Amelie was a stalker! and the audience goes, aw, ain’t that cute. ;)
best looking film I saw in the last decade or so
I do love the cinematography of Jean-Pierre Jeunet films, but I usually don’t like the films that much :/
I’d love to be stalked by a girl like Amelie.
I met a girl like Amelie in college. Man was she gorgeous. Taken, though.
BUT, on that stalker note, anybody seen May? I call it, “Amelie, but if it didn’t work out.” I love that movie, too.
—PolarisDiB
Here’s the list for people who don’t want to read the article:
1. Amélie: Bruno Delbonnel, ASC, AFC (2001)
2. Children of Men: Emmanuel Lubezki, ASC, AMC (2006)
3. Saving Private Ryan: Janusz Kaminski (1998)
4. There Will Be Blood: Robert Elswit, ASC (2007)
5. No Country for Old Men: Roger Deakins, ASC, BSC (2007)
6. Fight Club: Jeff Cronenweth, ASC (1999)
7. The Dark Knight: Wally Pfister, ASC (2008)
8. Road to Perdition: Conrad L. Hall, ASC (2002)
9. Cidade de Deus (City of God): César Charlone, ABC (2002)
10. American Beauty: Conrad L. Hall, ASC (1999)
11. The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford (Deakins)
12. Tie: In the Mood for Love (Christopher Doyle, HKSC, and Mark Li Ping-bin) and Pan’s Labyrinth (Guillermo Navarro, ASC)
13. The Lord of the Rings trilogy (Andrew Lesnie, ASC, ACS)
14. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (Ellen Kuras, ASC)
15. Gladiator (John Mathieson, BSC)
16. The Matrix (Bill Pope, ASC)
17. The Thin Red Line (John Toll, ASC)
18. The Diving Bell and The Butterfly (Kaminski)
19. Slumdog Millionaire (Anthony Dod Mantle, BSC, DFF)
20. Tie: Eyes Wide Shut (Larry Smith, BSC) and Requiem for a Dream (Matthew Libatique, ASC)
21. Kill Bill (Robert Richardson, ASC)
22. Moulin Rouge (Donald M. McAlpine, ASC, ACS)
23. The Pianist (Pawel Edelman, PSC)
24. Hero (Doyle)
25. Black Hawk Down (Slawomir Idziak, PSC)
26. O Brother, Where Art Thou? (Deakins)
27. Babel (Rodrigo Prieto, ASC, AMC)
28. Lost In Translation (Lance Acord, ASC)
29. Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (Peter Pau, HKSC)
30. The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (Claudio Miranda, ASC)
31. The Man Who Wasn’t There (Deakins)
32. The New World (Lubezki)
33. Sin City (Robert Rodriguez)
34. Atonement (Seamus McGarvey, ASC, BSC)
35. Munich (Kaminski)
36. The Prestige (Pfister)
37. Memoirs of a Geisha (Dion Beebe, ASC, ACS)
38. The Aviator (Richardson)
39. Zodiac (Harris Savides, ASC)
40. The Insider (Dante Spinotti, ASC, AIC)
41. Gangs of New York (Michael Ballhaus, ASC)
42. Tie: Brokeback Mountain (Prieto) and The Fountain (Libatique)
43. The Fall (Colin Watkinson)
44. The Passion of the Christ (Caleb Deschanel, ASC)
45. Snow Falling on Cedars (Richardson)
46. House of Flying Daggers (Xiaoding Zhao)
47. Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow (Eric Adkins)
Dark Knight in the list? interesting list :)
I’m sure that Dimitris would have had something to say about that list.
yea, I Have no doubt about that :)
I am quite sure of that as well.
I’ll be Dimitris’ proxy: for the love of Artemis, spell Marc Lee Ping-Bin right.
Really, it’s one of the most ridiculous lists I’ve seen!
I own 26 of the titles, so maybe I go back through and give them all another look.
I just went back over My List and I only have one film the same and only three that are in that 98 to 08 timeline.
…
Doyle, Prieto should be highter up and The New World should be in there too.
