“Hide the ideas,” wrote Robert Bresson in Notes on the Cinematographer, “But so that people find them. The most important will be the most hidden.”
When it comes to the magic of the movie, there are thousands of perfect moments projected in our memories, moments framed in ways that evoke beauty, strangeness, terror, and joy. And now a new supercut has brought together some of those immortal images in one video, editing together every winner for the Academy Award for ‘Best Cinematography’ from 1927 to 2016.
From the YouTube channel Burger Fiction, masters of the movie mash-up, the eight-minute long collection of vignettes runs through the likes of 1939’s Gone with the Win to 1962’s Lawrence of Arabia, right up to 2016’s The Revenant.
Cinematography and the Academy
The supercut also serves as a reminder that between 1939 and 1967, the Academy handed out two awards in the category each year – one for black=and-white films, and another for colour. Since the two were merged into just one prize, only one black-and-white film has claimed the title, with Polish cinematographer Janusz KamiÅ„ski claiming the honour for Schindler’s List.
Watching the craft evolve over decades shows how previous features influence the ones that follow, leading all the way up to Mexican cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki’s hat-trick of wins over the last three years for Gravity, Birdman, and the aforementioned The Revenant. Without a feature film in contention this year, the montage ends with a nod to the man who’ll take the title this year, showcasing 2016’s five nominated films.
Take a look at the sublime supercut below:
