Since first laying eyes on the famous General Cinema Feature Presentation bumper playing across the screen in a darkened theater — this as a grade schooler back in the mid-70s — I’d been unabashedly captivated by movies. But it wasn’t until later in the decade that my appreciation for a film’s carefully wrought visuals began to make an impression. The year was 1979, the flick Carrol Ballard’s take on the famous Walter Farley children’s novel,

The Black Stallion. As you may recall, much of the first third takes place on a deserted tropical island. And it was during those wordless scenes between horse and boy that my 10-year-old mind began to register the stunning photography. In other words, the seeds of the CFS were planted.

The cinematographer was Caleb Deschanel, a name I packed away in case I ever stumbled across his work again. Four years later I did, while watching Philip Kaufman’s ode to heroism, The Right Stuff, on a screen the size of which modern moviegoers would have trouble imagining (Edens 2, Northbrook, IL, back in the days when 70mm meant something). And then again following year with The Natural, Barry Levinson’s ode to Robert Redford’s weathered good looks. As you can see from the images above and below, Deschanel’s calling card isn’t particularly hard to spot — the guy loves filming during the golden (or magic) hour, that short window just after sunrise and before sunset where the sunlight becomes soft and warm (and orange).

By the time The Natural unspooled, however, Deschanel was just one of many cinematographers I’d come to admire. Since The Black Stallion and in no small part aided by the emergence of VHS, I’d begun watching movies in a different way, taking note of striking imagery and those responsible for memorializing it on celluloid. Frankly, it was getting to the point where the director of photography was just as big a selling point to me as plot, actors or director.

A sampling of those I followed back in the day, some of whose work you’ve surely seen: Allen Daviau (E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial), Bill Butler (Jaws), Nestor Almendros (Days of Heaven), Douglas Slocombe (Raiders of the Lost Ark), Michael Chapman (Raging Bull), Vittorio Storaro (Apocalypse Now), Vilmos Zsigmond (Close Encounter of the Third Kind), David Watkin (Chariots of Fire), John A. Alonzo (Chinatown), Geoffrey Unsworth (2001: A Space Odyssey), Sven Nykvist (Fanny and Alexander); John Alcott (Barry Lyndon), Gordon Willis (The Godfather 1 & 2) and on and on.

Throughout the intervening years, the list continued to grow, the unearthing of old masters such as Stanley Cortez (The Magnificent Ambersons), Gregg Toland (Citizen Kane), James Wong Howe (Sweet Smell of Success), Conrad L. Hall (In Cold Blood), Jack Cardiff (Black Narcissus) and Freddie Young (Lawrence of Arabia) taking place alongside the discovery of a newer generation, including Robert Richardson (JFK), Emmanuel Lubezki (The Revenant), Jan de Bont (Die Hard), Robert Elswit (There Will Be Blood), Robert Yeoman (anything by Wes Anderson), Darius Khondji (The Lost City of Z), Janusz Kamiński (Schindler’s List)…

…and, of course, Roger Deakins, the subject of this post.

He of pure white mane and proper English upbringing, Deakins first appeared on my film snob cinematography radar back in 1989 while watching Bob Rafelson’s Mountains of the Moon, Deakins first American production. This was not his first rodeo, however; back in his home country he’d been quite active for years, lensing such visual keepers as Michael Radford’s Nineteen Eighty-Four (1984) and White Mischief (1987), Alex Cox’ Sid and Nancy (1986), among others.

But his real breakthrough in terms of reputation and name recognition came in 1991 when he was tapped by the Coen brothers (who were impressed with his work on Mike Figgis’ Stormy Monday) to shoot their meditation on writers’ block and decapitation, Barton Fink, which went on to win the Palme d’Or at that year’s Cannes Film Festival and subsequently receive much love when it was released stateside that summer. Deakins work was singled out for praise and indeed it is stunning, a haunting visual portrayal of Fink’s slowly unhinging mind.

Since then, Deakins has gone on to shoot another 40 (!) films, 11 of them with the Coen brothers, and, in the process, become regarded as one of the top two or three cinematographers working today. Among his more striking work (followed by an appropriately stunning image/clip):

The Shawshank Redemption (1994)

Jarhead (2005)

No Country for Old Men (2007)

The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford (2007)

Skyfall (2012)

Sicario (2015)

Blade Runner 2049 (2017)

As you can see, the man is a master of composition and light. None of this just happens, of course; it takes vision and talent and hard work. It’s hours, days and months of planning and execution, of projecting and bouncing light so it hits the actors and sets just so. Of choose the right film stocks, or the proper digital camera. Of photochemically or digitally manipulating the images in post-production.

That said, Deakins downplays his role and that of cinematography in general. He’s not an overthinker and ostentation is anathema to him. His images service the story, nothing more.

“[What] you gather from Deakins,” notes Noah Gallagher Shannon in The Paris Review, “is that the form aspires not toward the creation of startling images but the absorption of a seamless narrative. The highest achievement a cinematographer can garner, Deakins says, is to have his or her work go unnoticed. A cinematographer should have style, in other words, but only in service of story. Deakins puts it this way: ‘people confuse pretty with good cinematography. The balance of the frame — the way an actor is relating to the space in the frame, is the most important factor in helping the audience feel what the character is thinking.'”

Ironically, although beloved and much in demand, Deakins has never brought home a little golden statue, this despite being nominated 13 times for cinematography. What makes this oversight even harder to believe is that specialized technical categories such as his are voted on by peers rather than some dope (the personal assistant of a lazy movie executive, for instance) who knows nothing about the art form.

Once again this year, Deakins is up for the big award, this for his spectacular work in Blade Runner 2049. Back when I heard he’d be lensing this film, I predicted in the pages of this very blog that he’d finally break through.

I stand by that prognostication.