Cinematography of 2012

The Tree of Life - Emmanuel Lubezki

 

It couldn't be anyone else (although it was almost Robert Richardson). Terrence Malick's films always boasted exceptional cinematography, and The Tree of Life easily stands as the best of the bunch. From dreamlike memories of 1950s domestic life - both blissful & sinister - to absurdly ambitious depictions of the birth & infant years of the universe. Exceptional & impressive in every way.  

Hugo - Robert Richardson

Warm, glowing & perfect in every detail, Robert Richardson's swoon-worthy work for Martin Scorsese's epic but intimate masterpiece almost overtook The Tree of Life for first place. Where Tree of Life has an endless stream of unforgettable images, Hugo has single frames filled with so much incredible detail, you could press pause & just stare for hours. It puts Paris on an impossibly high pedestal.

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy - Hoyte van Hoytema

Dusty, stuffy & always perfectly composed, Hoyte van Hoytema's lensing is quiet & unobtrusive while it sucks you deeply into both the period & the dizzying plot. Looking like a spy thriller lifted straight out of the 70s, it manages to pay homage while creating iconic images all its own (the sound-proof room... the landing strip conversation...)

Martha Marcy May Marlene - Jody Lee Lipes

You could write essays on Martha's mental state based solely on the images composed by Jody Lee Lipes. Shot almost entirely in long, unhurried shots that, together with the editing & performances, create the ambiguous tension of Martha's existence. Subtle & unflashy, but exceptional.

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo - Jeff Cronenweth

Shot on digital in gloomy alleys, apartments, libraries, & the notorious Vanger family island, Jeff Cronenweth's images are by turns intimate, sinister & shocking; always soaking up every last ounce of atmosphere, facial flinch or particular shade of black.  

Hanna - Alwin H Kuchler

There are massive tonal shifts in Hanna, & Alwin Kuchler's cinematography negotiates them all perfectly. From the intimate danger of Hanna's snow hunting to her first teenage experiences on the back of a motorbike, through the diverse escape & fight sequences in underground chambers, dilapidated playgrounds, shipping docks & abandoned theme parks to the cherry on top: a thrilling single-take that follows Eric Bana out of a train station, down an escalator into an empty subway & through a visceral fist fight with a small army of hit men. Exceptional, exciting & effective.     

Drive - Newton Thomas Sigel

Wrapping it's characters in a perpetual warm neon glow, Newton Thomas Sigel makes 80s retro look cooler than ever while enhancing the graceful tension of director Nicolas Winding Refn's pacing. Through the occasional emergence of human warmth & explosions of unexpected violence on screen, Sigel's camera remains as cool & collected as the Driver. 

War Horse - Janusz Kaminski

All the sentimentality of War Horse is forgivable solely on the grounds of how gorgeous it looks. From sun-kissed farmlands to the misty trenches of no man's land, War Horse is ever a thing of painterly beauty.

The Artist - Guillaume Schiffman

The Artist's Hollywood is not a flashy, glitzy Hollywood, but a quietly inventive perspective of one man's life in the movies. Remarkably gorgeous for a simple, uncluttered film shot in grainy period black & white.  

We Need to Talk About Kevin - Seamus McGarvey

A movie that drenches you in blood & violence without showing any actual violence & precious little blood. The colour red refuses to leave the Khatchadourian family alone, while Kevin's expressive eating habits take on a disturbing life of their own. Seamus McGarvey's camera brings director Lynne Ramsay's vision to life.

Honourable mentions:

Jane Eyre - Adriano Goldman

Midnight in Paris - Darius Khondji

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 

- Eduardo Serra

Another Earth - Mike Cahill

Moneyball - Wally Pfeister

Hugo - Review

Scorsese's latest is a paradox: at once a departure from his distinguished body of work & the most personally significant film of his career.

Defying genre, Hugo is partly a children's fantasy, partly a cinephile's passionate essay on why we love movies so much. A far cry from the gritty streets and desperate men he has made a career bringing to life. The danger of his concept is that it could appeal to neither children nor adults, but the happy result is that it easily entrances both (at least based on a census of my own Hugo-watching-posse: a BBM-addicted 13-year-old, a highly energetic 8-year-old, my legal academic wife & myself. We all loved it. I cried.). Scorsese fills every frame with joyous cinematic detail & brings magic, wonder & an incredibly big heart to a simple story of a boy finding his place in a busy world.

His story is an adaptation of Brian Selznick's beloved graphic novel, The Invention of Hugo Cabret, about an orphan literally watching the world from behind the walls of a 1930's Parisian train station & trying to piece together the mystery behind an inactive automaton left behind by his beloved late father. A series of encounters forces him to become a part of the world he has only ever watched from a distance & to question what he has to offer.

