These are four of the five nominees also up for the American Society of Cinematographers (ASC) top award. The one difference is that
Belfast didn't make the Academy cut, replaced here by
West Side Story.
The
West Side Story remake is
Janusz Kaminski's seventh Oscar nomination, six of them coming from his collaborations with Spielberg:
Schindler's List, Amistad, Saving Private Ryan, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, War Horse, and
Lincoln. He won for
Schindler and
Private Ryan. Daniel L. Fapp's color cinematography was one of the ten Oscars the 1961 original won, along with Best Picture. At the time the mix of a more realistic setting than the glossy Musicals of the 1950s was groundbreaking. Spielberg and Janusz add even more layers of reality into their version, but it is not what I would call groundbreaking. The Polish-born Kaminski is now sixty-two and his continued work with Spielberg, including the upcoming
The Fabelmans, means he will very likely be back. But he won't get his third Academy Award this time.
The Tragedy of Macbeth is also the sixth nomination for
Bruno Delbonnel. Jean-Pierre Jeunet’s
Amélie and
A Very Long Engagement were his first, the sixth Harry Potter flick
The Half-Blood Prince was next, then
Inside Llewyn Davis for the Coen Brothers, and Joe Wright’s
The Darkest Hour. Only three black & white films have won for cinematography since the category was melded in 1967:
Schindler’s List, Roma, and
Mank. After happening just once in fifty years it has now happened in two of the last three Oscars. I don’t expect that trend to continue, though each frame of this
Macbeth is stunning and certainly award-worthy.
Greig Fraser had one previous nomination for Garth Davis’
Lion, the year Linus Sandgren won for
La La Land. Some of his other credits include
Zero Dark Thirty, Foxcatcher, Killing Them Softly, Vice, and in the Sci-Fi realm
Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, three episodes of
"The Mandolrian", and Matt Reeves’ about-to-be-released
The Batman. This was his first collaboration with Denis Villeneuve and he has already signed on to lense the next cinematic chapter of
Dune. It is the fourth Villeneuve movie nominated in this category, following
Arrival (Bradford Young),
Prisoners, and
Blade Runner 2049 (both Roger Deakins). Sci-Fi spectacle has won before here including Deakins for
Blade Runner 2049 and Mauro Fiore for
Avatar. Will this initial installment of
Dune follow suit?
Dan Laustsen’s only previous nomination before
Nightmare Alley was for Guillermo del Toro’s
The Shape of Water. That film won Best Picture and Best Director but not Best Cinematography as it was the year Deakins finally broke his streak with
Blade Runner 2049.
Mimic and
Crimson Peak were Laustsen and Del Toro’s first outings together and he was also D.P. on
Brotherhood of the Wolf, the second, third, and upcoming fourth chapters of the
John Wick saga, and Blitz Bazawule’s Musical adaptation of
The Color Purple, due in 2023. Del Toro’s remake of
Nightmare Alley is dark, lush, and gross, as one would expect. But without Guillermo getting a directing nod and all of its actors shut out, there doesn’t seem to be much momentum behind the film. Though stranger things have happened.
Nightmare Alley's only other nominations are for Best Costume Design, Best Production Design, and Best Picture.
The Power of the Dog’s
Ari Wagner has never been nominated before. The Australian got her start in short films before graduating to features including William Oldroyd’s
Lady Macbeth, Peter Strickland’s
In Fabric, Justin Kurzel’s
The True History of the Kelly Gang, and Janicza Bravo’s
Zola. Wagner is only the second female cinematographer ever nominated. Rachel Morrison four years ago for
Mudbound was the first. If you feel momentum is building for Campion and the film to win Best Director and Best Picture does it follow that it would be more likely to win here? Not really. In this century the Best Picture and Best Cinematography awards have only lined up twice, so far:
Birdman and
Slumdog Millionaire. The anomaly was the 1990s when six of the ten years matched, but it only happened three times in the ‘80s, and none of them matched in the 1970s. But to say it doesn’t happen often doesn’t mean it can’t.
You can watch to see who wins the ASC Award, but they only began handing out their prizes in 1986 and in those 35 years they have matched the Oscar winner sixteen times. If 46% accuracy is something you find dependable, you’ll have that as a guide.
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