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The year is already an exceptionally strong year for cinematography, with several standout films that represent the art form at its apex. Perhaps what’s most welcome about these films is their variety, not only in terms of genre and tone but also budget and position in the marketplace. From the studio system, we have Greig Fraser’s extraordinary work on “Dune: Part Two,” which doubles down on the ambition and tactile detail of Fraser’s work on its predecessor (for which he justly received an Academy Award) to create one of the most flat-out beautiful epics since the glory days of David Lean. From the world of low-budget, independent filmmaking, we have “I Saw the TV Glow,” where cinematographer Eric Yue designs a meticulous and expressive visual corollary for his protagonist’s inner state.
Somewhere in between “Dune” and “I Saw the TV Glow” in terms of resources, “Civil War” captures both epic sweep and internal agony in its portrayal of journalists trying to survive as America battles itself; Rob Hardy’s cinematography alternates between realism and surrealism, horror and poignancy, and clarity and confusion as he finds the precise visual language to convey the emotional and physical chaos of both his fictional world and our real one. Also in the independent realm but operating at a very different emotional and visual register, Rose Glass’ “Love Lies Bleeding” reunites the director with her “Saint Maud” cinematographer Ben Fordesman and proves that their debut collaboration was no fluke — theirs is a partnership as artistically fruitful as the one between director Wim Wenders and cinematographer Robby Müller, the latter of whom is a clear influence on Fordesman’s eerie night exteriors.
An independently financed film on an epic scale, “Horizon: An American Saga – Chapter 1” is a film both outside the system and firmly rooted in Hollywood traditions, and cinematographer J. Michael Muro calibrates the perfect balance between director Kevin Costner’s maverick sensibility and the stately compositions of John Ford and William Wyler. Less than a year after their artistic and commercial triumph “Poor Things,” cinematographer Robbie Ryan and Yorgos Lanthimos return for the very different but equally striking “Kinds of Kindness,” a movie as introspective as “Horizon” is expansive. While “Bad Boys: Ride or Die” and “Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga” prove that innovative cinematography is alive and well in the world of studio tentpoles, “Challengers” and “Los Frikis” are equally audacious telling more modestly scaled character studies.
This year has also brought us the equally enchanting and brutal action of “Monkey Man,” with Sharone Meir’s layered cinematography adding depth and texture to Dev Patel’s directorial debut, not to mention extraordinary foreign imports in the form of “Inside the Yellow Cocoon Shell” and “La Chimera.” And then there’s Scott Cunningham’s stunning imagery in the nearly unclassifiable “This is Me…Now,” Jennifer Lopez’s self-financed cross between autobiography and fantasy that traverses one disparate style and genre after another as Lopez jumps from settings inspired by science-fiction and film noir to riffs on classic Hollywood musicals and comedies. The only thing these films have in common is that they have nothing in common — aside from their passion for filmmaking and supreme audacity. Bill Desowitz, and Sarah Shachat contributed reporting to this piece.
‘Bad Boys: Ride or Die’
This fourth installment in the buddy cop franchise initiated by Michael Bay in 1995 is possibly the most visually inventive yet — which is really saying something given the high style that has characterized the series from the beginning. Reuniting with “Bad Boys For Life” directors Adil and Bilall, cinematographer Robrecht Heyvaert drenches the film with gorgeous Miami light that brings out every vivid color in Jon Billington’s vibrant production design. Where Heyvaert’s inventiveness really comes out is in the kinetic shoot-outs, which are distinguished by innovative rigs (such as the “Snorricam” that allows the actors to, in effect, act as their own operators and create shots directly linking camera positions to their movements), he and his team give “Bad Boys: Ride or Die” a look like no other action-comedy. Add in some surreal imagery designed to convey the emotional journey of the Martin Lawrence character’s near-death experience, and you’ve got one of the boldest and wildest studio features of 2024 so far. —JH
‘Challengers’
Cinematographer Sayombhu Mukdeeprom shows us how to blow up a tennis court. “Challengers” has gotten a lot of notice, rightly, for the ways in which its camera bounces from the sweat-drenched pores of the players during its anchor match to the tennis ball careening at over a hundred miles per hour to impossible shots where the laws of physics give way to the laws of desire. But even in its less-heightened moments — before Josh O’Connor and Mike Faist lunge and leap above a glass floor, before a storm of red and blue lighting pulls Zendaya and O’Connor into the backseat of a car — “Challengers” still crackles with cheeky humor and changing character dynamics. Mukdeeprom and director Luca Guadagnino find clever compositional ways to frame all three of the film’s main players so we understand what they’re thinking and what their id is thinking. Mukdeeprom hangs O’Connor over Zendaya’s shoulder in a moment of temptation, centers the laser focus only teenage boys can have while watching Zendaya play, adjusts the height and angle of the camera like a lever of control. “Challengers” is, among other things, very fun for anyone who likes to watch. —SS
