John A. Alonzo for Chinatown
Haskel Wexler for One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
Vilmos Zsigmond for The Deer Hunter
Michael Chapman for Raging Bull
Stuart Dryburgh for The Piano
Asakazi Nakai for Ran
Robert Surtees for The Graduate
But my favorite if I have to choose is Jon Seitz for his genius reinvention of black and white when color film was beginning to dominate the market. Double Indemnity.
Fritz Arno Wagner, Gregg Toland, Vittorio Storaro, and Vilmos Zsigmond.
I’ve gone for contemporary cinematographers. In no particular order…
Christian Berger (the genius eye to compliment the genius Haneke)
Alexis Zabe (for the stunning Stellet Licht)
Agnès Godard (for her collaborations with Claire Denis)
Oleg Mutu (for the enigmatic quality of 4 Luni, 3 Saptamâni si 2 Zile)
Gökhan Tiryaki (for his work with Nuri Bilge Ceylan)
Pin Bing Lee (for his collaborations with Hou Hsiao-Hsien)
Baek Dong-Hyeon (for the astonishing Bom, Yeoreum, Gaeul, Gyeoul…Geurigo Bom)
Yves Cape (for his work with Bruno Dumont and Claire Denis)
Taishi Hirokawa (for the beguiling Tony Takitani)
Lance Acord (for Lost in Translation…quiet perfection)
Edward Lachman (The Limey and Far From Heaven were brave, but my personal favourite is Import/Export – the look he achieved perfectly supports Ulrich Seidl’s tale of Austro-Eastern European social meltdown)
Alwin Kuchler (It began with Gasman, the best short film I’ve ever seen, and there was no looking back)
Bruno Delbonnel (Le Fabuleux Destin d’Amélie Poulain – if you’re going to chuck a lot of money at a film, for goodness sake make it look this good)
Martin Gschlacht (Revanche – made a brilliantly low-key thriller beautiful to look at in a low-key way)
Bogumil Godfrejow (for his work with Hans-Christian Schmid)
Jakob Ihre (Reprise: just delightful)
Roger Deakins (No Country for Old Men was my personal favourite from this not untalented veteran)
Christopher Doyle (where to begin?)
Frederick Elmes (for styles as diverse as Blue Velvet and Broken Flowers)
Jean-Yves Escoffier (for Gummo: was moderately moved by the film itself but loved the cinematography; secondarily for his earlier work with Leos Carax)
Eric Gautier (primarily for Irma Vemp, secondarily for Rois et Reine)
Mikhail Krichman (more for the look of The Return than the The Banishment)
That’s it. I’ve reached my threshold already. I’ll I have left out people I shouldn’t have, but shoulder hurts. RSI. Voice recognition here I come!
Vadim Yusov for Andrei Rubylov. I believe that’s worth enough.
Jack Cardiff
A Matter of Life and Death (1946)
Black Narcissus (1947)
Red Shoes (1948))
Under Capricorn (1949)
The African Queen (1951)
The Barefoot Contesa (1954)
etc. etc.
I can’t believe that this is page 3 and there’s not a single mention of Kazuo Miyagawa or William Lubtchansky, two of the all time greats.
Roger Deakins.
Take a couple minutes to listen to this NPR interview with Deakins:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=114249616
“I can’t believe that this is page 3 and there’s not a single mention of Kazuo Miyagawa or William Lubtchansky, two of the all time greats.”
+Agnès Godard
Sven Nykvist
Vittorio Storaro
Gordon Willis
Jack Cardiff
Caleb Deschanel
Sven Nykvist
Gregg Toland
Igor Luther
My Favorites:
1. Roger Deakins
2. Emmanuel Lubezki
3. Robert Richardson
4. Conrad Hall
5. Robby Müller
6. Vilmos Zsigmond
7. Wally Pfister
8. Rodrigo Prieto
9. Freddie Young
10. Christopher Doyle
noir photographers:
nicholas musuraca
john alton
george diskant
victor milner
gregg toland
james wong howe
^ I’m only familiar with some of the cinematographers people have mentioned here so these names are tantalising and I must investigate further, but I’m both aware of and admire greatly the work of James Wong Howe and John Alton. Alton especially could turn an otherwise average picture such as Talk about a Stranger (1952) into something quietly astounding. Karl Struss, Lee Garmes and Stanley Cortez also come to mind as greats of the classical era.