I miss Dimitris.
It’s okay, it’s not your fault, he led us all on.
most of the films at the top of this list have been way over processed in the lab. The list looks more like “best color correction / lab work / post production” list to me. An “over worked and artificial look” is very much the spirit of the times, so I should probably get over it and get used to it.
New World on the other hand….
Also, I am not a Harmony Korine (sp? too lazy to look up) so I sat down in the theater to watch Julien Donkey Boy a long time ago expecting to be superior to it, but I was blown away by the look of it. Thanks Den for remind me of that. The problem with a youtube clip is that grainy look of Donkey Boy has to be seen on film- youtube adds its own layer of funkyness. Julien D boy is much more adventurous cinematographically (sp) speaking than many on the list. It is a very processed film too, so I guess I am contradicting myself.
Well, the list is made up of popular films, it’s a poll and not a list made by filmmakers, critics or cameramen. Plus almost everybody loves Amélie and will say that it haves the best cinematography just because it haves a good one and because they have not seen that many films. (The movie is as well sooooo overrated in my opinion)
I disagree. I think Amelie is rated precisely.
But indeed, calling that “cinematography” instead of “color correction” is stretching it.
—PolarisDiB
Color correction and color timing is an important part of the process and the cinematographer is completely involved in that process.
To remove that step from the job is only admitting to half the work of a cinematographer.
@PolarisDiB
Well, I don’t know about your arounds, but most of the people I know that have seen it think that it is one of the greatest movies of all time. (I once thought that when I didn’t know shit about film and while I was a sad guy because I had just broke up with my girlfriend.)
It is a good movie, but I’m sure there are thousands of movies way better than it.
i tend to exaggerate (about a zillion percent of the time) but I do think modern directors are losing a good deal of natural color and light through digital wizardry. (everything red must be RED everything green must be GREEN. Or if they desaturate they go to Private Ryan levels. If there is Contrast then there is CONTRAST. We are living in Photoshop’s world) At least in Amelie’s case it seems intentional or appropriate. Whereas “children of Men” seems like the post-production team was on a binger. it might as well have been 100% CGI. Does CGI count as cinematography? maybe it should.
Well Avatar won awards, so I guess CGI is.
American Cinematographer also has lists for Best Shot films from 1894-1949 and 1950-97
1894-1949:1- Citizen- Gregg Toland
2- Gone With the Wind- Ernest Haller, ASC and Ray Rennahan, ASC
3- Sunrise- Charles Rosher, ASC and Karl Struss, ASC
4- Metroplois- Karl Freund, ASC and Günther Rittau
5- The Wizard of OZ- Harold Rosson, ASC
6- The Magnificent Ambersons- Stanley Cortez, ASC
7- Casablanca- Arthur Edeson, ASC
8- Potemkin- Eduard Tisse
9- The Third Man- Robert Krasker, BSC
10- The Birth of a Nation- G.W. “Billy” Bitzer
11 Napoléon (1927, Jules Kruger, Joseph-Louis Mundwiller and Torpkoff)
