![]() And to achieve those shots at that time? It's inspiring. By contrast, I Am Cuba defies these ideas. Jaws' contra-zoom, dating back to Vertigo, is a mind-blowingly simple optical effect that throws your world into disarray, creating a moment of epiphany, of fear. But most of all, I love the simple shots that anyone might achieve with a bold idea. The car interior in Children Of Men or the flying shots in Hugo. On a technical level, I love and appreciate the sense of achievement of the 'impossible' shot, that 'how-the-fuck-did-they-do-that?' moment made possible by the evolution of technology - the 'toys' - combined with choreography and intense planning. That's the joy of it - the possibilities. He's not someone who sits around talking about old movies. He's a fantastically talented guy and I've talked to him about films and references, but in the context of work they have to fit into his very particular style. Is Michael Bay a fan of I Am Cuba? No, he would 100 per cent not be a fan of I Am Cuba. If a shot doesn't connect you with the story or move you in another way, it hasn't done its job. I have no idea how they did it, but it's very powerful. The filmmakers spent days and days building these complex, Heath Robinson contraptions to transport the camera, and apart from that opening shot the camera is always very close to whatever it's shooting. Then it's on a rooftop with a band playing, and the camera goes down in a crane or lift and follows people into the swimming pool and underwater. It's a very wide angle, almost fish-eyed but not distorted, and it's beautiful considering how old the technology is. Then the camera is mounted on a boat and it's a guy heading downriver, with the camera rigged at foot-level. The opening is a fairly straightforward helicopter shot over the treetops, using almost a fixed camera locked in a three-quarter angle. There's no acting, and when the acting does start it's pretty flawed, but you really feel like you're there. In some ways, it's a pretty inaccessible film - it's 50 years old, culturally very different and super-stylised, but the opening sequences show the power of filmmaking to transport you. What most interests me is the power of cinema and the opening shots of I Am Cuba have an authenticity and beauty that's unique. There's a shot where Gregory Peck, an American submarine commander, surfaces off the coast of San Francisco to see what's left and it's just nothing. I'm in Australia at the moment and have rewatched On The Beach (shot by Italian great Giuseppe Rotunno), which is set here in the aftermath of a nuclear war. There's this beautiful sequence in L'Avventura where Monica Vitti and Gabriele Ferzetti stop in an abandoned town and the camera tracks down this deserted street. Yusov died recently - I was sad not to have been able to meet him.Īntonioni's films always had beautiful cinematography - L'Eclisse, Red Desert, The Passenger. He also shot Solaris for Tarkovsky, which is also a remarkable-looking film. I don't know what camera Vadim Yusov shot with in the water, but I'm sure it was a lot heavier than the ones we use now. It's this incredible black and white landscape, illuminated by flares like a kind of ghostly hinterland, with this downed fighter plane jutting out of the earth. I don't know how to pick just one shot - I guess it depends on what mood you're in that day - but there's a shot in Ivan's Childhood where the boy is crossing between the German and Russian lines that I absolutely love. He spoke to Empire from Sydney, 10,000 miles from his native Torquay, where he was working on Angelina Jolie's wartime drama Unbroken. In short, Deakins is a giant of his field. "I walked into Roger Deakins' lighting in two different movies, and I didn't feel I had to give a performance." The Academy has agreed and included his work on Prisoners in this year's Oscars shortlist. "Sometimes you get a cinematographer who shoots something, and you walk into their light, and they're doing 50 per cent of my job," Jake Gyllenhaal recently told The Hollywood Reporter. The great Roger Deakins CBE is the man who made Skyfall shimmer like no other Bond movie, whose stellar work with the Coens began with Barton Fink ten Joel-and-Ethan movies ago, and who currently has 11 - count 'em - Oscar nominations to his name.īeloved of directors and all of his fellow cinematographers, it's safe to say he's high on the Christmas card list for most of the actors he's lit, too.
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