‘Civil War’
Cinematographer Rob Hardy and director Alex Garland have consistently created some of the most provocative and visually exquisite genre films of our age ever since they began working together on “Ex Machina,” but with this dystopian extravaganza they’ve topped both themselves and just about everybody else. The “Civil War” of the title is largely abstracted from current events and divorced from political particulars, but the parallels and resonances remain obvious and pervasive; the imagery, which is somehow both dreamy and harshly realistic, perfectly conveys the screenplay’s unsettling combination of recognition and dislocation. Hardy’s lighting and lens choices continually walk a fine line between clarity and obfuscation, creating moments of concrete realism that are quickly yanked away in favor of snippets that fail to give the viewer the full picture of what’s happening. Like the movie’s characters, we’re constantly recalibrating our knowledge of the situation — just when we think we have a grip on it, a new mystery arises. Hardy and Garland’s thoughtful choices about where to show us everything and where to direct our eye to the smallest detail in the frame are vital factors in the film’s overall impact; it’s both beautiful and horrifying, something that could be said of each meticulously lit and composed frame. —JH
‘Dune: Part Two’
Greig Fraser won the Oscar for his breathtaking “Dune” cinematography, but that movie was just a warm-up for the epic filmmaking on display here; not since “Lawrence of Arabia” and “Doctor Zhivago” has the “bigger is better” approach to cinema been so satisfying. Which isn’t to say that this sequel’s pleasures all have to do with scale; Fraser is as detail-oriented as he is broad in his vision, and some of the most striking effects in “Dune: Part Two” are its smallest ones — the way the light hits two lovers’ faces or the creepy black-and-white eyes and skin of the characters in a fascist world. Yet it’s Fraser’s IMAX photography of gorgeous desert landscapes that lingers in the mind; it takes a certain amount of bravery to invite comparison with David Lean, and an even larger amount of talent to actually earn that comparison as Fraser does here. —JH
‘Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga’
Witness Simon Duggan! The New Zealand-born Australian cinematographer was beholden to neither metal nor chrome in crafting the look for “Furiosa,” which feels, in the best way, like the fever-drenched cousin to “Mad Max: Fury Road” rather than an attempt to rebuild the old model. Saturated color in the frame flows more readily than blood, undercranked action beats feel like the revs of the camera’s engine, and the compositional choices somehow make endless expanses of sand and sky appear expressively different, depending on what a particular scene needs. The film’s opening chase is exceptionally sharp and shows how Duggan and director George Miller don’t need especially complex setups in order to pull off a sequence that feels, well, furious — unpredictable, powerful, and just on the edge of going feral. But when they do decide to wild out, as in the “Stowaway To Nowhere” section or the ambush at Bullettown, Duggan finds canny ways in the framing of compositions to hold our attention, even as the jukes and jerks of the camera keep us balanced on a razor’s edge of adrenaline. The camerawork of “Furiosa” makes everything we see in the film as intense as the look in Anya Taylor-Joy’s eyes, and that is the highest of compliments. —SS
‘Gasoline Rainbow’
Directors Bill and Turner Ross (“Bloody Nose, Empty Pockets,” “Western”) have long been two of the best cameramen working in nonfiction, with a unique approach of manufacturing scenarios and dramatic containers for them to then practice their direct cinema craft. But with their latest film, “Gasoline Rainbow,” the Ross Brothers have outdone themselves, creating some of the most evocative imagery in the history of the American road movie. Their cameras peer into the night to find their recent high school graduate protagonists discovering a beach party or perfectly frame them against the open road when they are stuck in the middle of nowhere after their van is vandalized, creating images that simultaneously capture their youthful spirit while being constantly aware of (and sympathetic to) their desperation and pain. —CO
‘Horizon: An American Saga – Chapter 1’