12 Intolerance (1916, G.W. Bitzer and Karl Brown, ASC)
13 The Grapes of Wrath (Gregg Toland, ASC)
14 Beauty and the Beast (1946, Henri Alekan)
15 The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1919, Willy Hameister)
16 All Quiet on the Western Front (1930, Arthur Edeson, ASC)
17 The Great Train Robbery (1903, Edwin S. Porter and Blair Smith)
18 Rebecca (1940, George Barnes, ASC)
19 Nosferatu (1922, Günther Krampf and Fritz Arno Wagner)
20 The Maltese Falcon (1941, Arthur Edeson, ASC)
21 King Kong (1933, Edward Linden, J. O. Taylor and Vernon L. Walker, ASC), The Last Laugh (1924, Robert Baberske and Karl Freund, ASC), The Red Shoes (Jack Cardiff, BSC)
22 The General (1927, Bert Haines and Devereaux Jennings, ASC), A Trip to the Moon (1902, Michaut and Lucien Tainguy)
23 Stagecoach (1939, Bert Glennon, ASC)
24 Out of the Past (1947, Nicholas Musuraca, ASC), The Scarlet Empress (Bert Glennon, ASC)
25 The Best Years of Our Lives (Gregg Toland, ASC)
26 The Crowd (1928, Henry Sharp, ASC), It’s a Wonderful Life (Joseph F. Biroc, ASC and Joseph Walker, ASC)
27 The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938, Tony Gaudio, ASC and Sol Polito, ASC), The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (Ted D. McCord, ASC)
28 The 39 Steps (1935, Bernard Knowles), Double Indemnity (1944, John F. Seitz, ASC), M (Fritz Arno Wagner)
29 Ben-Hur (1926, Clyde De Vinna, ASC, René Guissart, ASC, Percy Hilburn, ASC, Karl Struss, ASC)
30 T-Men (John Alton)
31 Alexander Nevsky (Eduard Tisse), The Docks of New York (1928, Harold Rosson, ASC), How Green Was My Valley (Arthur C. Miller, ASC), Triumph of the Will (Sepp Allgeier, Karl Attenberger and Werner Bohne)
32 Meet Me in St. Louis (George J. Folsey, ASC), Notorious (1946, Ted Tetzlaff, ASC), The Passion of Joan of Arc (Rudolph Maté, ASC)
33 Wings (1927, Harry Perry, ASC)
34 My Darling Clementine (1946, Joseph MacDonald, ASC), Wuthering Heights (1939, Gregg Toland, ASC)
35 The Good Earth (Karl Freund, ASC), The Man With a Movie Camera (Mikhail Kaufman), Shanghai Express (Lee Garmes, ASC)
36 Great Expectations (1946, Guy Green, BSC)
37 Red River (1948, Russell Harlan, ASC), Zoo in Budapest (Lee Garmes, ASC)
38 The Bicycle Thief (1948, Carlo Montuori I), Dracula (1931, Karl Freund, ASC), Greed (1925, William H. Daniels, ASC and Ben F. Reynolds, ASC), Kings Row (James Wong Howe, ASC), A Midsummer Night’s Dream (1935, Hal Mohr, ASC), The Thief of Bagdad (1940, Georges Périnal)
39 The Informer (1935, Joseph H. August, ASC), The Lady From Shanghai (Charles Lawton, Jr., ASC), Morocco (Lee Garmes, ASC)
40 All The King’s Men (Burnett Guffey, ASC), City Lights (Mark Marklatt, Gordon Pollock, ASC and Roland Totheroth, ASC), Mutiny on the Bounty (1935, Arthur Edeson, ASC), The Naked City (1948, William H. Daniels, ASC), The Plow That Broke the Plains (Pare Lorentz), Spellbound (1945, George Barnes, ASC), Vampyr (1932, Rudolph Maté, ASC and Louis Née)
41 Bride of Frankenstein (John Mescall, ASC), Black Narcissus (Jack Cardiff, BSC)
42 Children of Paradise (1945, Marc Fossard and Roger Hubert), Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1932, Karl Struss, ASC), Faust (1926, Carl Hoffmann), Holiday (1938, Franz Planer, ASC), Leave Her to Heaven (Leon Shamroy, ASC), The Long Voyage Home (Gregg Toland, ASC), Mildred Pierce (Ernest Haller, ASC), A Place in the Sun (1951, William C. Mellor, ASC)
