Me and My Favorite DPs

I read this morning that Oliver Stone has has cast Bruce Willis for his next project, a film about the My Lai Massacre. I'm a fan of Oliver Stone though I must admit that his post-U-Turn films have left me a bit cold. Neither Any Given Sunday nor Alexander really grabbed me and I've not yet seen World Trade Center. Concomitant to my waning interest in Stone's films was the dissolution of his working relationship with his long-time cinematographer Bob Richardson.



Together they made some truly great cinema with engaging plots told with spectacular technical prowess. The cramped radio booth in Talk Radio was enlarged with a perpetually moving camera; harsh lighting, use of varying film stocks, and more camera movement (and editing too) helped make JFK, Natural Born Killers, and Nixon feasts for the eyes as well as heart and brain. I just got hooked on those stories and how the cinematography, editing, and sound all colluded to tell them. Just thinking of his work makes me want to dust off my Super8 cameras and start shooting.

So, what's Bob Richardson doing now?

I am just giddy to read that he has teamed up again with this country's greatest documentarian, Errol Morris, for S.O.P.: Standard Operating Procedure, an examination of the Abu Ghraib torture scandal. Previously they had done Fast, Cheap & Out of Control and the shots of the topiary gardener at work with the incredibly harsh backlighting are iconic Richardson to my mind.

Another one of my favorite cinematographers is Janusz Kaminski who is now Steven Spielberg's DP.



They first collaborated on Schindler's List and I count that along with Amistad, Saving Private Ryan, and Minority Report as among their best work. The use of color – mainly washing it out – and Kaminski's tinkering with shutters has created some of the most visceral storytelling ever, in my humble opinion. He is currently shooting the fourth Indian Jones film but recently returned to his native Poland to shoot and direct Hania. His directorial debut, Lost Souls, wasn't great but I am still looking forward to his second go at it.

Darius Khondji is also one of my favorite cinematographers. He shot Delicatessen and The City of Lost Children before making his American debut with Se7en. This was followed by gorgeous work in Stealing Beauty and Evita before he returned to his trademark browns and grays in Alien: Resurrection.



Later this year will see the release of Funny Games, a remake of a film of the same name which is being directed by Michael Haneke, who also helmed the 1997 original. (Haneke's last film was Caché.) It will be interesting to see Khondji's return to horror/thriller as well as how the same director will remake his own work for the Hollywood moneymen.

A new addition to my list of favorite DPs is Emmanuel Lubezki. He shot Tim Burton's Sleepy Hollow in the late 1990s and then had the amazing trifecta of Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events, The New World, and Children of Men in the middle of this decade. I need to start viewing his back catalog.



Currently he is doing the Coen Brothers' latest, Burn After Reading. But I still adore the work of Roger Deakins.

Lastly I want to make a nod to Joel Ransom. I saw his name pop up a week or two ago when I watched the first episode of ABC's Masters of Science Fiction. Ransom worked on The X-Files for a spell where he caught the attention of me and my film-geek friends. He stayed in television and went on to the Band of Brothers mini-series and the Battlestar Galactica TV movie for the Sci-Fi Channel. (Don't laugh – Vittorio Storaro shot their Dune mini-series.) Well, Ransom has finally made the move to the big screen with the fantasy epic The Dark is Rising.



Do you, dear reader, have favorite directors of photography?