![]() ![]() “I usually start off with a thorough read of the script, literally reading line by line but each director will have their own way of working – some prefer to be extremely thorough in advance, others want the spontaneity of doing it all on the day. “With any director I’ll discuss the choice of location and sets and discuss the way the camera might move and lens length, and how subjective or objective the camera might be,” Deakins says. No Country for Old Men: Deakins missed out again, at the 80th Academy Awards in 2007, to There Will Be Blood and Robert Elswit Shortly afterwards he met Joel and Ethan Coen, lensed Barton Fink, and inked an inseparable creative partnership on their films including Fargo, No Country for Old Men and Hail Caesar! There followed a succession of acclaimed British indie features including Personal Services, Stormy Monday and Sid and Nancy, before Deakins shot his first Hollywood production, Mountains of the Moon for Bob Rafelson in 1990. “His vision for the film matched what I took from the novel and it was very much in tune with the culture and politics of the time.” ![]() “It was the scale of the challenge and the brilliance of what Mike did with that film,” he says. His first major feature film collaboration was with director Michael Radford on Nineteen Eighty-Four, a 1984 adaptation of Orwell’s novel, which Deakins still ranks among his own best work. There will be something about the actor’s performance or about the existing light which will be unique, and you have to capture that.” Sometimes you get the chance of another take, but often you do not. It’s an intuitive reaction to what is front of you. That’s similar to features where you are working out how best to cover a scene. ![]() “The docs I made were generally unscripted and we would attempt to portray a situation, whether the aftermath of conflicts in Zimbabwe or Eritrea or more anthropological as truthfully as you can. “Certainly, on a feature film you can create a set and create the lighting and adapt what is in front of you to help tell a story in a more fictional way, but throughout my career I have used the techniques I learned through taking still photographs and making documentaries. ‘I like cinema to be like seeing a picture on a wall, as if you walked into a gallery and saw an Edvard Munch painting coming alive’ One might think there is quite a gap between ‘run and gun’ documentary realism and the designed, rehearsed and infinitely larger scale production of a dramatic feature but for Deakins the progression was natural. On graduation, he spent seven years travelling the world making documentaries. It was at Bath School of Art and Design, studying graphic design, that his passion for still photography took over and hastened a decision to enrol at the National Film and Television School. “If you can light and photograph the human face to bring out what’s within that person, you can do anything.”Ī natural painter who continues to sketch frequently while working out shot composition, Deakins has also been an avid photographer since childhood – indeed he might have become a photojournalist had his path not led to film school. “I certainly think there is an obsession with technical abilities at the expense of creativity and substance,” he says. ![]() What stands out in a 46-year career spanning iconic films like Deadman Walking, The Shawshank Redemption, The Big Lebowski and Skyfall is Deakins’ grounding in the visual, rather than the technical aspects, of the role. Shawshank Redemption: Missed out on Best Cinematography Oscar to Legends of the Fall in 1994 ![]()
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