43 The Amazing Mr. X (a.k.a. The Spiritualist) (John Alton), The Big Parade (1925, John Arnold, ASC), Frankenstein (1931, Arthur Edeson, ASC), Hamlet (1948, Desmond Dickinson), Laura (1944, Joseph LaShelle, ASC), A Matter of Life and Death (Jack Cardiff, BSC), The Ten Commandments (1923, Bert Glennon, ASC, J. Peverell Marley, ASC, Archie Stout, ASC and Fred Westerberg, ASC), Un Chien Andalou (Albert Duverger, ASC) Waterloo Bridge (1940, Joseph Ruttenberg, ASC)
44 Cat People (1942, Nicholas Musuraca, ASC), Footlight Parade (George Barnes, ASC), Ivan the Terrible (1945, Andrei Moskvin and Eduard Tisse), Key Largo (Karl Freund, ASC), Modern Times (1936, Ira H. Morgan, ASC and Roland Totheroh, ASC), Olympia (1930, William H. Daniels, ASC), The Pearl (Gabriel Figueroa, AMC), The Phantom of the Opera (1943, W. Howard Greene, ASC and Hal Mohr, ASC), She Wore a Yellow Ribbon (Winton Hoch, ASC), Sparrows (Hal Mohr, ASC, Charles Rosher, ASC and Karl Struss, ASC), The Yearling (1946, Arthur E. Arling, ASC, Charles Rosher, ASC and Leonard Smith, ASC),
45 Blonde Venus (Bert Glennon, ASC), Body and Soul (1947, James Wong Howe, ASC), The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (1921, John F. Seitz, ASC), The Great Ziegfeld (George Folsey, ASC, Karl Freund, ASC, Merritt B. Gerstad, ASC, Ray June, ASC and Oliver T. Marsh, ASC), The Invisible Man (1933, Arthur Edeson, ASC), Leaving the Lumière Factory (Louis Lumière), Lost Weekend (1945, John F. Seitz, ASC), Ministry of Fear (Henry Sharp, ASC), Mrs. Miniver (Joseph Ruttenberg, ASC), The Public Enemy (Devereaux Jennings, ASC), Samson and Delilah (1949, George Barnes, ASC and Dewey Wrigley, ASC)
46 Raw Deal (1948, John Alton), Flying Down to Rio (J. Roy Hunt, ASC), Freaks (Merritt B. Gerstad, ASC), Grand Illusion (Christian Matras), Henry V (1945, Robert Krasker, BSC), Lost Horizon (1937, Joseph Walker, ASC), Open City (Ubaldo Arata), Portrait of Jennie (Joseph H. August, ASC), Rope (William V. Skall, ASC and Joseph A. Valentine, ASC), The Sea Hawk (1940, Sol Polito, ASC), Suspicion (1941, Harry Stradling, Sr., ASC), Que Viva Mexico (Eduard Tisse)
47 The Big Sleep (1946, Sidney Hickox, ASC), The Crusades (Victor Milner, ASC), A Day in the Country (1936, Jean Bourgoin and Claude Renoir), The Dark Corner (Joseph MacDonald, ASC), Dark Passage (1947, Sidney Hickox, ASC), Earth (1930, Danill Demutsky), The Human Comedy (Harry Stradling, Sr., ASC), The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1939, Joseph H. August, ASC), The Killers (1946, Elwood Bredell, ASC), Macbeth (1948, John L. Russell, ASC), Meet John Doe (George Barnes, ASC), National Velvet (1944, Leonard Smith, ASC), Royal Wedding (Robert H. Planck, ASC), Scarface (1932, Lee Garmes, ASC and L. William O’Connell, ASC), They Were Expendable (Joseph H. August, ASC), The Tramp (Harry Ensign), The Wedding March (1928, Hal Mohr, ASC, Ben F. Reynolds, ASC and B. Sorenson)
