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

The Tree of Life - Review

It's a unique kind of film that attracts a packed art house audience, only to send half of them packing before the end credits roll. The last time I saw so many people leave a cinema was when Closer wasn't quite the Julia Roberts Rom Com a lot of old ladies clearly expected. But The Tree of Life's divisive nature is on a different level: those that left apparently found in unbearable, but those that stayed loved it. Perhaps it's Brad Pitt's name on the poster that draws in audiences that clearly have no prior knowledge of the film, but I don't remember the same response (in either attracting or repelling audiences) to Pitt's Assassination of Jesse James.

Cinema-going experience aside, The Tree of Life is without a doubt one of the year's most unmissable cinematic experiences. And it really should be experienced on the big screen. It may be self indulgent and taxing, but its dizzyingly realised scope & ambitions put it in a class of its own. You could watch it purely as a two hour audio-visual experience and be mesmerised, but there's also a wonderful story (or something like it) if you're willing to take it for what it is and be swept along with its stream of consciousness meditations on childhood, loss, death, creation, God, justice, nature and grace, all built around an urban business man's recollections of his suburban 1950s childhood, the moments that shaped his world view and the impact of his parents - his gracious, gentle, open-hearted mom and his loving but harsh and fundamentally disappointed dad.

With bar-setting camerawork from Emmanuel Lubezki, and a classical Alexandre Desplat score to match, the film is already a masterclass in cinema, but its a marvel that Mallick managed to put his impressionistic ambitions to paper in the first place and that his team of editors managed to put it all together. The special effects team take in lengthy sequences charting the creation of the Universe and episodes with dinosaurs that are not only beautiful, but slyly show that it's not always the fittest that survive.

Lending the film its weight and lasting impact, however, is the strong cast, both young & old, Oscar winning & unknown. Brad Pitt & Jessica Chastain create captivating characters while embodying adult Jack's memories & Mallick's themes of Nature and Grace. The child cast, led by the exceptional Hunter McCracken, is uniformly gritty, complex and real, much to Mallick's credit. Only Sean Penn wanders somewhat aimlessly through the present-day scenes (& fantasy climax), but as an actor his angst is effortlessly convincing & what he lacks in definition, Emmanuel Lubezki more than makes up for with the camera work that surrounds him.

Manically ambitious, unique & unmissable.

Film Music of 2011

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo 
Trent Reznor & Atticus Ross

From sparse, eerie pianos that know all the evil in Lisbeth Salander's world to restrained sonic landscapes layered with industrial noises & looping rythms, Trent Reznor & Atticus Ross's score for Fincher's latest is clearly distinct from their Oscar winning (& Hanz Zimmer beating) Social Network score, & fits Fincher's new film like a black latex glove. A bold, ambient electro metal score that is gloomy, mesmerising &, when it needs to be, truly unsettling.     

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy
Alberto Iglesias

Rich, classy & atmospheric, Alberto Iglesias' score perfectly compliments the reserved intruigue of Tomas Alfredson's masterfully detailed film. The jazzy horns nearly bumped it to first place.

Hanna 
The Chemical Brothers 
(Tom Rowlands & Ed Simons)

The grinding beats for the fight & chase scenes are easiest to remember, with good reason, but the Chemical Brothers' score for Joe Wright's coming-of-age thriller is far more than a thumping electro score cut to action sequences (although there's nothing wrong with that). The clip above includes two good examples of the score's more haunting, thematic parts: the lullaby vocals & baby mobile chimes of Hanna's Theme evoke Hanna's coming of age in a world of wonder & danger, while The Devil is in the Details channels the sound of a theme park carousel on its last legs to capture the film's demented fairy tale theme. A diverse, exciting score.

The Tree of Life
Alexandre Desplat

An epic, impressionist score for an epic, impressionist film that takes in family, childhood, dinosaurs, God, the universe & everything.

Drive
Cliff Martinez

The perfect score for the year's slickest film: smooth urban beats channeling the slick artifice of the 80s while building an undercurrent of romance, tension and real feeling. Compared to Martinez's also excellent Contagion score, its the restrained atmospherics of Drive that really impress. Give this clip, for example, at least a minute to kick off, and two to really impress. Retro synth pop tunes from College, Electric Youth, Lovefox & Desire don't hurt either. 

