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Greatest Cinematographers ever


Guest Daniel J. Ashley-Smith

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I've always felt that Gregg Toland was something of an icon for other cinematographers, sort of in the same way that Welles is an icon or "Citizen Kane" is iconic. Besides being an obviously brilliant cinematographer, Toland pushed the envelope both technically and artistically and used light in ways that hadn't been seen in Hollywood. At any rate, he represents an ideal of sorts, and when you say something like "the greatest ____ ever", you're talking not only about quality but about iconic status.

 

In more important news, "Dead End" is coming out on DVD in March, so we get more beautiful Toland lighting and composition. I've only seen it on VHS so I've got my fingers crossed, hoping they'll get a good transfer for it. It's a gangster movie done very expressionisticly, sort of proto-noir.

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Some older non-American favorites: Gunnar Fischer, who was Bergman's primary DP before Nykvist, has always been unfairly overlooked IMO. Sergei Urusevsky, who shot Mikhail Kalatozov's The Cranes Are Flying, The Letter Never Sent and I Am Cuba, was decades ahead of his time with camera movement. Asakazu Nakai shot some of Kurosawa's greatest films (Rashomon, Throne of Blood, Seven Samurai) and is rivaled only by Miyagawa as the greatest cameraman of the classical Japanese cinema. Carl Hoffmann, who shot some of Lang and Murnau's most visionary silent work, defined the look of German expression along with Karl Freund.

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I think tring to quantify something so subjective as lighting and come to the consensus that there is "one" great DOP is futile. Personally I like the work of and not exclusively Piotr Sobockinski, John Seale, Dion Beebe, Connie Hall, Caleb Deschanel and Slawomir Idziak. I think Im drawn to a naturalism in lighting that each of these flourish in.

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Disappointed that Owen Roizman so far hasn't been mentioned. :(

 

Agree. He's one of the great. He had a brilliant operator named Ricky Bravo who was generally regarded as a genius, which didn't hurt either.

 

His work on Three Days of Condor is really good. Another personal favorite is The Taking Of Pelham One Two Three which has a lot of nice, realistic anamorphic cinematography adding to the drama.

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Owen is a great DP and a really nice person to chat with -- one of the biggest benefits of being in the ASC! He retired while still doing great work like in "Wyatt Earp". My favorite though is probably "Three Days of the Condor" or "True Confessions".

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See, that whole wave of late 60s revolutionary US (working in Hollywood/American citizen) cameramen like Wexler, Kline, Hall, Willis, Roizman, Fraker, Kovacs, Zsigmond, Alonzo- these guys just spun it all around, IMO- stuff like the bar raid or the end showdown in the French Connection, where these youngsters more excited by New Wave came along- I hate to say it but ZERO in terms of art has changed since, and now of course everyone is COPYING Roizman et al, poorly, with 500T stocks, faster lenses and smaller, cooler lighting (not to mention DIs)- where's the skill, let alone the excitement in that, nearly forty years on? Roizman took all of the photogenic and generic stylistics everyone had been worshipping for years and stuck 'em in a flaming barrel. Yet he created the rules for each of his shows from scratch, never taking the French Connectin rule as a his newly cemented formula.

 

Roizman's stuff blows me away- His later stuff was just as good- Addams Family outdid everything Tim Burton was trying to practice self-worship for and Roizman wasn't even trying!

 

Must have been a mind blowing time for cinematography in the late 60s/early 70s.

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so that's what john alonzo used to look like!

 

great cinematographers list? that's like asking what's your favorite movie... one of those questions that can only ever be answered by a list. of course once you start listing, it's really hard to stop.

 

henri aleken? anyone? he's like the guy that brought the fresnel lens to motion picture lighting.

 

and sven nykvist? come on, fellas! if we're talkin' greats we can't stop until we hit everybody.

 

and cheers to the tarkovsky dp's. the italian that shot nostalghia definitely deserves a thumbs up as well.

 

what about:

ozu's dp-- the guy made a life out of working with only ozu.

piotr sobizinski

robbie muller

vilmos zsigmond

michael ballhaus

phillipe rousselot

 

and if we start on the "newer" gang:

agnes godard

eric gautier

jean yves-escoffier

darius khondji

harris sevides

christopher doyle

ed lachman

elliot davis

ellen kuras

malik sayeed

rodrigo prierto

thomas newton hall

li-ping-bing (hou hsiao hsien's dp and the one who took over after doyle left "in the mood for love")

 

personally, i have to say my top five would be:

almendros, nykvist, muller, willis, and a fifth that changes with what movie i've seen recently!

 

jake pollock

taipei, taiwan

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Thank you Jake for including Chris Doyle, he has by far been one of the most consistant and inventive DPs working. All of his work is fresh and exciting. His grasp of color, not just the hyper color scenes you see in Hero but his muted works in Happy Together and incredible ingenuity in Fallen Angels and Away With Words puts him right up there at the top of my list, he has yet to disappoint.

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I really love the work of conrad Hall on "Fat City".

Another cinematographer i really like is Russell Metty on "Touch Of Evil" great work... and Philip Lathrop ("Experiment In Terror").

Owen Roizman on "The French Connection" beautifull shots.

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its very hard to tell but if you put a gun to my head i will say the DP how i think change cinema

 

Gregg toland, Sven nykvist , Vittorio storaro, Gordon wills, raoul coutard , Nestor almendros, Conrad hall, Chris

 

Doyle, Michael ballhaus, Robert Richardson.

 

but the list is very very long

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