49 42nd Street (Sol Polito, ASC), A Double Life (Milton R. Krasner, ASC), Duel in the Sun (Lee Garmes, ASC, Ray Rennahan, ASC and Harold Rosson, ASC), A Farewell To Arms (1932, Charles B. Lang, ASC), The Flying Deuces (Art Lloyd, ASC), Green for Danger (Wilkie Cooper), None But the Lonely Heart (George Barnes, ASC), On the Town (Harold Rosson, ASC), The Picture of Dorian Gray (1945, Harry Stradling, Sr., ASC), The Rules of the Game (1939, Jean Bachelet), Scarlet Street (Milton R. Krasner, ASC), Stella Dallas (1937, Rudolph Maté, ASC), Topper (1937, Norbert Brodine, ASC), You Can’t Take It With You (Joseph Walker, ASC)
50 L’Atalante (Louis Berger and Boris Kaufman, ASC), Blood and Sand (1941, Ernest Palmer, ASC and Ray Rennahan, ASC), Brief Encounter (1945, Robert Krasker, BSC), Broken Blossoms (1919, G.W. Bitzer), Dawn Patrol (1938, Tony Gaudio, ASC), The Gold Rush (Roland Totheroh, ASC and Jack Wilson), The Green Pastures (Hal Mohr), Hell’s Angels (1930, Elmer Dyer, ASC, Tony Gaudio, ASC, Harry Perry, ASC, E. Burton Steene, ASC, Dewey Wrigley, ASC and Zech Wrigley), The Lodger (1944, Lucien Ballard, ASC), Los Olvidados (Gabriel Figueroa, AMC), Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (Joseph Walker, ASC), Of Mice and Men (1939, Norbert Brodine, ASC), Odd Man Out (1947, Robert Krasker, BSC), Sabotage (1936, Bernard Knowles), Three Little Girls in Blue (Ernest Palmer, ASC), The Westerner (1940, Gregg Toland, ASC)
1- Lawrence of Arabia- Freddie Young, BSC
2- The Godfather- Gordon Willis, ASC
3- 2001: A Space Odyssey- Geoffrey Unworth, BSC
4- Days of Heaven- Néstor Almendras
5- Schindler’s List- Janusz Kaminski, ASC
6- Apocalypse Now- Vittorio Storaro, ASC, AIC
7- The Conformist- Vittorio Storaro, ASC, AIC
8- Raging Bull- Michael Chapman, ASC
9- Blade Runner- Jordan Cronwealth,ASC
10- Touch of Evil- Russell Metty, ASC
11 Godfather Part II (Gordon Willis, ASC)
12 The Night of the Hunter (1955, Stanley Cortez, ASC)
13 The Last Emperor (Vittorio Storaro, ASC)
14 JFK (Robert Richardson, ASC)
15 Psycho (1960, John L. Russell, ASC)
16 Barry Lyndon (John Alcott, BSC)
17 Ben-Hur (1959, Robert Surtees, ASC)
18 Manhattan (Gordon Willis, ASC)
19 A Clockwork Orange (John Alcott, BSC)
20 Vertigo (Robert Burks, ASC)
21 81/2 (Gianni Di Venanzo)
22 Doctor Zhivago (Freddie Young, BSC)
23 The City of Lost Children (Darius Khondji, ASC, AFC), McCabe and Mrs. Miller (Vilmos Zsigmond, ASC)
24 Persona (Sven Nykvist, ASC)
25 Chinatown (John Alonzo, ASC)
26 Rashomon (Kazuo Miyagawa), Seven (Darius Khondji, ASC, AFC)
27 The English Patient (John Seale, ASC, ACS)
28 The Black Stallion (Caleb Deschanel, ASC)
29 Do the Right Thing (Ernest Dickerson, ASC), Fanny and Alexander (Sven Nykvist, ASC), GoodFellas (Michael Ballhaus, ASC), Sweet Smell of Success (James Wong Howe, ASC)
30 Ran (Asakazu Nakai), Titanic (Russell Carpenter, ASC)
31 The Wild Bunch (Lucien Ballard, ASC)
32 The Natural (Caleb Deschanel, ASC), North by Northwest (Robert Burks, ASC)
33 Moulin Rouge (1952, Oswald Morris, BSC), Star Wars (Gilbert Taylor, BSC), West Side Story (Daniel L. Fapp, ASC), The Big Combo (John Alton)
34 Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (Conrad Hall, ASC), Singin’ in the Rain (Harold Rosson, ASC)
35 The Deer Hunter (Vilmos Zsigmond, ASC), The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly (Tonino Delli Colli), Heat (Dante Spinotti, ASC, AIC), Reds (Vittorio Storaro, ASC, AIC), Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (Haskell Wexler, ASC)
