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The other category I completed last week for 2023 Oscars was Cinematography.
EL CONDE: This was the film I watched last week, thus completing this category. This, my friends, is a weird ol' movie. I appreciate its hard work. I also definitely thought it looked really cool, especially when the vampire people were flying. By the way, the vampire people are, like, Augusto Pinochet and his family and he's been alive for centuries and licked the blood of Marie Antoinette off her guillotine and stuff. Yes, I said this is a weird movie and I meant it. Don't forget the manic-pixie-dream-exorcist!
The cinematographer, Edward Lachman, has worked on all sorts of films with all sorts of famous directors and been nominated for Oscars before. This film is in black and white, and in an interview with Lachman I read that they were pleased to have approval from Netflix to shoot in actual b&w, not color de-saturated in post-production. The distant nature and abstraction of b&w, he says, give us a way of "seeing the world differently than the way we do with our own eyes." Deep thoughts! Maybe this can win.
KILLERS OF THE FLOWER MOON: Despite its length and seeming falling out of favor to win many big prizes, I still think this film was quite an achievement. Cinematographer Rodrigo Prieto is also a previous nominee, including for two previous Martin Scorcese films (Silence and The Irishman) that were also very long. For Killers...Moon, they actually used different film/digital material to shoot the different perspectives, like the Osage ceremonies naturalistic on film, the evil Ernest and Hale bits on Autochrome, and then a different coloring/silver-retention process after things really start to unravel. (Read more about it here.) The more I learn about the work that went into this film, the more I want it to be rewarded. It's simply astonishing.
MAESTRO: Another previous nominee, Matthew Libatique, and another cinematographer-director ongoing working relationship, and another film with different colors and lenses to move through different eras and perspectives. I liked Maestro and thought it was done really well, but I don't think it's going to take the top prize here. It is interesting, though, how he talks about sometimes taking away all the trappings to get out of the actors' way is the ultimate test for a cinematographer, rather than putting more stuff in.
OPPENHEIMER: Don't forget that there is a good chance Oppenheimer wins everything, or at least a lot of things. And it has IMAX going for it. Cinematographer Hoyte van Hoytema (is that really his name) points out that a lot of people think about IMAX and immediately think of big wide vistas but in Oppenheimer, "the faces became our landscapes," he says. It's all about getting up in people's faces to take us through the many many (many!) places and people and aspects of this story. I won't be mad if it wins.
POOR THINGS: I still don't care for this film. (But we knew that.) Robbie Ryan was up for the challenge of pushing boundaries with weirdo Yorgos Lanthimos, and he talks here about a lot of the different shooting methods they used. I will give him props for creating this otherworldly place, totally not meant to be real, and meant instead to evoke a weird, very weird, very other place. I don't want this to win everything, please godz no, but I don't fault them for what they did here.
Order I want them to win, I think:
Killers of the Flower Moon
Oppenheimer or Poor Things
El Conde
Maestro
Order I think they will win:
Poor Things
Oppenheimer
El Conde
Killers of the Flower Moon
Maestro
Cinematography is one of my favorite categories because you wouldn't have a film without it! If you think about it, someone could make a weird avant-garde experimental film, or maybe a terrible stupid film (you know, like Everything Everywhere All At Once) and just flat-out refuse to have anyone do one of the other Oscar categories - no Sound, or no Visual Effects, or no Actors, or whatever. I suppose you have to have some sort of costumes, but maybe everyone could just wear their own clothes or something. But if there's no cinematography, there is no film.
MAESTRO: Another previous nominee, Matthew Libatique, and another cinematographer-director ongoing working relationship, and another film with different colors and lenses to move through different eras and perspectives. I liked Maestro and thought it was done really well, but I don't think it's going to take the top prize here. It is interesting, though, how he talks about sometimes taking away all the trappings to get out of the actors' way is the ultimate test for a cinematographer, rather than putting more stuff in.
OPPENHEIMER: Don't forget that there is a good chance Oppenheimer wins everything, or at least a lot of things. And it has IMAX going for it. Cinematographer Hoyte van Hoytema (is that really his name) points out that a lot of people think about IMAX and immediately think of big wide vistas but in Oppenheimer, "the faces became our landscapes," he says. It's all about getting up in people's faces to take us through the many many (many!) places and people and aspects of this story. I won't be mad if it wins.
POOR THINGS: I still don't care for this film. (But we knew that.) Robbie Ryan was up for the challenge of pushing boundaries with weirdo Yorgos Lanthimos, and he talks here about a lot of the different shooting methods they used. I will give him props for creating this otherworldly place, totally not meant to be real, and meant instead to evoke a weird, very weird, very other place. I don't want this to win everything, please godz no, but I don't fault them for what they did here.
Order I want them to win, I think:
Killers of the Flower Moon
Oppenheimer or Poor Things
El Conde
Maestro
Order I think they will win:
Poor Things
Oppenheimer
El Conde
Killers of the Flower Moon
Maestro
Cinematography is one of my favorite categories because you wouldn't have a film without it! If you think about it, someone could make a weird avant-garde experimental film, or maybe a terrible stupid film (you know, like Everything Everywhere All At Once) and just flat-out refuse to have anyone do one of the other Oscar categories - no Sound, or no Visual Effects, or no Actors, or whatever. I suppose you have to have some sort of costumes, but maybe everyone could just wear their own clothes or something. But if there's no cinematography, there is no film.
Which of these five was your favorite?
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