The Film Experience

The Oscar Volleys continue. Today, ERIC BLUME and CLÁUDIO ALVES discuss the potentially historic race for Best Cinematography.

With SINNERS, Autumn Durald Arkapaw might become the first woman to win the Best Cinematography Oscar. | © Warner Bros.

ERIC: Hi Cláudio, I'm the lucky man who gets to talk to you about one of Oscar's most exciting categories, Best Cinematography. Except, for me, it is not a very exciting category this year. Usually, this branch has at least one or two truly inspired nominations that feel exclusive to their expertise. This year, much like the Production Design category I just discussed with Ben, I feel like we broke more into the "default" films that popped up in every category.

What's your initial impression of the five nominees: Frankenstein, Marty Supreme, One Battle After Another, Sinners, and Train Dreams?

CLÁUDIO: My initial reaction is that the cinematographers branch should collectively see an optometrist, while the Academy at large needs to watch more movies than the twelve or so titles left contending for a Best Picture nod at the end of December. Alas, that is not the world we live in…

You can surmise I feel disappointed with this bunch, even if it’s not out of the ordinary for the category. Sure, there's only one truly bad nominee (and another that skirts by on a couple of memorable shots), but the overall impression isn't the most exciting. At least, in Costume and Production Design, unexpected nominations for Avatar and One Battle After Another, respectively, offered some variety. Not in terms of films mentioned in the latter's case, but approaches to the craft at hand, aesthetic risks, and so forth. There is little risk here, even as some filmmakers hold on to film over digital, play with aspect ratios, varying formats, and a constantly roving camera.

SINNERS, shot by Autumn Durald Arkapaw | © Warner Bros.

I guess we should try to hold on to some positive feelings. While I think Autumn Durald Arkapaw's lensing of Sinners is remarkably inconsistent and downright detrimental in the film's nighttime interiors, it's notable to see a woman of color recognized in one of the last categories where it's still exceedingly rare to see a lineup composed of anyone other than five white men. She'll be the first woman to win if she takes gold, as many pundits predict, and, though a party of me wants to grumble about all the more deserving cinematographers that should have been honored by AMPAS already - Maryse Alberti, Ellen Kuras, Claire Mathon, Lilis Soares, etc. - this is still reason to celebrate.

ERIC: Love hearing your thoughts on Arkapaw's work, and I agree with you on the inconsistencies. While yes, it would indeed be cool to see a woman finally win this category, I personally think Rachel Morrison and Ari Wegner's work was both superior here, and they would have made much stronger winners. It's always tricky for me to get on board for winners when I just feel like they're far from... the best.

I am honestly perplexed by the nomination for Marty Supreme. Help me explain it, please? Is it just because it's Darius Khondji? I've loved his work in other films in the past, but I am flummoxed by his nod here. What are your thoughts? I wouldn't put his work in the top 30 achievements for cinematography this year.

CLÁUDIO: You know I'm usually the one adding pictures to all these volleys and split decisions and whatnot, so lately, I've spent some considerable time either collecting images or directly screenshotting this year's Oscar nominees. That means I've been looking at these films a lot, assessing them in search of interesting sights to illustrate posts. As an exercise, that sort of thing can reveal a project's visual strengths, beckoning a closer assessment of individual shots than what a normal watching experience does. Alternatively, it can evidence weaknesses or, at least, dull a piece's luster.

MARTY SUPREME, shot by Darius Khondji | © A24

With Marty Supreme, I find Khonji's work in finding the texture of the film, grain that adds splotshiness to the actors' faces and makes skin tones unstable, its colors and lighting, its chimeric fusion of midcentury historicism and 80s Hollywood stylings, to be remarkable. You will notice I didn't include framing or composition in that list of qualities. The material for arresting pictures is there, at both the photographic and design levels, yet Josh Safdie's preference for a restless camera, for playing entire sequences with limited variation between tight close-ups and medium shots, risks boredom. At least, as far as image-making is concerned. Re-watching the Central Park misadventure between Chalamet and Paltrow, I kept yearning for a wider shot, for blocking that did something with the shine of her hair, the red glare of taffeta, the tension between the two actors. Whenever Safdie gets a bit more adventurous, as with the early ping-pong tournament, the frame sings. But he rarely does. And I'm blaming Safdie, since this has been a mainstay of his cinema, even before Khondji joined his regular team.

In the end, regarding Marty Supreme's Best Cinematography nomination, I feel it comes down to how one evaluates these things. Film is such a collaborative process that it can be hard to compartmentalize everything or assess a DP's work fairly when the director's vision is getting in the way. Overall, I think it's a fine nomination. I'd rank him above Arkapow, a solid third place. Of course, you already know what's at the bottom of my ranking - please work with another cinematographer, Guillermo!

ERIC: Well, well, well... leave it to my smart friend Cláudio to provide the possibly most compelling argument for Khondji's work in this film. I love and agree with all of your words. I did enjoy the "splotshiness" look across the board and the resistance to look too shiny or modern. And you help me distill one of the reasons I didn't react to Khondji's work more positively... it's my own personal hatred for Safdie's style (which I think is largely garbage). The film, to me, is one gigantic mess (and I know that's what many people love about it), and I found it very hard to single out the film's virtues other than Jack Fisk's superb work in the art direction department. Thanks for your very intelligent breakdown on this.