36 Brazil (Roger Pratt, BSC), The Duellists (Frank Tidy, BSC), Natural Born Killers (Robert Richardson, ASC), The Piano, (Stuart Dryburgh), Sunset Boulevard (1950, John F. Seitz, ASC), To Kill a Mockingbird (1962, Russell Harlan, ASC)
37 Seven Samurai (Asakazu Nakai), The Ten Commandments (1956, Loyal Griggs, ASC), Women in Love (Billy Williams, BSC)
38 Pennies From Heaven (1981, Gordon Willis, ASC), The Untouchables (Stephen Burum, ASC)
39 Alien (Derek Vanlint, BSC), Amistad (Janusz Kaminski, ASC), Baraka (Ron Fricke), Cabaret (Geoffrey Unsworth, BSC), Empire of the Sun (Allen Daviau, ASC), The Exorcist, (Owen Roizman, ASC) Hiroshima Mon Amour (Sacha Vierny), I Am Cuba (Sergei Urusevsky), The Innocents (Freddie Francis, BSC), L.A. Confidential (Dante Spinotti, ASC, AIC), The Right Stuff (Caleb Deschanel, ASC)
40 Breaking the Waves (Robby Müller, BVK, NSC), In Cold Blood (1967, Conrad Hall, ASC), Jaws (Bill Butler, ASC), The Shining (John Alcott, BSC)
41 Akira Kurosowa’s Dreams (Kazutami Hara, Takao Saitô, Masaharu Ueda)
42 The Cranes Are Flying (Sergei Urusevky), Excalibur (Alex Thompson, BSC), Once Upon a Time in the West (Tonino Delli Colli)
43 Das Boot (Jost Vacano, ASC, BVK), The French Connection (Owen Roizman, ASC), Hud (1963, James Wong Howe, ASC), Out of Africa (David Watkin, BSC), Seconds (James Wong Howe, ASC)
44 Amadeus (Miroslav Ondricek, ASC), Bonnie and Clyde (Burnett Guffey, ASC), The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover (Sacha Vierny), Eraserhead (Frederick Elmes, ASC), Forrest Gump (Don Burgess, ASC), The Last of the Mohicans (1992, Dante Spinotti, ASC, AIC), The Seventh Seal (Sven Nykvist, ASC), Sophie’s Choice (Néstor Almendros, ASC), Terminator 2: Judgment Day (Adam Greenberg, ASC), Zelig (Gordon Willis, ASC).
45 All About Eve (Milton Krasner, ASC), Angel Heart (Michael Seresin, BSC), The Bad and the Beautiful (Robert Surtees, ASC), The Battle of Algiers (Marcello Gatti, AIC), Blow Up (Carlo Di Palma, AIC), Braveheart (John Toll, ASC), Breathless (1959, Raoul Coutard), Dick Tracy (Vittorio Storaro, ASC, AIC), Easy Rider (Lazlo Kovacs, ASC), Fargo (Roger Deakins, ASC, BSC), The 400 Blows (Henri Deca‘), Henry & June (Philippe Rousselot, AFC), Jules and Jim (Raoul Coutard), La Ronde (1950, Christian Matras), My Fair Lady (Harry Stradling Sr., ASC), Picnic (James Wong Howe, ASC), A Place in the Sun (1951, William C. Mellor, ASC), Raise the Red Lantern (Fei Zhao), Searching for Bobby Fischer (Conrad Hall, ASC), Shane (Loyal Griggs, ASC), Strangers on a Train (Robert Burks, ASC), A Town Without Pity (Kurt Hasse)
46 American Graffiti (Haskell Wexler, ASC), Andrei Rublev (Vadim Yusov), An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge (Jean Boffety), Close Encounters of the Third Kind (Vilmos Zsigmond, ASC), Blue Velvet (Frederick Elmes, ASC), From Here to Eternity (1953, Burnett Guffey, ASC and Floyd Crosby, ASC), The Hustler (Eugen Shuftan), Klute (Gordon Willis, ASC), Last Tango in Paris (Vittorio Storaro, ASC, AIC), The Nightmare Before Christmas (Pete Kozachik), The Night of the Iguana (Gabriel Figueroa, AMC), Pandora and the Flying Dutchman (Jack Cardiff, BSC), Raiders of the Lost Ark (Douglas Slocombe, BSC), The Searchers (Winton C. Hoch, ASC), Secrets of the Heart (Javier Aguirresarobe), Thief (Donald E. Thorin, ASC),Walkabout (Nicholas Roeg, BSC), War and Peace (1968, Jack Cardiff, BSC)
