Cinematography, the Oscars and "Tree of Life"

AS everyone in Los Angeles knows well, Oscar nominations were just announced today. I've written about some of the films nominated, including The Artist, which drew 10 nominations.

One article I've not posted, because I can't seem to find an online link, was a story in which I spoke to cinematographers from five films: My Week With Marilyn, The Descendants, Drive, Margin Call and The Tree of Life. Emmanuel Lubezki of Tree of Life was just nominated for an Academy Award which he seems to have a good shot at.

(The Mexican-born Lubezki, by the way, also shot Children of Men, The New World, Y Tu Mama Tambien and Ali.)

Whatever you make of this film -- which has become the love-it-or-hate-it movie of the last year -- it's visually distinctive, from its verdant recollections of 1950s Texas suburbia or its more cosmic sections that recount the history of the universe.

Here's a bit of what he told me -- the full story is in AwardsLine's Issue 5.

Though the film has been compared to “2001: A Space Odysssey” and Renaissance painting, Malick’s edict was that the film capture the chaos of life itself. “He wanted the film to feel found, not rehearsed, not designed,” Lubezki says. “You had to wait for a moment that felt real, before you rolled the camera. We could not control the butterfly that flew by, or the wind, or what a baby might do: It’s watching, helping Terry and everybody else get to these moments that felt almost like an accident.”

Going Medieval With the SCA

As a retro kinda guy who often thinks music and clothes have not improved since 1965, I've always been interested in people who work hard to live in the past. So I was intrigued to come across a book of photography by Venice,  CA., based E.F. Kitchen, which captures chain mail-clad members of the Society for Creative Anachronism.

HERE is my brief piece in Sunday's LATimes on this photographer who works in platinum prints and other large format, old-school styles. Her book, Suburban Knights, is elegantly produced and just out on PowerHouse.

Part of what's fun about the book is the quotes from these weekend warriors. Some of them sound quite desperate. Says one: "If I hadn't found the Society for Creative Anachronism, I would probably be in prison, dead, or on a wanted list somewhere."


Photo credit E.F. Kitchen

Raymond Chandler's Los Angeles

BOOKS on chandler's LA have become a kind of cottage industry. still, i'm enjoying a new book of photographs called "daylight noir: raymond chandler's imagined city." the book could be a companion volume to judith freeman's "the long embrace," which visited the dozens of SoCal locations in which the novelist lived with his elusive wife cissy, tho the aesthetic of "daylight noir" is starker and less personal

the author is catherine corman, daughter of roger "king of the Bs" corman, who i wrote about when she came up with an eccentric book about joseph cornell. here she matches her own black-and-white photography with very brief excerpts from chandler's novels. we get some obvious LA landmarks, past and present -- bullocks wilshire, musso and franks, etc -- as well as lonely hotels, lush private residences, a spooky pier. when i leave LA, this is the way i want to remember it.

"in chandler the hardboiled style became above all a way of seeing," jonathan lethem writes in a brief introduction, "not far from photography itself." in his progress across the city, marlowe become "a kind of camera, a ghost."

besides the book jacket, these photos -- some of which remind me of antonioni's films -- are from the book. i'll post my story on corman's cornell project as soon as the LAT fixes its web archive.

The Late Great Julius Shulman

I WAS saddened to see, upon returning from a trip, that we've lost not only walter cronkite -- who i once met at an annapolis pub he used to frequent on sailing trips -- but the consummate architecture photographer julius shulman.

HERE is my interview with shulman from a few years back. i visited the man in his rambling laurel canyon home and he showed me the range of his work -- the old modernist, black and white stuff from LA and palm springs, as well as some more recent color work he'd done in europe.

at 95 shulman was sharp as a nail, but also among the more prickly people i've met in my career. he yelled at me when i called his photography "shots." shulman: "we're not hunters!!"

i dont have the rights to his classic modernism shots so posting something -- an image of a los angeles co fire station -- that i think is in the public domain.