A list of chrono­log­i­cal Oscar win­ners often tells you more about the state of the cul­ture than the state of the art. That is very true when it comes to Best Pic­ture, with musi­cals and epics tak­ing home the Acad­e­my Award dur­ing one decade, but being large­ly for­got­ten the next. So too is the award for Best Cin­e­matog­ra­phy, as seen in the sev­en-minute super­cut above. Show­ing every Acad­e­my Award win­ning cin­e­matog­ra­ph­er and their films, the super­cut’s choic­es for the one or two shots that sum up a bril­liant­ly lit pic­ture do make the Academy’s deci­sion at least jus­ti­fied. But it is sur­pris­ing how quick­ly so many of these films have slipped from the public’s con­scious­ness. (Like 2003’s Mas­ter and Com­man­der–when’s the last time you thought about that film?)

When the Acad­e­my first start­ed giv­ing awards for cin­e­matog­ra­phy, it went to the per­son first, not the pic­ture and the per­son involved. So when Karl Struss and Charles Rosh­er were nom­i­nat­ed for–ostensibly–their work on F.W. Murnau’s clas­sic Sun­rise–they also got cred­it­ed for the five oth­er films they had shot that year.

The cur­rent sys­tem was worked out in 1931, although up to 1967 awards went–and I think right­ly so!–to col­or and black and white sep­a­rate­ly. (And, to fur­ther com­pli­cate things, the col­or award was con­sid­ered a “spe­cial achieve­ment” award for a while until Gone with the Wind pret­ty much neces­si­tat­ed a change in pri­or­i­ties.) After 1967, the only black and white film to win was Schindler’s List.

Some­body with way more view­ing expe­ri­ence should weigh in on what makes a lot of these films Oscar-wor­thy in their cin­e­matog­ra­phy, but it does seem that at least through the 1960s, the Acad­e­my loved bold use of sat­u­rat­ed col­ors for one cat­e­go­ry, and an almost abstract use of high con­trast shad­ow and light for the oth­er.

Oth­er nota­bles: Alfred Hitch­cock­’s To Catch a Thief (a rather minor work) and Rebec­ca (a much bet­ter one) were his only two films to get the nod, with awards going to Robert Burks (but not for his work on Ver­ti­go, Rear Win­dow, North by North­west) and George Barnes respec­tive­ly. Stan­ley Kubrick has had two of his films win, with Rus­sell Met­ty for Spar­ta­cus and John Alcott for Bar­ry Lyn­don. (But not Gilbert Tay­lor for Dr. Strangelove!)

Stan­ley Kubrick has done slight­ly bet­ter, with Rus­sell Met­ty for Spar­ta­cus and John Alcott for Bar­ry Lyn­don. (But not Gilbert Tay­lor for Dr. Strangelove!) Mar­tin Scorsese’s Hugo and The Avi­a­tor both earned stat­ues for Robert Richard­son (who also won for Oliv­er Stone’s JFK). Roger Deakins has nev­er won, though he’s been nom­i­nat­ed 13 times, twice in 2007 for both No Coun­try for Old Men and The Assas­si­na­tion of Jesse James by the Cow­ard Robert Ford.

And the most award­ed cin­e­matog­ra­ph­er? That’s a tie at four Oscars each for Leon Sham­roy (The Black Swan, Wil­son, Leave Her to Heav­en, and the stu­dio-destroy­ing bomb Cleopa­tra); and Joseph Rut­ten­berg (The Great Waltz, Mrs. Miniv­er, Some­body Up There Likes Me, and Gigi).

Make of this list what you will. (And feel free to do so in the com­ments!)

via Indiewire

Relat­ed Con­tent:

100 Years of Cin­e­ma: New Doc­u­men­tary Series Explores the His­to­ry of Cin­e­ma by Ana­lyz­ing One Film Per Year, Start­ing in 1915

Sig­na­ture Shots from the Films of Stan­ley Kubrick: One-Point Per­spec­tive

The His­to­ry of the Movie Cam­era in Four Min­utes: From the Lumiere Broth­ers to Google Glass

Ted Mills is a free­lance writer on the arts who cur­rent­ly hosts the artist inter­view-based FunkZone Pod­cast and is the pro­duc­er of KCR­W’s Curi­ous Coast. You can also fol­low him on Twit­ter at @tedmills, read his oth­er arts writ­ing at tedmills.com and/or watch his films here.