47 All That Jazz (Giuseppe Rotunno, ASC), Anatomy of a Murder (Sam Leavitt, ASC), A River Runs Through It (Philippe Rousselot, AFC), Cries and Whispers (Sven Nykvist, ASC), The Dead (Fred Murphy, ASC), Delicatessen (Darius Khondji, ASC, AFC), E.T. (Allen Daviau, ASC), Horseman on the Roof (Thierry Arbogast, AFC), How the West Was Won (William H. Daniels, ASC, Milton R. Krasner, ASC, Joseph LaShelle, ASC, Charles B. Lang, ASC), A Man and A Woman (Claude Lelouch), Mirage (1965, Joseph MacDonald, ASC), My Name Is Ivan (Vadim Yusov), Performance (Nicholas Roeg, BSC), Rosemary’s Baby (William Fraker, ASC), Seppuku (Yoshio Miyajima II), Spartacus (Russell Metty, ASC), Tess (Ghislain Cloquet and Geoffery Unsworth, BSC), The Wild Child (Néstor Almendros, ASC)
48 The Age of Innocence (Michael Ballhaus, ASC), Arabesque (Christopher Challis, BSC), The Shawshank Redemption (Roger Deakins, ASC, BSC), Blue (Slawomir Idziak), The Double Life of Veronique (Piotr Sobocinski), Dr. Strangelove (Gilbert Taylor, BSC), Ed Wood (Stefan Czapsky), The Elephant Man (Freddie Francis, BSC), Kwaidan (Yoshio Miyajima), A Hard Day’s Night (Gilbert Taylor, BSC), La Dolce Vita (Otello Martelli), Lost Highway (Peter Deming, ASC), 1900 (Vittorio Storaro, ASC, AIC), One From The Heart (Vittorio Storaro, ASC, AIC), Ship of Fools (Ken Kelsch, ASC), Taxi Driver (Michael Chapman, ASC), Ugetsu monogatari (Kazuo Miyagawa), The Wind and the Lion (Billy Williams, BSC).
49 The Begger’s Opera (Guy Green, BSC), Cleopatra (1963, Leon Shamroy, ASC), The French Lieutenant’s Woman (Freddie Francis, BSC), Il Grido (Gianni Di Venanzo), Les Diaboliques (1954, Armand Thirard), Los Tallos Amargos (Ricardo Younis), Medium Cool (Haskell Wexler, ASC), A Night to Remember (1958, Geoffrey Unsworth, BSC), On The Waterfront (Boris Kaufman, ASC), Platoon (Robert Richardson, ASC), Rear Window (Robert Burks, ASC), The Sand Pebbles (Joseph MacDonald, ASC), Weekend (Raoul Coutard), Winchester ‘73 (1950, William H. Daniels, ASC)
50 Boogie Nights (Robert Elswitt, BSC), The Brave One (Jack Cardiff, BSC), A Chinese Ghost Story (Yongheng Huang, Jiaogao Li, Putang Liu, Hang-Sang Poon), Daughters of the Dust (Arthur Jafa), Dial M for Murder (Robert Burks, ASC), El Cid (Robert Krasker, BSC), Evita (Darius Khondji, ASC, AFC), Full Metal Jacket (Douglas Milsome, BSC), Glengarry Glen Ross (Juan Ruiz-Anch’a, ASC), The Graduate (Robert Surtees, ASC), Grand Prix (Lionel Lindon, ASC), High Noon (Floyd D. Crosby, ASC), La Strada (Otello Martelli), Last Year at Marianbad (Sacha Vierny), Legends of the Fall (John Toll, ASC), A Man For All Seasons (1966, Ted Moore, BSC), Patton (Fred J. Koenekamp, ASC), The Professionals (Conrad Hall, ASC), Raising Arizona (Barry Sonnenfeld), Ryan’s Daughter (Freddie Young, BSC)
If I understand it correctly, the ranking for the list from 1998 to 2008 was based on public voting, therefore it’s a predictable ranking where popular movies rule.
