unquestionably ? i think it depends on which questions you want to ask... i saw ``Le temps de loup'' last week and it's not one of the world's important films. filming in france is killing haneke's talent and one day he'll realized that.
gürcan keltek.
Robert Koehler <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
Angela--
I'd suggest first emailing to
[log in to unmask]
This is the publicity firm handling the ASC (American Society of Cinematographers); they should be able to either provide the bio information on these specific cinematographers, or provide the contacts outside of the US who have the information.
I couldn't help but notice the inclusion of Jurgen Jurges on your list. It's been my experience that from time to time, a particular cinematographer achieves an artistic breakthrough of stunning proportions. In recent years, two DPs who have managed this, I think, are Chris Doyle and Roger Deakins.
But having just experienced (``seen'' is a somehow insufficient word) Michael Haneke's ``Le temps de loup'' at the Toronto film festival, I've witnessed a new cinematographic breakthrough. Jurges has lit several of Haneke's films, and is a great veteran of particularly German cinema, having worked frequently with Fassbinder during his most fecund period. What Jurges and Haneke have created in ``Le temps'' is something entirely new: The ability to actually capture and film pure darkness on film, and by doing so, heighten the presence of any light that does appear on screen.
For many viewers at its Cannes premiere--where ``Le temps'' was roundly applauded and booed--this was an experiment whose importance seemed to elude them, and was evven cited by the film's critics as proof of its failure. But any patient or sensitive reading of ``Le temps'' would soon arrive at the conclusion that this experiment is tantamount to re-defining what cinematography can do, and was particularly crucial to what the film was about.
The first half of ``Le temps'' is especially immersed in nighttime darkness, enveloping a family and characters lost somewhere in the European countryside during an apparent catastrophe of potentially Apocalyptic dimensions. Part of the fallout from this ongoing crisis is a power outage, which means no electrical light at night. For the first time since Kubrick's ``Barry Lyndon'' (which managed to photograph pre-electrical era 18th century scenes strictly by candlelit illumination), a cinematographer and director have conveyed to the viewer exactly what a given setting's actual lighting conditions would be like. In both cases, the technical mastery is at the service of larger ideas. ``Barry Lyndon's'' case is so well known, that there's no need to detail it; in the case of ``Le temps,'' the purpose is a complex one: First, sensory deprivation, so that the absence of light hugely heightens our feelings of pure fear and uncertainty; second, the heightening of the value of light
itself, by re-positioning that which we take so much for granted; third--and I believe this extends one of Haneke's most fascinating running ideas as a filmmaker--the extreme envelopment of the vieewer inside the world in front of the camera, toward the purpose of an analysis of what is actually being seen. The inside/outside art of Haneke has been realized here with Jurges at a level I've never witnessed before.
With this extraordinary physical and intellectual acheivement in virtually reversing the primacy of what light and dark is conventionally given in cinema, I would have to say that Jurgen Jurges, right now, is the world's greatest cinematographer. And ``Le temps de loup'' is unquestionably one of the world's most important films.
Robert Koehler
----- Original Message -----
From: angela petrou
To: [log in to unmask]
Sent: Thursday, September 25, 2003 8:42 AM
Subject: Cinematographers
Dear film philosophers,
I am trying to find biographical information fro certain cinematographers and i am unable to.
Some of the names i am looking into are:
Atsuta Yuharu
Alcaine Jose Louis
Aronovich Ricardo
Arbogast Thierry
Biddle Andrian,
Biziou Peter
Clerval Denys
Elmes Frederick
Jurges Jurgen
Kruger Jules
Milsome Douglas
Stapleton Oliver
Yusov Vadim
Do you have any idea if there is a lexicon or a site that i might find helpful.
Thank you,
Angela
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