For Millennials. By Millennials.
The Oscars 2020 might not be as challenging in some areas as others. But, what can we even say to the stars who are winning all the awards leading up to the 92nd Academy Awards? Brad Pitt, for instance, has taken home Golden Globe, SAG Award, BAFTA, and Critics’ Choice Awards. He didn’t even need to attend the BAFTA; just asked Margot Robbie to collect his award with a terrible terrible one-liner on Brexit. On the other hand, there are a few categories sho do have close calls. For instance, when it comes to the Best Cinematography award, the Oscars award has tough competition.
“The Best Cinematography Oscars Award Goes To…”
We have our favorites for the Oscars’ best cinematography category, and here they are:
Winner: 1917
We knew there was something special about Sam Mendes’ movie right in the opening moments of the film. Perhaps this movie might just win awards more than Best Cinematography at the Oscars 2020. Mendes’ style of continuous filming was surely a challenge for Roger Deakins, but look how superbly things went. Working out an entire movie with Mendes, the cast, and the crew, Deakins had to use a number of tech-savvy instruments and machinery to make it look like the show was running non-stop. The best scene can undoubtedly be the nighttime village chase, which used a number of synchronized flares and humongous lighting rigs.
Close Competition 1: Joker
Joker received a tonne of praise for its near-accurate creation of Joker from DC fans all over the world. A guy who gives up hope and embraces the madness in his mind that he was holding back with just a fine thread hit many moviegoers. For Lawrence Sher and Todd Phillips, this was something they created with ARRI 65 high-res cameras. Without the need for wide-angle lenses, the closeup shots and long takes of the movie give us an immersive experience of how constant bullying and badgering broke Arthur Fleck.
Close Competition 2: “Once Upon a Time… In Hollywood”
Without a doubt, a true Oscars best cinematography award nominee, a truly wonderful take by Robert Richardson for Tarantino’s film. The movie needed to showcase the right amount of lighting and “colorfulness” to depict an accurate 1969 era. Using his Kodak 35 mm film and setting it at high saturation and crisping up the grains, we got what we loved. I mean, the movie is winning awards in one category or the other.
Honorable Mentions of Best Cinematography
We do have high hopes for Robert Eggers “The Lighthouse”. Jarin Blaschke has done a wonderful take on achieving a silent movie look, complete with rugged skin tones and bright skied. The movie feels truly some sort of hallucinatory and mysterious, which itself makes it 2020 Oscars nomination-worthy.
Perhaps it is best if we look at how IndieWire gave their take on Rodrigo Prieto’s cinematography for The Irishman. According to them, the Martin Scorsese movie gave him two challenges:
“Accommodating Industrial Light & Magic’s innovative VFX de-aging with a special three-camera digital rig and shooting the rest on Kodak 35mm film…”