On the other hand the list of movies prior to 1998 seems more solid and includes little-known gems, things like Zoo in Budapest or An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge are amazing works.
Werckmeister Harmonies must be one of them surely.
i don’t get the fuss about there will be blood. i thought Jesse James was far more detailed visually. at least that got a mention though.
not sure about Zodiac either. it does look good, but it’s that dark/overcast look and it’s not particularly subtle. felt a little artificial too, froim memory, although i havne’t seen it in a while.
“It is a good movie, but I’m sure there are thousands of movies way better than it.”
There are, but there are millions of movies, so Amelie is still in a high enough percentile (say…. 65, 70% seem fair?) to be “one of the greatest movies ever made” by statistical reckoning!
Eh, but seriously, when it comes to personal preference, I watch Amelie a heck of a lot more often than many of those other better films, for whatever reason. It is not the greatest movie ever made, but I do not think there is anything wrong with it, and so I do not begrudge it being other people’s, even many people’s, favorite movie or their “best movie ever made”, whatever their perception of film in its entirety.
“Does CGI count as cinematography?”
Not only is CGI and compositing effects being used in movies more and more, but the programs that do them are slowly becoming one overall program, and are starting to bleed carefully and surely into the camera apparatus itself. Like all tools, this expands the possibilities of film to even more almost-infinite possibilities of representation, while also running the risk of being a visual and stylistic crutch to avoid real experimentation or storytelling.
I had never thought that I would get a chance to touch any of that tech unless I ever got to the point where I had investment money to put into hiring someone to do it for me, but it turns out I’ve pretty much just spent the last week learning how to model computer generated chess pieces and a board in one program (Cinema 4D, to be precise), bring them into another program (After Effects, to be precise), and composite them into live action imagery (shot on the Sony EX3) and make them sorta kinda decently look like they belonged, though of course they are still a little plast-thetic and I do not know Z brush at all so I do not know how to give the pieces a material so that they look like actual wood or marble instead of wood-colored and marble-colored plast-thetics. (Plast-thetic isn’t a real word that I know of; it refers to what I used to call CGI back when the Hulk in Ang Lee’s movie looked more like a plastic action figure than a plastic action figure stop-motion animated would have).
All of that being really uninteresting (so you can put CGI figures into a live-action frame, congratulations, who doesn’t theseadays) but the other day my coworker brought in a preset (precomposed) 3D chair into Cinema 4D and accidentally clicked its seat with the extrude tool, causing the chair to instantaneously (because all of the separate parts were not booled together but pulled together with the equations from Xpresso) become a three-dimensional Dali painting…. which he then undid as I was exclaiming, “Wait that’s cool, you can make a 3-D digital Dali painting and then composite a person to interact within it !” The important part of this conversation being his reaction, not of “What the hell are you talking about,” but something a lot more useful: “No, you can. You saw how I did it, so if you want to do it, do it.”
Or, to put it in less tech speak and directly reference a familiar idea, all of us on this board now have via just a couple of easy-to-access programs the ability to make Akira Kurosawa’s Dreams at less than a fraction of the cost and time. Kick-ass, eh?
Huh, where was I going with this?
Oh yeah. So anyway, CGI is increasingly becoming a part of cinematography and that can mean some really interesting things, it just isn’t so creatively used right now.
—PolarisDiB
Uli³Cain
It ain’t me saying it, though I love Amelie, it’s a poll through American Cinematographer, a fine publication.
Here’s the article via Movieline.
Have at it people.