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When people consider those responsible for making a film they tend to automatically consider the director and actors, and if they think further (and depending on the film) perhaps the special effects or music, but very rarely does anyone think of the cinematographer, the man who actually shoots the film and designs much of its visual style. A good cinematographer’s work helps set the mood of the film and create its tone just as much as any actor - this is something all too obvious in the exquisite work of Robert Elswit.
Over the years, Elswit has been involved in several stylistically differing projects, ranging from the brutal and all too real world of Syriana to the high-octane and over the top realm of James Bond. During which time he has produced some stunning and very different types of visual aesthetic notably in Good Night, and Good Luck, a film originally shot in colour and then adapted to black and white in order to better emphasise contrast through varying shades in the finished film. It is also a film deliberately designed to look like an individuals memories, and it does this surprisingly well. However, for me some of his most interesting work was in the superb Tony Gilroy film Michael Clayton, where there is a truly exceptional use of shallow focus that gives a wonderful sense of alienation and aloofness to the protagonist’s quest to understand the world of corporate corruption around him. A fact that may become increasingly noticeable in years to come is that Elswit likes to shoot onto film rather than digital as he believes it provides a more realistic quality. (Judging by much of his work it’s easy to see why!)
Elswit’s most important collaborator is the brilliant director Paul Thomas Anderson, having shot all of his films, starting with the admittedly disappointing Hard Eight and then going into their future project The Master. Elswit is the man responsible for shooting some of Anderson’s wonderful tracking shots and who developed a way to capture the strange weather of Magnolia. However, arguably his finest work is in the truly stunning masterpiece that is There Will Be Blood. Here is a film that really shows the power of great cinematography, capturing the eerie emptiness of the vast American plains that seem to enhance its protagonist’s supreme isolation, alongside some truly wonderful use of light and dark, which add to the strange temperament of Daniel Day Lewis’s wonderful performance as Daniel Plainview. Indeed, it is a film shot quite simply to perfection with each frame appearing as a stunning work of art for which he was rewarded a thoroughly well deserved Academy Award for Best Cinematography.
As well as working on The Master with Anderson, Elswit is also working on blockbuster Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol, two very different projects that clearly show the diversity of one of cinemas greatest but all too often forgotten talents.
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