If you’re a cinematography nerd (and the odds are good considering you clicked on an article withRoger Deakins' name in the headline), you probably ran outside and dunked a basketball when Deakins won an Oscar for his work onSam Mendes’ World War I epic1917. Deakins is one of the most celebrated cinematographers working today, with several all-time classic films under his belt includingThe Shawshank Redemption,Blade Runner 2049, and virtually every singleCoen Brothersmovie. The man has been nominated for 15 Academy Awards over a career spanning four decades. That iswild.
But 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 ofWally Pfister. Pfister is theJose Cansecoto Deakins’Mark McGwire, according to me just now, making them the Bash Brothers of cinematography in this weird analogy that I will now abandon. But seriously, Pfister is a massive talent responsible for some of the biggest movies of the past two decades, including a long collaboration with directorChristopher Nolan. He’s received numerous accolades for his work, including four Oscar noms and one win, for 2010’sInception. Yes, Wally Pfister is the guy who shotInception.
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. 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. I guarantee you’ll have a new favorite cinematographer to add to your watchlist.
Bennett Miller’s 2011 filmMoneyballfollows Billy Beane (BradPitt), 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. 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.
You wouldn’t expect a movie about baseball statistics to be as visually compelling as it is. (Or at least I wouldn’t have, because I am apparently a great fool.) Pfister’s cinematography inMoneyballis 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. It feels like watching a sports documentary come to life. 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. The visuals are incredibly crisp, and it all pairs so beautifully withMychael Danna’s similarly understated score.Moneyballbenefits 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. It’s such an effective piece of cinema that you can overlook the fact that Beane’s daughter singsLenka’s “The Show” for him six years before it was written.
The neo-noir thrillerInsomniatosses Detective Will Dormer (Al Pacino) into a murder investigation in Nightmute, Alaska, during the time of year in which the sun never sets. Christopher Nolan’s follow-up to his 2000 breakout filmMementoonce again has Pfister behind the camera, and it’s some of his best work.Insomniamanages to weave the stark, expansive Alaskan landscape into Dormer’s interior world of feverish dark light to create a constant tone of suffocating unreality. Plus, the film features a singular performance fromRobin Williamsas the remorseless burgeoning serial murderer Walter Finch.
True to its title,Insomniahangs together like a jumbled, clinically sinister dream. The images are disorienting, giving us the sensation of stumbling through that numbing haze that accompanies extreme overtiredness. Driving this point home is the fact that Dormer accidentally shoots his partner while literally lost in a patch of impenetrable fog. By the end of the film, not even he is certain whether it was truly an accident or not anymore, leaving little hope for the rest of us.
The Italian Job
It’s not an obvious choice for a must-watch list, butF. Gary Gray’s 2003 action comedyThe Italian Jobis a unique entry in Pfister’s body of work. Teaming with an action director like Gray (who would later helm the massive blockbusterThe Fate of the Furious) gives Pfister the opportunity to stage some incredible chase sequences, including a boat chase in Venice that unexpectedly kicks off in the film’s opening minutes.
It’s a bit of a precursor toInception, in that it’s a heist movie cutting back and forth between the different stages of the heist and the different team members. (At one point, a van even falls upside down off of a bridge into water, which is one of the more memorable components ofInception’s final act.) The last third of the film is a sprawling car chase through (and beneath) Los Angeles made all the more impressive because of how many moving parts there are - 3 Mini-Coopers, a few motorcycles, a subway train, and a helicopter containing a profusely mustachedEdward Norton. What’s also interesting is that the camera almost never stops moving, even in dialogue-heavy scenes, effectively creating a sense of constant motion and vibrating energy that is never fully at rest.
The Prestige
One of two Victorian magician movies to be released in 2006 (the other beingNeil Burger’s somewhat forgotten filmThe Illusionist),The Prestigepits Batman and Wolverine against each other in a series of escalating magic pranks that ultimately wind up killing several people. It’s the silliest premise imaginable, but it’s easily one of my favorite Christopher Nolan films largely because of Pfister’s gorgeously moody cinematography.
InThe Prestige, Pfister creates an arresting backdrop of a grimy turn-of-the-century England and a severe, barely tamed America. The visuals are incredibly rich and raw, adding a sinister layer to a story that might otherwise run the risk of being totally absurd, particularly on paper. “Two warring old-timey magicians” doesn’t exactly put butts in seats, but Pfister’s engaging cinematography alongside Nolan’s undeniably skilled direction and the intense performances ofHugh JackmanandChristian Balemake this a gritty, memorable mystery. It feels like a gothic Sherlock Holmes tale, a pulp comic book thriller that leaps off the screen with amazing color. It’s like a graphic novel come to life.
The odds are fairly good that you’ve seenInceptionat least once if you’re reading this, but the film that finally won Pfister an Oscar for Best Cinematography is a visual marvel that rewards repeated viewing. In true Christopher Nolan fashion, you’d be shocked at how many of the movie’s reality-bending tricks are accomplished in-camera - the famous rotating hallway sequences withJoseph Gordon-Levittleaping from wall to wall like Spider-Man to pummel a dream bodyguard was done with an actual rotating camera and set.
A straightforward heist film at its core,Inceptionis one of the most visually dynamic films ever made, thanks to its trippy premise of subconscious dream thievery. We’re constantly jumping between several landscapes, many of them wholly impossible, and Pfister creates a sense of unity between all of the disparate images, even when we’re bouncing from a rain-slick cityscape to a snowy mountain fortress to a run-down apocalyptic hellscape at the bottom level of consciousness. The third act in particular is a master class in balancing images as it cuts between the members of Cobb’s (Leonardo DiCaprio) team working their way through various levels of the dream. Every single frame of this movie is a masterpiece.