There have been a handful that have influenced me a great deal.
1) Gregg Toland – Particularly for his work on Ford’s The Long Voyage Home. His manipulation and use of depth of field blows my mind.
2) Morton Sorborg – He’s done very beautiful work with digital cameras. Great color and the only person that can really handle handheld camerawork.
3) Robbie Ryan – Very beautiful work on Andrea Arnold’s Wuthering Heights and all her other features. But really Wuthering Heights.
4) Jody Lee Lipes – His work on Tiny Furniture is atrocious, but definitely made up for what he did with Martha Marcy May Marlene
5) Yves Cape – The two Bruno Dumont films I’ve seen, Humanite and Flanders. He shot Outside Satan, his latest, but have yet to see it. White Material is great too.
6) Darius Khondji – The colors of The City of Lost Children are pretty amazing.
7) Alain Marcoen- He’s shot pretty much all of the Dardenne films and I’m sure the way he’s able to handle the camera adds to the realism of their scripts.
Dats all I got for now.
Good call on Robbie Ryan/Wuthering Heights.
It’s so perfect isn’t it?
Christopher Doyle
I like R.Muller for his being willing to do My Brother Tom. Adds poetry to such a small production – his art.
Perhaps Luis Cuadrado.
Vittorio Storaro, especially for “Novecento” and “Apocalypse Now”.
I really liked the 2 Malick’s with Emmanuel Lubezki.
Glad to see Tim Orr already mentioned several times.
Dante Spinotti
1. Sven Nyqvist
2. Emmanuel Lubezki
3. Vittorio Storaro
4. Rodrigo Prieto
5. Robert Elswit
Others:
Kazuo Miyagawa, Ghislain Cloquet, Asakazu Nakai, John Alcott, Roger Deakins, Janusz Kaminski, Robert Burks, Haskell Wexler, Geoffrey Unsworth, Ron Fricke (my favorite part of Koyaanisqatsi), Robert Richardson, Raoul Cotard, Roland Totheroh, Owen Roizman, Gordon Willis, Robert Elswit, Wally Pfister, Thomas Mauch, Carlo Di Palma, Chung-hoon Chung, Otello Martelli, Benoit Debie, Hoyte Van Hoytema, Atsushi Okui, Maryse Alberti, Piotr Sobocinski, Matthew Libatique, Harold Rosson, Dick Pope, Vadim Yusov, Eric Gautier, Michael Chapman, Michael Ballhaus, Jeff Cronenweth, David Tattersall, Yuharu Atsuta,
Most of the cinematographers I like has already been mentioned here. I don’t have a favorite, but I do appreciate Malik Hassan Sayeed’s work.
Sven Nyqvist and Christopher Doyle.
Roger Deakins – The third Coen.
Christian Berger — Christopher Doyle — Lee Pin Bing (Mark Lee) — Nestor Almendros — Rodrigo Prieto — Robby Müler — Conrad L. Hall — Harris Savides — Jürgen Jürges — Lance Acord — Emmanuel Lubezki — Éric Gautier — Alwin H. Kuchler — John Toll — Tim Orr — Oleg Mutu — Gordon Willis — Michael Chapman — Robert Richardson — Ellen Kuras — Vittorio Storaro — Wally Pfister — Robert Elswit — Jody Lee Lipes —Janusz Kaminski — Seamus McGarvey —
My favourite is Kazuo Miyagawa, but Vittorio Storaro, Stanley Cortez, Greg Toland, and Eduoard Tisse are also favourites of mine.
Neil McCauley's Cooler Brother
Jame Wong Howe was great: Hud – some of the best B & W images ever. His work on The Heart Is A Lonely Hunter is superb too.