Technically, Hugo is a masterful achievement that hits all the right notes on every level. It's no surprise that it won 5 of its 11 Oscar nominations: the sound mixing is detailed & precise, drawing you into Hugo's world; Robert Richardson cinematography is distinctly magical, creating a Paris so enchanted & detailed you could stare at it for weeks; Thelma Schoonmaker's editing is as inventive as ever (notably in a station stampede sequence); both John Logan's adapted script & Howard Shore's score are restrained but effective; Dante Ferretti's sets are jaw-dropping and the visual effects team's pitch perfect trickery works brilliantly on multiple levels - from the intricate mechanics of the clocks & the automaton, to the intense dream sequences & - SPOILER ALERT - the insertion of a young Ben Kingsley & Helen McCrory into Georges Méliès' films.

From Méliès to Scorsese

The biggest achievement, however, is how seamlessly Scorsese makes it all fit together to tell his story & to present a cinematic vision that uses the latest, cutting edge technology to explore & celebrate the origins of cinema. Notably, 3D is a new frontier for Scorsese, Schoonmaker & Richardson and, predictably enough, their combined efforts turn it into a true new artform.

Scorsese's deep love for cinema is beautifully expressed in this quiet, gentle epic. The images he puts on screen are memorable, meaningful & precise. I recently had the pleasure of attending a big screen Georges Méliès retrospective & being able to compare Méliès' groundbreaking work to Scorsese's gorgeously crafted 3D visuals (for reasons best explained by watching the film) was uniquely thrilling.


Hugo is a love letter from one master & lover of cinema to another, filled with a poignant & heartfelt understanding of the new home forged by cinema for many orphan souls. A modern classic & the best film of 2011.

Georges Méliès' groundbreaking work, celebrated by groundbreaking work from Scorsese

Awards Tracker: Best Picture

The critics agreed on a top five that took the significant majority of their nominations, and all their wins: The Artist (18), The Tree of Life (18), The Descendants (15), Drive (15), Hugo (13).

The next five are a mixed bunch: Midnight in Paris (8), Moneyball (6), The Help (5), Win Win (4) & Take Shelter (4).

The awards groups took things a little more sentimentally; arthouse darlings Tree of Life & Drive are pushed out of the top five (& snubbed out of the Producers Guild top ten), replaced by War Horse & The Help. The Tree of Life & Drive do feature in the overall top ten, together with Moneyball, Midnight in Paris & Bridesmaids, but the Producers Guild snubs (in favour of Ides of March & Girl with the Dragon Tattoo) are not a good sign. If you ask me, the Critics Choice came the closest to a healthy mix of art & mainstream, but the BAFTAs have the classiest Top 5.

It is nigh on impossible to predict Best Picture accurately this year, as we do not know how many nominees there will be (the voting system determines the number of nominees based on a required percentage of support). All in all, I'm going to aim for the quality in the middle of the road, with some wishful thinking thrown in for good measure:

If there are 8:

The Artist

The Descendants

Hugo

The Help

Midnight in Paris

Moneyball

The Tree of Life

War Horse

If there are 10: 

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

The Ides of March

Alternates:

Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy

Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close (don't bet against Stephen Daldry)

Bridesmaids

National Board of Review Winners

The oldest film awards body in the world - a spin-off of the censorship board - announces their classy set of nominees and winners for 2011.

Best Picture Top 10

The Artist

The Descendants

Drive

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2

Hugo 

The Ides of March

J Edgar

The Tree of Life

War Horse

Best Director

Martin Scorsese - Hugo

Best Actor

George Clooney - The Descendants

Best Actress

Tilda Swinton - We Need to Talk About Kevin

Best Supporting Actor

Christopher Plummer - Beginners

Best Supporting Actress

Shailene Woodley - The Descendants

Best Animated Feature

Rango

Best Ensemble

The Help

Best Independent Films

50/50

Another Earth

Beginners

A Better Life

Cedar Rapids

Margin Call

Shame

Take Shelter

We Need to Talk About Kevin

Win Win

Screenplay, Foreign Language Film, Documentary & Breakthrough Awards after the cut:

Scorsese's Hugo - Trailer

If Martin Scorsese's name wasn't on this, you'd never guess this was his latest film. Based on Brian Selznick's acclaimed multi-media novel, The Invention of Hugo Cabret, about a 12 year-old orphan & clock fixer who finds an abandoned automaton in a Paris railway station, where he lives, and tries to fix it with clock parts. This is Scorsese's first kid's film that i can think of, and his first in 3D. It's great that he's stretching himself, even if it feels like he's making a Steven Spielberg film, in a year full of Spielberg films. Sacha Baron Coen, Asa Butterfield (Boy In the Striped Pajamas), Chloe Moretz (Kickass & Let Me In) & Sir Ben Kingsley. A strange mix for Scorsese, but I'm always willing to give him the benefit of the doubt. At the very least, it will be gorgeous to look at.

There is a logical connection to Scorsese, though: Brian Selznick was inspired to write his story after reading Edison's Eve, which tells the story of turn-of-the-century pioneer filmmaker Georges Méliés, who collected automata and tried to create a talking wind up doll. At the end of his life, Méliés donated his automata to a museum, which promptly discarded of them. Selznick imagined what would happen if a young boy found the broken, discarded automata, and thus Hugo Cabret was born. Méliés also worked in a toy booth in a Paris railway station, hence the story's setting. 

Scorsese should have stuck with the book's cover for the poster, though... Much more intriguing.