Throughout the 1990s, J. Michael Muro was one of the most talented and in-demand Steadicam operators, with credits on now classic films like “JFK,” “Heat,” “Point Break,” “Casino,” and “Titanic.” He made the leap to director of photography on director Kevin Costner’s second Western, “Open Range,” after Costner took note of Muro’s talents on “Dances With Wolves,” and this year they reunited for their most ambitious collaboration yet. Muro’s background is fully evident throughout “Horizon,” a film marked by a fluid, hypnotic camera that swiftly and powerfully pulls the viewer into the carefully constructed Western world Costner and his team have created. An ensemble piece with constantly shifting points of view, “Horizon” calls upon Muro to find a visual language that honors and expresses a multitude of ideas, and he rises to the challenge to stunning effect in scene after scene. His work in a lengthy siege sequence, for example, is a lesson in using light and shadow to convey inner states; the terror of the victims and the majestic triumph of the attackers are both visualized in powerful terms, with the cinematography alternately revealing and obscuring key details in an effort to give the audience a completely subjective experience of the sort that only cinema can deliver. —JH
‘Inside the Yellow Cocoon Shell’
Not since the early films of director Apichatpong Weerasethakul and cinematographer Sayombhu Mukdeeprom has slow cinema been this visually hypnotic. There is a spirituality and mystery in the way director Thien An Pham and cinematographer Dinh Duy Hung capture the rural Vietnam landscape and villages. Long meditative shots blur the line between documentary and the surreal in part because of an intense beauty that is elicited from hazy, rain images of ordinary life. —CO
‘I Saw the TV Glow’
After cinematographer Eric Yue’s lo-fi mastery on display in last year’s “A Thousand and One” and this year’s “I Saw the TV Glow,” it is not unwarranted to draw a connection to the early Sundance films of cinematographers Bradford Young and Reed Morano. Owen (Justice Smith, Ian Foreman) is painfully isolated, existing in a seemingly fragile cocoon. Yue and director Jane Schoenbrun’s lens choices and compositions create an almost horror-like sense of anxiety and danger, as if Owen’s ordinary suburban surroundings might shatter his fragile shell at any moment. But Yue also wraps the young protagonist in an expressionistic, at times theatrical lighting that supplies a heightened sense of reality and, at times, a glimmer of hope. The emanating glow of the TV and the Day-Glo images that pop against the film’s near-constant state of pre-dawn hazy darkness hint at a dimension on the other side and also dizzying nausea (Yue described it as being like eating too much cotton candy at an amusement park) with its use of colored lights. As sinister and, at times, ugly and uncomfortable as the film is, like the best of David Lynch, there is beauty and mystery in the grainy celluloid images Yue and Schoenbrun have created. —CO
‘Kinds of Kindness’
Yorgos Lanthimos’ triptych fable about the loss of free will set in alternate realities, with a cast led by Jesse Plemons, Emma Stone, and Willem Dafoe, is a far cry from the ultra-wide camera angles and tight framing of “Poor Things” and “The Favourite.” Although the director and cinematographer Robbie Ryan continued their preference for 35mm (using black-and-white for dream sequences), they chose anamorphic lenses. This was a good fit for the American setting (filmed on the edge of New Orleans) and the introspective tone, with lots of shots of characters isolated in empty rooms. This happens frequently in “The Death of R.M.F.,” when Plemons’ daily routine at home or in his office is totally micromanaged by abusive boss Dafoe. By contrast, in “R.M.F. Is Flying,” Plemons cruelly forces wife Stone to perform acts of self-mutilation to prove her love and devotion when he believes she’s an imposter who’s returned home after being lost at sea. Finally, in R.M.F. Eats a Sandwich,” Stone is isolated in many large and small spaces with Plemons. They belong to a sex cult run by Dafoe and are tasked with finding a woman who can resurrect the dead, which slowly swallows her up. —BD
‘Longlegs’
Although “Longlegs” is a film steeped in its manipulation of the horror genre, cinematographer Andres Arochi’s work is rooted in American independent cinema of the 1990s and 2000s, in particular the work of the great Harris Savides’ low-contrast, milky imagery in director Gus Van Sant’s films like “Elephant.” Set in Van Sant’s misty, gray-skied Oregon (but shot in Vancouver), the widescreen frames are filled with open, empty space. With director Osgood Perkins purposefully forgoing jump scares, Arochi uses composition, lighting, and movement to evoke the leering presence of the unseen serial killer Longlegs (Nicolas Cage) in the expanse of the frame. Arochi lights and frames doorways and windows behind FBI agent Lee Harker (Maika Monroe) to draw the viewer’s eye to how vulnerable the isolated character is in her surroundings. The cinematographer’s employment of the zoom lens and weaving camera movement create the sense of Harker being stalked, surrounded by a shark like presence, allowing the subtle film’s tension to mount without being released or realized until its third act. —CO
‘Los Frikis’
