Christopher Nolan’s follow-up to his 2000 breakout film Mementoonce again has Pfister behind the camera, and it’s some of his best work. The neo-noir thriller Insomnia tosses Detective Will Dormer ( Al Pacino) into a murder investigation in Nightmute, Alaska, during the time of year in which the sun never sets. It’s such an effective piece of cinema that you can overlook the fact that Beane’s daughter sings Lenka’s “The Show” for him six years before it was written. Moneyball benefits from several skilled people firing on all cylinders, including the film’s excellent cast, but it’s hard to overstate how good it all looks. The visuals are incredibly crisp, and it all pairs so beautifully with Mychael Danna’s similarly understated score. It’s a subdued tone, with small camera moves and lots of depth to the images, even in scenes wholly contained within Beane’s office where the only action going on is a phone call. It feels like watching a sports documentary come to life. (Or at least I wouldn’t have, because I am apparently a great fool.) Pfister’s cinematography in Moneyball is an interesting blend of documentary footage and bold narrative decisions - there are a few montages that are contained within a single shot, and they move so elegantly that I didn’t realize how much economy of storytelling was going on until the scene had ended. You wouldn’t expect a movie about baseball statistics to be as visually compelling as it is. The A’s have a fraction of the budget of most other teams in Major League Baseball, so Beane tries out an unorthodox method of picking inexpensive players based on how often they get on base. I guarantee you’ll have a new favorite cinematographer to add to your watchlist.īennett Miller’s 2011 film Moneyball follows Billy Beane ( Brad Pitt), the general manager of the Oakland A’s, as he tries to put together a viable team for the 2002 season after getting all of their star players poached by lucrative contracts. Even if you’ve already seen some or all of them, give them a rewatch and pay attention to how well-constructed the images are. In the interest of public service, I’ve singled out 5 of Pfister’s films that are 100% worth watching for anyone who sits through movies vibrating with excitement over how awesome the lighting is, or how well-framed that last scene was. Yes, Wally Pfister is the guy who shot Inception. He’s received numerous accolades for his work, including four Oscar noms and one win, for 2010’s Inception. But seriously, Pfister is a massive talent responsible for some of the biggest movies of the past two decades, including a long collaboration with director Christopher Nolan. Pfister is the Jose Canseco to Deakins’ Mark McGwire, according to me just now, making them the Bash Brothers of cinematography in this weird analogy that I will now abandon. That is wild.īut if you’ve been geeking out over Deakins’ filmography for a while now and are looking for some more fuel for your movie nerd engines, you owe it to yourself to check out the work of Wally Pfister. The man has been nominated for 15 Academy Awards over a career spanning four decades. Deakins is one of the most celebrated cinematographers working today, with several all-time classic films under his belt including The Shawshank Redemption, Blade Runner 2049, and virtually every single Coen Brothers movie. If you’re a cinematography nerd (and the odds are good considering you clicked on an article with Roger Deakins' name in the headline), you probably ran outside and dunked a basketball when Deakins won an Oscar for his work on Sam Mendes’ World War I epic 1917.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |