Friday, September 20, 2013

The Encyclopedia of Cinematography (E-F)

Early Summer (Yuharu Atsutsa, 51)
Atsutsa's black-and-white photography highlights Ozu's masterful use of shape, line, and space.

East of Eden (Ted McCord, 55)
McCord and director Elia Kazan goose up some truly sumptuous Technicolor work with often jarring dutch angles and sneaky camera placements.

Edvard Munch (Odd-Geir Saether, 74) 
A troubled artist's life, seen through a restless, detail-oriented, documentary-like eye. 

Ed Wood (Stefan Czapsky, 94)
The film's evocative black-and-white work--some of the best ever, in my opinion--makes this low-budget world look incredibly lively and rich.

8 ½ (Gianni Di Venanzo, 63)
Di Venanzo's work here best captures Fellini's unique blending of the real and the surreal, with immutable blinding whites and startling blacks.  

Electra Glide in Blue (Conrad Hall, 73)
Hall's heroic Cinemascope work pits one man against an unforgiving, dwarfing desert backdrop. 

Elephant (Harris Savides, 2003)
With Savides' trained eye, we glide in and out of the halls of this doomed, eerily lit school, stalking both victims and perpetrators from fore and aft.  A surprising radiant movie! 

The Elephant Man (Freddie Francis, 80)
Francis' images seem as if they've been directly beamed from 19th Century Britain; despite the widescreen, each shot seems like absolutely authentic Dagurreotype work.  

Elvira Madigan (Jorgan Persson, 67)  
Incredibly influential and romantic photography; it left its eternal stamp on epics and commercials alike.  Its effects are being felt on movies even today.

The Emerald Forest (Phillippe Rousselot, 85)  
Gorgeous cool greens and blues overtake this strange trip into tribalism.  

Empire of the Sun (Allan Daviau, 87)
War as seen through a child's wide eyes, with epic movement and fantastic emotion.  

The End of Summer (Asakazu Nakai, 61)
Uncharacteristically open and colorful work at Ozu's behest.  

Enter the Void (Benoit Debie, 2009)
Absolutely dazzling POV camerawork, which floats up above us and truly gives us a God's eye view; the dazzling colors on display here are continually not to be believed. 

Eraserhead (Frederick Elmes and Herbert Caldwell, 77)
Lynch's dream of dark and troubling things is given life with the stark contrasts and bland greys of Elmes and Caldwell's superb lensing.  

The Escape Artist (Stephen Burum, 82)
Though set in the 80s, Burum's photography (under the direction of another great cinematographer, Caleb Deschanel) makes our lead character's world into one dominated by memory and nostalgia.  

E.T. The Extraterrestrial (Allen Daviau, 82)  
Daviau's lovely camerawork gives a warm glow to Spielberg's fairy tale, punctuated with mysterious and even disturbing dark interludes.

Excalibur (Alex Thompson, 81)
Absolutely beautiful in every respect, and a pick of mine for some of the most impactful photography ever in movies.  Just a tremendous look to this film, matched with its stupendous art direction and costume design!

The Exorcist (Owen Roizman and Billy Williams, 73) 
Roizman's nearly trademarked blue tints are all over the autumnal Georgetown sequences, while Williams blazes through with bright oranges in the Iraq prologue.  Also excellent in its role in helping sell the special effects and makeup.  

Eyes Wide Shut (Larry Smith, 99)
Kubrick's last cameraman infuses this dreamlike tale with a surplus of reds, pinks, and purples--the colors of passion--while maintaining a continually light-dappled look appropriate for its Christmas-time setting.
 
The Fabulous Baker Boys (Michael Ballhaus, 89)  
Another example of an overwhelming sense of nostalgia, while in the present. 

Fahrenheit 451 (Nicolas Roeg, 66)
Ridiculously bright primary colors; an example of the photography being better than the actual film.

Fail-Safe (Gerald Hirchfeld, 64)
Shocking contrasts, lens choices, and angles. The use of black-and-white here sears itself into your brain, particularly in its dreamy beginning and its dreary end.

Falling Down (Andrzej Bartkowiak, 93)
The downside of L.A., perfectly and believably captured.

The Fall (Colin Watkinson, 2006
Superbly huge and astounding. An underrated epic that rightfully should take its place alongside all the most notable film adventures.

Fame (Michael Seresin, 80)
I love the New York-y work here. This film looks like no other. It's simply marvelous to look at.  

Fanny and Alexander (Sven Nykvist, 83)
Definitely among the greatest of all examples of not only Nykvist's work, but of all cinematic photography, ever. 

Far From Heaven (Edward Lachman, 2002)
Absolutely incredible colors all throughout, in deft tribute to the Douglas Sirk look.  

Far from the Madding Crowd (Nicolas Roeg, 67)
Roeg, taking a break from the bright colors, nailing the gloriously authentic visage of the story's time period.  

Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (Nicola Picorini, 98) 
Trippy brilliance. 

Fellini Satyricon (Giuseppe Rotunno, 69) 
Shot by shot, totally incredible. How was one person able to do this?  I ask you? 

Fiddler on the Roof (Oswald Morris, 71)
Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful--perhaps some of the best cinematography ever. Each and every shot, you just want to eat it up. 

Fight Club (Jeff Cronenweth, 99)
Stupendous in its portrayal of both tremendous wealth and supreme squalor. 

The 5000 Fingers of Dr. T (Frank Planer, 53)
Incredibly vidid!  Like nothing else out there...the supreme representation of Dr. Suess on film.

The Flight of the Phoenix (Joseph Biroc, 65)
A gorgeous, multi-colored adventure film, with Biroc's surprisingly lively lighting and camera angles. 

Flashdance (Donald Peterman, 83) 
Along with Ridley and Tony Scott's movies, the progenitor of that smoky 80s look, and extremely influential in that regard. 

Floating Weeds (Kazuo Miyagawa, 59) 
More sharp angles and vivid colors from the Ozu camp.

Fly Away Home (Caleb Deschanel, 96)
Director Carroll Ballard reteamed with his Black Stallion photographer Deschanel, with similarly sublime and inspiring results.

The Fountain (Matthew Libatique, 2006)
A fantastic story with equally glorious imagery, spread out over a millennium's expanse. 

Frankenstein (Arthur Edeson, 31) 
Iconic photography which defined what horror was to look like for many years to come.  

Full Metal Jacket (Douglas Milsome, 87)  
Deep greens, beiges and cobalt blues dominate the first half, with reds, oranges and greys taking over the final portion of Kubrick's descent into the madness of Vietnam.  

Funny Face (Ray June, 57)
June's ridiculously adventurous and colorful camerawork constantly feels as if it's too unureal to actually exist.  

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