Over the weekend the American Society of Cinematographers handed out their annual awards and the big winner for theatrical release was
Łukasz Żal. As I detailed above the ASC Award and the Oscar winner for cinematography has matched up only nine of the last eighteen years, and that is better than its historical average. Going back to the inception of the ASC Award in 1986, the two awards have only matched fourteen out of those thirty-two years.
There are some unusual aspects to this year's five Oscar nominees. Three of the nominees are from foreign language films. That has never happened before. The Academy hadn't really ever nominated cinematography from anywhere other than the U.S. and Great Britain until the 1980s, outside of a couple big international co-productions in
Is Paris Burning (1966) and
Tora, Tora, Tora (1970). If you think back on all the magnificent, influential international cinema prior to the 1980s it is astounding none of it was even nominated.
In 1982 Jost Vacano was nominated for his work on Wolfgang Petersen's
Das Boot (where
Gandhi won) and the very next year came the first international winner when one of those overseas masters, Sven Nykvist, won for Ingmar Bergman's
Fanny & Alexander (1983). But throughout the rest of the '80s and '90s international nominees were still rare with only
RAN (1985),
Farewell My Concubine (1993), and
Shanghai Triad (1995) garnering nods.
In the 21st Century, at last, it has become more common. Peter Pau kicked it off with a win for
Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. 2003 saw César Charlone nominated for the Brazilian hit
City of God. The next year saw the first time two foreign language films received nominations in this category with Zhao Xiaoding for
The House of Flying Daggers and Caleb Deschanel for
The Passion of the Christ. In 2006 Guillermo Navarro won for Del Toro's
Pan's Labyrinth and in 2007 Janusz Kamiński got a nod for Schnabel's
The Diving Bell & the Butterfly.
In this decade the only two previous nominees were Philippe Le Sourd for
The Grandmaster (2013) and Łukasz Żal and Ryszard Lenczewski co-nominated for Paweł Pawlikowski's
Ida (2014), when Emmanuel Lubezki won his first two of three in a row for
Gravity and
Birdman. And now this year, THREE of the nominees are for foreign language films.
Another anomaly this year is that there are two nominees shot in black & white.
From 1940 to 1966 the Oscars handed out two awards for cinematography: one for color, one for black & white. Starting in 1967 the decrease in black and white productions had the Academy condense the category to only five nominees simply called Best Achievement in Cinematography. Since then, from 1967 to 2017 there were only
eleven B&W films that managed Oscar nominations. Eleven if fifty years.They are
In Cold Blood, The Last Picture Show, Lenny, Raging Bull, Schindler's List, The Man Who Wasn't There, Good Night and Good Luck, The White Ribbon, The Artist, Nebraska, and
Ida. The only one of those to win was Janusz Kamiński for
Schindler's List. And now, this year, for the first time since the category was merged, there are two black & white films up for the Oscar.
Caleb Deschanel (yes, the father of Zooey & Emily) is the nominee with the most previous nods. This is his sixth. Caleb was previously Oscar nominated for
The Right Stuff, The Natural, Fly Away Home, The Patriot, and
The Passion of the Christ. He has never won. His nomination for Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck's German film
Never Look Away was one of the surprises nomination morning and his odds of winning are virtually nonexistent, but obviously this veteran DP whose unnominated work includes
The Black Stallion, Being There, National Treasure, Killer Joe, Jack Reacher and the upcoming live-action remake of Disney's
The Lion King is massively respected, even if the Oscar statue has eluded him to date.
This is Irish-born
Robbie Ryan's first Oscar nomination. He made his mark lensing the films of Andrea Arnold including
Red Road, Fish Tank, and
American Honey and some of his other credits include John Maclean's
Slow West, Stephen Frears'
Philomena, Noah Baumbach's
The Meyerowitz Stories (New and Selected), and Ken Loach's
I, Daniel Blake. His first pairing with Yorgos Lanthimos for
The Favourite has landed him on the awards circuit. Their dark, twisted vision of the historical royal epic includes some unusual techniques like the use of the fish-eye lens instead of the panoramic vistas of manicured grounds and the lush trappings of a castle that are usually employed when this material is played straight (as in this year's
Mary Queen of Scots, for example). It isn't the kind of photography that usually wins Oscars, but the nomination is nice. And Robbie Ryan should be returning to this category in the decades to come.
A Star is Born's
Matthew Libatique has one previous nomination, for Darren Aronofsky's
Black Swan (Wally Pfister won for
Inception). Some of his other credits include
Pi, Requiem for a Dream, The Fountain, and
Noah with Aronofsky,
She Hate Me, Inside Man, Miracle at St. Anna, and
Chi-Raq for Spike Lee, F. Gary Gray's
Straight Outta Compton, and even big budget comic book flicks in
Iron Man, Iron Man 2, Cowboys & Aliens, this year's
Venom, and the upcoming
Birds of Prey (And the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn). The mix of working more arthouse and the mainstream means he has an excellent chance of returning many times as an Oscar nominee. His shooting of Bradley Cooper's debut was quite masterful, glamorous yet somehow still gritty. He probably isn't going to win but the nomination is well deserved.
Łukasz Żal winning the ASC Award doesn't make him a lock to win here, but it certainly makes him a contender. Paweł Pawlikowski's Polish 1960s set
Cold War has been garnering all sorts of awards attention, including a surprise Oscar nomination for Best Director. Their previous collaboration,
Ida (also shot in black and white), was a bit of a surprise cinematography nomination at the 2015 ceremony, and they may make the leap to Oscar winners here. The period and mood captured in the deep blacks perfectly suit the narrative. Whether Żal remains in Poland or is lured to America for bigger budgets he is clearly already a talent in his field.
Three foreign language films and two black and white nominees are unprecedented, but the third never before aspect comes in
Alfonso Cuarón's nomination here. Alfonso received nominations as producer for Best Picture, as Best Director, and his Best Original Screenplay. But his nomination for Best Cinematography is the historic one. A handful of directors have served as their own DPs over the years, but it is rare. And while a filmmaker who also acts and writes and produces in addition to their directing is celebrated by the corresponding disciplines, when they start taking credit as editors and cinematographers they have been much less likely to get nominations and awards.
But Cuarón's extremely personal passion project is
so well shot, even the cinematographers who are Academy members and do the nominating couldn't ignore it. It is lush and dreamlike and even audiences who don't care for the movie have to be impressed with the photography, even if they only saw it on their home screens streaming through Netflix. The other Academy members who will now vote on the ballot, the actors, directors, costume designers, musicians, and all the rest will not have the same inherent bias that may have given Łukasz Żal the edge in the American Society of Cinematographers voting. Whether or not
Roma wins Best Picture, Alfonso Cuarón seems to have a near lock on both the Director and Cinematography Oscars.
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