The Artist
Ludovic Bource

A score that spans the film's full running time & speaks on behalf of its characters, channelling Hollywood circa 1930. Despite Kim Novak's accusations that the romatic themes ripped off Bernard Herrman's classic Vertigo score, this is still an epic, massively charming & effectively nostalgic achievement. 

Rango
Hans Zimmer

Inventive, playful, occasionally raucous Mexican flavoured western score.

Jane Eyre
Dario Marianelli

Weighty, brooding pianos & soaring strings to match Jane's hidden passion & heavy heart.

The Adventures of Tin Tin
John Williams

Like a brisk stroll down a cobbled European street suddenly diverting into an unexpected adventure: a playful, adventurer's score with jazzy basslines & interesting instrumentation.

Take Shelter
David Wingo


A minimal, mysterious score of ambience, dissonance & rhythmic bell sounds, reflecting the eerie uncertainty at the core of Take Shelter and building up to an emotionally epic climax.


Near Misses:

Hugo - Howard Shore

Moneyball - Mychael Danna

Another Earth - Fall on Your Sword

The Descendants - Various

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

The Tree of Life now comes with a Disclaimer

This is cute & slightly tragic.

You have been warned.

Cannes Winners

Brad Pitt in Terence Mallick's Tree of Life

So the critics weren't crazy about it, and it got both 'whoop!'s & 'boo!'s at Cannes, but Terrence Malick's Tree of Life has won the Palme D'Or.

All the winners:

Palme D'Or: The Tree of Life - Terrence Malick
Grande Prix: (tie) Le Gaumin au Velo - Dardennes brothers & Once Upon a Time in Anataolia - Nuri Bilge Ceylan)
Best Director: Nicolas Winding Refn - Drive
Best Actor: Jean Dujardin - The Artist
Best Actress: Kirsten Dunst - Melancholia
Prix du Jury: Polisse - Maiwenn
Prix du Scenario (Best Screenplay): Hearat Schulayim - Joseph Cedar 
Camera d'Or (Best first film): Las Acacias - Pablo Giorgelli
Un Certain Regard: Prix Special du Jury: Elena - Andrey Zvyagintsev
Best Short Film: Cross Country

I hope this isn't the last we hear of Jean Dujardin in The Artist, but don't bet on Kirsten Dunst going much further than Cannes. Although Lars Von Trier is phenomenal with his lead actresses, his films are tough to swallow, and while Cannes thrives on difficult films, the Oscars don't. Bjork (Dancer in the Dark), Charlotte Gainsbourg (Antichrist) & now Kirsten Dunst have all recently won Best Actress at Cannes for their roles in difficult Von Trier films.

Only Emily Watson (for Breaking the Waves) has ever gotten an Oscar nomination for a performance in a Von Trier film. But maybe just maybe Dunst has enough goodwill with the Academy to pull it off?

But this certainly marks Tree of Life as your first likely Best Picture nominee - it may divide critics & audiences, but it will likely get enough impressive attention to get it into the Top 10.

'Tree of Life' - first clip

Entertainment Weekly has an exclusive clip from Terrence Mallick's upcoming Tree of Life.

Check it out. It's dreamy.

Tree of Life Trailer

Originally posted: 2 Jan 2011

Anything by Terrence Mallick is always big news. Just four films to his name, and a planet of acclaim. Badlands & Days of Heaven in the 70s, then a 20-year wait before 1998's The Thin Red Line (Saving Private Ryan with more nature, poetry & more indie names in the cast). His most recent, The New World, did not impress everyone, but I loved it. The story dragged on & perhaps the characters did not convince, but with Mallick's potently poetic combination of images, music & internal monologues, I could sit through hours of ineffective plot & mopey Colin Farrell.

His latest is a sprawling epic that takes in everything from dinosaurs to a troubled father-son relationship (Brad Pitt is the father, Sean Penn is the son - in two different timelines, of course).  

Leans toward pretentious, but oh so beautiful. I could watch this trailer all day.