FRANKENSTEIN, shot by Dan Laustsen | © Netflix

To be honest, I think this is the weakest field we've had for this category... usually one of my favorites... in many years.

I've been waiting to get to Dan Laustsen! I know what a big fan you are. I enjoy his work overall, and to your point of evaluating the collaborative process, I think it's also Del Toro who is driving him to these murky greens and questionable blacks as well. What I enjoy about Lauststen's work is its "theatricality" (for lack of a better word): the colors seem over-heightened, often falling in the camp of too much, too big, too dark, too bold. I certainly understand an argument for how and why that's a problem, but I admire the verve behind his intentions and the sort of big swing he tends to do with Del Toro. To your point of framing, I found several images in Frankenstein, if isolated, to be quite ravishing. There's something about their work together in Frankenstein that I find "delicious" in the "candy" sense of that term, and something "fantastically" transporting in the "extraordinary" sense of that term. They locked me into the fantasy of the story and made me hungry/thirsty for its rollout, if that makes sense.

Before we get to personal preferences and predictions, let's talk about the two we haven't discussed (which are, coincidentally, my two favorites)... One Battle After Another and Train Dreams. While I'm not passionate about my feelings on Michael Bauman's work on OBAA, I enjoyed it tremendously, especially his effortless capture of California landscape and atmosphere. Again, to the point of collaboration, he and PTA have made a quintessentially California film. Those burnished yellows, that merciless sun, the hippie crispness... it's so specifically set in place. They even find the beauty in all this ugly California asphalt I have to look at every day. What I think is super cool is that this is really Bauman's first feature as sole cinematographer! Framed in that context, it's very exciting to see this nomination, and I'd be thrilled to see him win.

TRAIN DREAMS, shot by Adolpho Veloso | © Netflix

My heart is with Adolpho Veloso's vision for Train Dreams. I realize it's the most conventionally beautiful of the five nominees, so perhaps I'm leaning toward it out of laziness, but I think it's more than that. The story, about one small man's desire to feel connection and have purpose, ultimately manifests itself in his connection to and purpose with nature. The specific land of the Pacific Northwest is the main character's longest-term and most significant relationship. And I feel Veloso and Clint Bentley nurtured that idea, and made sure that this sort of "landscape cinematography" went beyond the picturesque. The way they capture those colossal trees, open plains, and wet forests borders on the folkloric. The land fortifies Edgerton's character, it tortures him, it consoles him... the cinematography creates an active dynamic, a real relationship, between nature and the main character. I think Train Dreams is a gorgeous picture, and it was a surprise to me, because I thought Sing Sing was actually a pretty bad film, so heavy-handed and false in many ways. Every frame and breath of Train Dreams felt alive and dangerous and charged and wistful and... I could go on.

What is your take on our final two nominees?

CLÁUDIO: Before anything else, I disagree with the assessment that this is an unusually weak field in this category. I guess that conclusion stems from our competing understandings of what constitutes good cinematography, because I was pretty disenheartened by Emilia Pérez's nod last year, and I'm usually a fan of Paul Guilhaume's work. I've grown bored with Ryan for Lanthimos, find Maestro's prettiness vaguely hollow, can't stand the look of All Quiet on the Western Front, would rather die than compliment anything Phedon Papamichael has done in the past two decades, and find this branch's love affair with late-career Deakins to be producing some suspect honors, to say nothing of Laustsen's obligatory nominations. The last time my Best Cinematography pick was even nominated was Carol back in 2015!

I can't disagree more about Frankenstein either, but I have already said my piece on that digital mush in other write-ups, starting with my disgruntled TIFF review. I don't want to bore you or the readers with my hatred - I'll be already doing plenty of that in the coming Split Decision convos.

ONE BATTLE AFTER ANOTHER, shot by Michael Bauman | © Warner Bros.

However, I'm with you on One Battle After Another, whose lensing calls back to a lot of the 70s Altman and 80s-90s Demme that constitute some of PTA's strongest references, while also striking me as "of the now" in some essential ways. I'd even argue the VistaVision format lends it a touch of modernity, counterintuitive as that might sound. One thing's for sure, none of the nominated works this year make such a masterful use of rack focus as the Anderson-Bauman duo, and, for that, they have my eternal gratitude. Their fearless embrace of overexposure is also welcome, getting that burning Californian sun and white glare you mention above and making it a central tenet of the film's visual vocabulary. Still, Train Dreams still gets my vote. To the friend reading this who will surely rib me about picking Veloso because I find him hot, I have one thing to say - piss off!

