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Seriously, I feel like Dion Beebe is going to walk away with this thing this year. The usual competition isn’t as apparent, even if there are more modest artistic victories throughout the contenders. Still, I think the annual list of the year’s greatest shots is going to be a bit of a menagerie this year.
More new shots (new to me, anyway) here.
31 responses so far
1 11-10-2009 at 6:29 pm
AmericanRequiem said...
its pretty, but lovely bones will be pretty to, i feel its between these two
2 11-10-2009 at 6:31 pm
John said...
One of my favorite categories.
My prediction is ‘Nine’. It looks incredible.
Runner-ups for me: ‘Lovely Bones’ (if it’s as gorgeous and crips as the trailer leads on), or ‘Bright Star’. Loved the photography there. IF Greg Fraser gets nommed, it could be close.
3 11-10-2009 at 6:31 pm
John said...
crisp, not crips.
4 11-10-2009 at 7:06 pm
JAB said...
I don’t think A Single Man will go down quietly, just based on that trailer…looks beautiful.
5 11-10-2009 at 8:12 pm
brian said...
Anthony Dod Mantle and Antichrist for the win.
6 11-10-2009 at 8:16 pm
Matt King said...
So far it mostly just looks pretty. I certainly won’t discount it, but I really don’t think it’ll work that well. I personally loved Greig Fraser’s work on “Bright Star”. So fragile looking, and perfectly photographing nature – works wonderfully with the Romantic subject of the film, as well as the characters and… it’s just wonderful work. Beautiful to look at, AND thematically relevant. Can’t ask for much more.
7 11-10-2009 at 8:24 pm
daveylow said...
Has Dion Beebe won twice already? I don’t know if the Academy will rush to give him another Oscar just yet then.
8 11-10-2009 at 8:26 pm
matsunaga said...
Dione is really good!!!!
I’m yet to see Lovely Bones…
But I’m rooting for Bruno Delbonel for HALF-BLOOD PRINCE…
I think he deserves it…
9 11-10-2009 at 8:26 pm
Kristopher Tapley said...
“The Academy,” at large, that is, probably doesn’t know the name “Dion Beebe” from Adam. Just saying, it’s not like the high publicity a major star gets. If that were the case, Deakins certainly would have won by now.
10 11-10-2009 at 8:33 pm
Jason said...
daveylow: Beebe has only won for Geisha. Nominated for Chicago.
11 11-10-2009 at 8:53 pm
Joel said...
Delbonnel’s gonna be hard to beat, and that’s not just my opinion. But Beebe looks to have some absolutely stunning work here. Can’t wait to see this film.
12 11-10-2009 at 10:01 pm
Maxim said...
He just might walk away with it considering that the Academy is awfully predictable when it comes to this category. They like their “pretty” shots, even if they are shallow and not as skillfully shot as some other contenders.
13 11-10-2009 at 10:11 pm
Kristopher Tapley said...
Precisely the point, Maxim. I’m not speaking to quality at all here.
14 11-10-2009 at 10:13 pm
Glenn said...
Delbonnel? For “Harry Potter” I highly doubt that.
I think “Bright Star” could steal away some of the “exotic” votes, but agree that “Nine” feels like the runaway winner (it’s a good thing though that most awards bodies don’t give out a cinematography award because much like a lot of these gorgeous prestige movies I doubt the critics groups will be awarding “Nine” all too much).
15 11-10-2009 at 10:33 pm
rob said...
A Single Man looks 100000x better than this. are you kidding me? This is way too flashy. Just because something is big and over the top doesn’t make it better. Oscar theorists seem to forget this.
16 11-11-2009 at 12:27 am
Ali E. said...
I agree. Nine will most probably be the winner this year… I don’t even see an alternative to it…
17 11-11-2009 at 12:34 am
Kristopher Tapley said...
rob, you miss the point. I’m not speaking to quality. I didn’t say “big” and “over the top” made it “better,” but I am saying the Academy is prone to respond to that.
Year in and year out, this seems to be a concept lost on a staggering number of people.
18 11-11-2009 at 3:01 am
Cde. said...
Exactly. I recall Ed Gonzalez from Slant Magazine remarking that it usually winds down to the Oscar for not best, but ‘Most Cinematography’ (and that the same can be said for categories like ‘Most Editing’, ‘Most Costume Design’, ‘Most Art Direction’).
