I've spent the better part of the last few months diving into the catalog of cinematographer Roger Deakins, starting with Michael Radford's “Nineteen Eighty Four” and soaking up each and every indelible image he's given us over the last three decades. I imagine I'll write something up soon enough, as he'll surely be in the thick of things again this season with his work on Angelina Jolie's “Unbroken,” but in the meantime, here's a delicious video exploration of some of his work.
The video – pieced together by Plot Point Productions – leans heavily on the latter-day stuff. Lots of “No Country,” “Jesse James,” “Revolutionary Road,” “Jarhead,” “True Grit,” etc. Probably that's because all of those are available in higher definition formats, but it would be great to see more of the striking imagery from “Sid and Nancy” or “Kundun” or little-seen stuff like “Mountains of the Moon” slip in. Having marinated in all of this stuff for so long, I've become pretty attuned to this guy's tendencies, and they really never fail to leave me breathless.
Nevertheless, it's all tied together with elegant visual themes and cues and serves as a great reminder, if you needed one, that Deakins may just be the best painter of light working in the business today. (And I certainly love the music choice.) More on him and his work, no doubt, later this year. Check out the video below and enoy.
DEAKINS: Shadows In The Valley from Plot Point Productions on Vimeo.