Trying to summarize “Los Frikis” will inevitably paint a picture of a pretty intense film, and parts of it are — the hook, after all, is that two brothers enamored with punk music decide to escape crushing poverty in ’90s Cuba by deliberately injecting themselves with AIDS so that they can be sent to a sanatorium where at least the ice cream is free. But none of that does justice to director of photography Santiago Gonzalez’s sun-drenched cinematography, which is as full of life and motion as a slightly drunk dancer at a wedding. There are a thousand ways you could shoot a movie like this, and Gonzalez inevitably finds the kindest, most excitable one —not so unlike protagonist Gustavo (Eros de la Puente) as he learns to take care of horses and maybe start a punk band in the countryside. Gonzalez’s camera is participatory, bounding around baseball games and peeking around corners, making much of our view into the story feel exactly as coming-of-age as it is. But the compositions also contain enough touches of perspective and wisdom that the last shot, a static wide, seems just as punk as the underground rock shows. —SS
‘Love Lies Bleeding’
After “Saint Maud” and now “Love Lies Bleeding,” Ben Fordesman and Rose Glass are among our favorite new cinematographer-director pairings, with a film that captures the essence of the ’80s crime film by finding the perfect mix of the grungy texture and colorful, electrically charged imagery that matches the film’s violent and sexy energy. Channelling Robby Müller via “Paris, Texas” and “To Live or Die in L.A.,” Fordesman proves up for the task in finding sculpted natural light and mirroring the way sodium vapor pours into the darkness of night. —CO
‘MaXXXine’
The third film in writer-director Ti West’s horror trilogy that began with “X” and “Pearl,” “MaXXXine” is easily the most ambitious. It’s also, thanks to the work of cinematographer Eliot Rockett, the seediest and most beautiful movie in the series, with a view of 1980s Hollywood that combines the glamorous and the squalid more effectively than any film since “Mulholland Drive.” Although “MaXXXine” was shot digitally, it looks indistinguishable from any number of films of the era being portrayed that were shot on film; with a careful selection of lenses, hard lighting, De Palma-influenced movement and framing, and manipulation in post, Rockett has pulled off an impressive magic trick here, creating an uncompromising and uncompromised period piece on a budget. (The movie’s emulation of past Hollywood makes it an intriguing complement to Quentin Tarantino’s far more generously resourced “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.”) Rockett also proves himself to be one of the current American cinema’s greatest portraiture artists, showcasing Mia Goth in the title role with the kind of classical studio beauty lighting that makes Maxine look to us the way she imagines herself in her mind. —JH
‘Monkey Man’
Dev Patel’s action-packed directorial debut, in which he stars as Kid, a lowly yet scrappy street fighter who takes on the sinister elite of the fictional Yatana, is like a cross between “Oldboy” and “Man From Nowhere.” For Patel’s avenging angel, he took inspiration from the ancient legend of the Hindu deity, Hanuman, the invincible Monkey God. They filmed mostly in Batam, Indonesia, where cinematographer Sharone Meir (“Whiplash”) had a massive and layered visual landscape to work with. The flashbacks with Kid growing up as a child with his mom (Adithi Kalkunt) in the forests near their rural village are enchanting; the underground fight club scenes where Kid wears a monkey mask and throws matches as a human punching bag are nightmarishly brutal; and the exclusive Kings Club is a model of elegance. It is within the multi-level Kings Club where Meir captures the mythic power and intensity of Kid as the underdog fighter, who transforms into a fists of fury legend. The camera is tight and intimate, always with Kid’s POV, and the shots are often long and chaotic. The standouts are the first bathroom brawl with corrupt cop Rana (Sikandar Kher) and an exploding aquarium, an elevator fight with lots of knives, and the Kings Club VIP bar fight with an army of Rana’s bodyguards. —BD
‘This Is Me…Now: A Love Story’
Jennifer Lopez self-financed this autobiographical fantasy-musical-romance when she couldn’t find any takers among legacy media companies (the film was ultimately picked up by Amazon), and her financial risk was everyone else’s gain; unencumbered by any sort of corporate oversight or marketplace concerns, Lopez created the most deliriously inventive, intensely personal, and downright spectacular synthesis between pop music and film since Prince brought us “Purple Rain” and “Graffiti Bridge.” A cinematic allegory for Lopez’s fraught journey to find love with Ben Affleck (who appears here in a mind-blowing cameo as someone decidelynot Ben Affleck), “This is Me…Now” is essentially a series of breathtakingly elaborate musical numbers in different genres and styles — there’s a sequence straight out of “Singin’ in the Rain,” another that looks like a Wachowski movie on amphetamines, elements of lyrical romantic comedy, violent domestic drama, and so on. Each of these styles is handled beautifully by cinematographer Scott Cunningham and director Dave Meyers, music video specialists who know how to distill the emotional content of any given set piece into the most dazzling visuals possible; this movie looks like it cost about 10 times its $20 million budget, with one jaw-dropping painterly image after another. Cunningham shoots the movie like a cinematic chameleon, facilitating all the excess and ambition of Lopez’s extravagant vision in a glorious collection of self-contained short films that cumulatively add up to the wildest, most entertaining, and most audacious film of 2024 thus far. —JH