best of the year write up. Atlantics is scoring big for me and the cinematography really helped sell that story. It’s just so raw or beautiful or terrifying even moment by moment in the same scenes.
Definitely "Portrait." I find the look of "Atlantics" more uneven and, even thought it's by design, a little dreary.
Even those who din watch Portrait, wld've saw all the painterly n sublime stills n trailer o the film, n with the expanded n more international membership of the academy, i tink Mathon stands a v good chance o a nod.
I tink the two who really needs rally cry r Yorick le Saux for Little Women, n the DP o Parasite.
I just love Atlantics. Haven't seen Portrait yet.
Still, so far, my winner for cinematography is José Luis Alcaine for Pain and Glory
I studied at the Polaris Academy and wrote a dissertation on the use of discrete photography. I am sure that Rachel Morrison saw several options for the development of the plot. I used this resource https://edubirdie.com/dissertation-writing-services to write my work. I admire her productive work with the light. This painting was her best work in this genre.
Thanks for the great article. I am working on the comparative essay on the topic Women with Oscar Award. Your article is a great helper for me because I have to write about Claire Mathon. I had no idea how to write such an essay and I even was looking for an essay review. But your post gave a few ideas for the essay!