Cameron Beyl does not play by the rules when it comes to video essays. Instead of short, under-10 minute explo­rations we’ve come to expect from the ever-increas­ing coterie of YouTube essay­ists, Beyl, in his Direc­tors Series on Vimeo, devotes hours to explor­ing the fil­mo­gra­phies of some of cinema’s great auteurs. We’ve already intro­duced you in pre­vi­ous posts to his extend­ed hagiogra­phies of Stan­ley Kubrick, the Coen Broth­ers, David Finch­er, and Paul Thomas Ander­son.

Now comes his lat­est work, a mul­ti-part explo­ration of Christo­pher Nolan’s oeu­vre, cov­er­ing his hard­scrab­ble years all the way through his Hol­ly­wood block­busters and end­ing with Inter­stel­lar. (This writer, hav­ing thought high­er of Dunkirk than his pre­vi­ous works, will just have to wait a few years until the next chap­ter.)

In the video above, Beyl starts off with some pre­his­to­ry about Christo­pher and his broth­er Jonathan, his ear­ly years mak­ing Super 8 movies, his time spent at Uni­ver­si­ty Col­lege Lon­don, and the very rare first films, “Taran­tel­la” and “Lar­ce­ny,” the sin­gle-gag short “Doo­dle­bug,” and how that crew–including his lead actor Jere­my Theobald and his pro­duc­er-soon-to-be-wife Emma Thomas–stayed with him through his $6000 debut fea­ture Fol­low­ing and its the­mat­ic and styl­is­tic cousin Memen­to, made for $4.5 mil­lion.

Part 2 shows Nolan nav­i­gat­ing the stu­dio sys­tem. Giv­en a chance by exec­u­tive pro­duc­ers George Clooney and Steven Soder­bergh to remake the Nor­we­gian thriller Insom­nia, he indulged in his love of Michael Mann by work­ing with Al Paci­no, who plays a char­ac­ter not unlike his role in 1995’s Heat. Then Nolan takes on a mori­bund com­ic book fran­chise and reboots it into Bat­man Begins, a move that stu­dio execs have since done over and over to rethink var­i­ous prop­er­ties with dif­fer­ent direc­tors. He ends with a less enthu­si­as­tic exam­i­na­tion of 2006’s The Pres­tige.

Part 3 takes on both The Dark Knight and Incep­tion, two huge block­busters and one that took Nolan into the pan­theon of crit­i­cal and pop­u­lar acclaim. If unde­cid­ed on Nolan, Beyl’s obse­quious tone might put one off: “Sim­ply put, the late 2000s saw Nolan oper­at­ing at the height of his pow­ers, locked in sync with the cul­tur­al zeit­geist to such a degree that his efforts were active­ly steer­ing it.” (Please have that debate in the com­ments.) How­ev­er, Beyl makes some nice com­par­isons between The Dark Knight and Heat here.

Part Four shows Nolan con­clud­ing his Bat­man tril­o­gy, fail­ing to top The Dark Knight, but then going all Kubrick with Inter­stel­lar. He’s a direc­tor who has glad­ly played with all the toys mul­ti-mil­lion dol­lar Hol­ly­wood pro­duc­tions have at their dis­pos­al, and he’s nev­er been afraid of being epic. Beyl leaves off, not­ing that after expand­ing into the uni­verse with Inter­stel­lar, Nolan has nowhere to turn but inward. So far that has result­ed in the his­tor­i­cal Dunkirk. But whether Nolan can return to more mod­est work has yet to be seen.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Dis­cov­er the Life & Work of Stan­ley Kubrick in a Sweep­ing Three-Hour Video Essay

What Makes a Coen Broth­ers Movie a Coen Broth­ers Movie? Find Out in a 4‑Hour Video Essay of Bar­ton Fink, The Big Lebows­ki, Far­go, No Coun­try for Old Men & More

The Career of Paul Thomas Ander­son: A 5‑Part Video Essay on the Auteur of Boo­gie Nights, Punch-Drunk Love, The Mas­ter, and More

How Did David Finch­er Become the Kubrick of Our Time? A New, 3.5 Hour Series of Video Essays Explains

Ted Mills is a free­lance writer on the arts who cur­rent­ly hosts the artist inter­view-based FunkZone Pod­cast and is the pro­duc­er of KCR­W’s Curi­ous Coast. You can also fol­low him on Twit­ter at @tedmills, read his oth­er arts writ­ing at tedmills.com and/or watch his films here.