19 11-11-2009 at 3:50 am
j said...
Unless you’re Slumdog Millionaire in which case you win everything by default. Even the Sag Ensemble…
20 11-11-2009 at 8:48 am
Adam Smith said...
It’s certainly striking and some of the images are quite memorable. It reminds me a bit of fashion photography, which seems pretty thematically relevant to me, considering the nature of the film and the show. Sure, there is subtler work out there, but there’s something to be said for an image that just hits you the way these do. For me, some of the best cinematography you can find (even if just from a technical standpoint) is when any still from a film could be a striking photograph, and yet each of those stills together can create a seamless flow as moving images. Conrad Hall was one man who could do that. And if these photos are any indication, I’d say Dion Beebe is another.
Now, is Best Cinematography all too often boiled down to “Most/Prettiest Colors”, dealing more with light than with framing, motion of the shot, etc.? Absolutely, and it’s a shame, because it’s that mentality that cost Children of Men the win back in 2006, and it cost The Dark Knight the win for 2008. But it seems that Beebe is a pretty expert craftsman, not just in his use of light, but in his use of the frame. Whether he can manage them as a moving image is another matter, but nothing in these photos indicates to me that he can’t. Although I’m not a huge fan of his win for Memoirs of a Geisha, it looks to me that Nine would be a more than acceptable winner in the category, and it looks to me like his best work since Collateral.
21 11-11-2009 at 8:54 am
Adam Smith said...
Random note: I just realized that Atonement didn’t win Best Costume Design in 2007. I’m kind of shocked by this.
22 11-11-2009 at 9:50 am
John said...
Yeah, the green dress alone should have won it for ‘Atonement’. Seriously.
23 11-11-2009 at 10:04 am
Guy Lodge said...
Why shocked? As Cde says, “Atonement” could hardly compete with “Elizabeth: The Golden Age” for Most Costume Design.
24 11-11-2009 at 10:41 am
Ivan said...
Films with the best cinematography of the decade…
The White Ribbon
Bright Star
The Hurt Locker
Nine
The Road
The Dark Knight
Paranoid Park
Hunger
Let The Right One In
Revolutionary Road
The Diving Bell and the Butterfly
Control
The Assassination of Jesse James
There Will Be Blood
Zodiac
Children of Men
Pan´s Labyrinth
Marie Antoinette
The Proposition
Miami Vice
Sin City
The New World
Munich
The Constant Gardener
Brokeback Mountain
Collateral
Birth
Yesterday
House of Flying Daggers
The Passion of the Christ
Kill Bill (vol.1 & 2)
The Return
Lost in Translation
Elephant
Respiro
City of God
Punch- Drunk Love
Road to Perdition
Talk to Her
25th Hour
The Man Who Wasn´t There
Amelie
The Princess and the Warrior
The Others
Ali
In the Mood for Love
Gladiator
Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon
Requiem for a Dream
The Virgin Suicides
25 11-11-2009 at 3:03 pm
daveylow said...
I agree with Kris that pretty usually wins the cinematography award. But I was surprised that Pan’s Labyrinth won during its year.
26 11-11-2009 at 4:28 pm
brian said...
There Will Be Blood won best cinematography for capturing the dirty, gritty atmosphere of the script. Most decidedly not the prettiest film that year compared to both Deakins’s efforts.
27 11-11-2009 at 8:57 pm
astech said...
I seriously think that Bruno Delbonnel deserves to be with Dion Beebe’s company…
His shots for Harry potter 6 was subtle that helped the aesthetic aspect of the film….
28 11-12-2009 at 1:39 pm
Adam Smith said...
@Guy: I’m shocked in part because I could sworn I remember it winning: granted, it’s the only Oscar telecast I’ve missed since, I don’t know, 2000, but it made sense to me that it won. I guess I figured that, even if it didn’t have the MOST Costume Design (or, probably more appropriate to the actual winners most of the time, Most Costume Construction), the fact that it created some iconic images, because of costume, had to count for something.
29 11-14-2009 at 4:42 am
Simon Warrasch said...
My choice:
Antichrist
The Lovely Bones
A Single Man
The Hurt Locker
Inglourious Bastards
30 11-14-2009 at 4:43 am
Simon Warrasch said...
Instead of Inglourious Bastards my choice: NINE