My preference for Train Dreams has less to do with its beauty than the contradiction at the heart of its aesthetic, as Juan Carlos and I have already discussed on our Split Decision discussion. Here is a film whose very themes beckon for a nostalgic feel, practically demanding celluloid as its medium. And yet, Veloso shoots it in crisp, razor-sharp digital that couldn't scream "modern" with any more intensity if it flashed those words across the screen. The unintuitive choice likely stems from budgetary constraints, but it provides a welcome tension within a project that, in its journey from page to screen, did everything in its power to ease the audience's way into the material, spelling away tension and prickliness alike. Among these achievements, Train Dreams' cinematography is the one that elevates its project the most, and for that alone, it should win gold on March 15th.

Before we get to our final predictions and reasoning, I'd love to know which cinematography works you'd have preferred to see honored. Shouting out personal favorites is always the part of these volleys I love most.

ERIC: I am thrilled to know we're on the same page about Train Dreams. One hundred percent, it's the cinematography that elevates the project the most. And yes, yes, yes, I love that they didn't make the obvious choice of making the film look "nostalgic"... it's so much more interesting looking like it does to tell an "old" story.

Personally? I love Łukasz Żal's work with Pawlikowski, and I loved his collaboration with Chloé Zhao for Hamnet... all those painterly frames and Van Eyck browns without ever feeling stately. David Chambille's recreation of 1960s Paris for Nouvelle Vague was just super fun to look at and easily transported you without being too self-conscious. Evgenia Alexandrova's style on The Secret Agent, in my opinion, used the "graininess" of the past more effectively than Khondji and felt locked in that era in early 70s Friedkin/Altman territory. And I found Seamus McGarvey's approach to Die My Love to have a gorgeous sensuality that matched Lynne Ramsey's disturbing and poetic approach to the material. There was something unforgivable about the visual style of that film that I can't quite place my finger on that really lingers with me months later.

Also, a side note, but the cinematographer who shot the short Two People Exchanging Saliva gets my vote, too. The whole aesthetic of that film was right up my alley. The blood looks actually drained from everyone’s faces better than any vampire movie I’ve ever seen (and it's not a vampire movie), plus that creepy department store... making Paris look "futuristic" without doing anything to it. I loved everything about it.

Anyway, let's wrap up! Tell me your unsung favorites this year, then give me your personal rankings of the nominees, and your projected winner!

My ranking is Train Dreams > One Battle After Another > Frankenstein > Sinners > Marty Supreme. I think the winner will be One Battle After Another (and well earned), but I won't be surprised if Train Dreams "surprises."

CLÁUDIO: For my favorites, I'll start by citing the Oscar-eligible titles. And in that regard, Magellan is my pick for the season's best. Artur Tort and Lav Diaz used a relatively inexpensive camera you can get from Best Buy to shoot a historical epic, leaning on its potential to flatten perspective and achieve a look where light looks painted on, sometimes irradiated, and colors have an odd, burnished quality. When your film is almost entirely composed of static master shots, with no score to speak of and long stretches without dialogue, the image-making is put under the microscope, because the frame must communicate everything on its own. It's a staggering achievement!

Bi Gan's Resurrection is another one whose sheer technical brilliance and risk-taking should've earned a nod, with Jingsong Dong having to shoot in a variety of registers and formats, from silent Expressionism in Academy ratio to widescreed Neorealist melodrama, using strict color palettes and even indulging the director's vision of a titanic long take that took four hours to shoot over an entire neighborhood and the nearby river, from night to dawn, and appears, without cuts but with a sped-up compression, in the final flick. Shout-out to Gianfranco Rosi and Below the Clouds, whose black-and-white lensing of modern-day Pompeii evokes a ghostly atmosphere throughout the city, history haunting the present. I'm also a fan of the chiaroscuro of Fabian Gamper's work on Sound of Falling and Kasper Tuxen's mastery of light in Sentimental Value.

Yet, as it always happens, some of the best-looking films released into American theaters during the year don't make it to the Oscar eligibility list, mostly because they're so small their distributors don't bother submitting. Regarding those, Miguel Gomes' Grand Tour is the one whose beauty shines brightest in my mind, mixing color and black-and-white, past and present, documentary footage and old-school soundstage moviemaking, with three cinematographers across two continents and countless countries. In a just world, Rui Poças and Sayombhu Mukdeeprom would already have multiple Oscars. Still in the realm of Portuguese cinema, Vítor Carvalho and Marta Mateus push the boundaries of digital filmmaking in Fire of Wind. Jonathan Ricquebourg does magic with light, and a subverted fantasy in The Ice Tower, and the totality of 7 Walks with Mark Brown is a photographic exercise for Pierre Creton, Antoine Pirotte, and Sophie Roger that's well worth celebrating.

Oh well, back to reality and the Oscars. My vote would go to Train Dreams, with One Battle After Another close behind, followed by Marty Supreme, then Sinners, and, after a continent-sized gap, Frankenstein. Prediction-wise, I'm betting on Train Dreams, too, mostly because it feels so much like the type of landscape cinema this category is known for rewarding. After that, Sinners seems the likeliest, with One Battle After Another a potential spoiler. I wager that if one of the Best Picture frontrunners takes this, it could be an early indicator of how the final category will play out on Oscar night. Let's wait and see.

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