Premier Rock Forum

While re-watching Ghost Dog earlier this week, I was reminded of how great the late Robby Muller was. I haven’t seen anything close to everything he’s done, but everything I have seen, I’ve loved.

Not sure if he’s my favorite or not, but he could be.

Wood Goblin wrote: Wed May 18, 2022 3:42 pm While re-watching Ghost Dog earlier this week, I was reminded of how great the late Robby Muller was. I haven’t seen anything close to everything he’s done, but everything I have seen, I’ve loved.

Not sure if he’s my favorite or not, but he could be.

Muller might be my favorite: Dancer in the Dark, Dead Man, Repo Man, Paris Texas, To Live and Die in LA, Down By Law, Ghost Dog. Man, the list goes on and on.

First two that come to mind are Greg Toland (Citizen Kane, Grapes of Wrath, Best Years of Our Lives) and Raoul Coutard (Breathless, Jules and Jim, Contempt, Z).

God, how do you pick? Muller is as good a choice as anybody, though. Every single thing I've seen that he shot was outstanding.

Off the top of my head, some others I really like:

Stanley Cortez
Raoul Coutard
Robert Burks
Robert Richardson (gets a bad rep for his work with Oliver Stone)
Agnes Godard
Roger Deakins, of course. At this point he's so acclaimed that I feel like he's dismissed a bit or at least taken for granted among film snobs. But go back and watch The Assassination of Jesse James By the Coward Robert Ford again and tell me that guy is overrated.

Often, though, even the best cinematographer is at the mercy of the director. Woody Allen always hires the world's best cinematographers (Carlo Di Palma, Sven Nykvist, Vittorio Storaro, Darius Khondji) and all those films still manage to look like dogshit. And there are DPs I really only associate with one director (eg, Vadim Yusov and Tarkovsky), but man, the movies they made together...

Clyde wrote: Wed May 18, 2022 5:49 pm
Agnes Godard

Oh hell yeah, Agnes Godard for Beau Travail alone!

S'weird...I tend to like those cinematographers who form a strong association with a director, over a distinct body of work (like Muller and Wenders). In that respect, it gets very easy to conflate their contribution with that of the director, but I guess tht's to be expected. Anyway, with that in mind, first instinct for me would be Dean Cundey, based entirely on his run with John Carpenter (Halloween, Fog, EFNY, The Thing), with some waffles for the Zemeckis BTTF films. Beyond him, a lot of love for...

Peter Suschitzky (with David Cronenberg)
Timo Salminen (with Aki Kaurismaki)
Chris Doyle (with Wong Kar Wai)
Roger Deakins (with the Coens)

Conrad L. Hall (The movie is whatever, but from a technical stand point (and a thematic one) his work in Road to Perdition is fucking jaw dropping. I was just wrapping up an advanced Cinematography class and our teacher literally cancelled the final so we could all just talk about the movie and if we could hold our own with him in the conversation you basically got an A on the final. Lotta cool Chicago stuff in there too.

Dean Cundey I love a guy that starts in real low budget exploitation and horror. Deans run with Carpenter is a thing of beauty. No one ever mentions it but the dude is like the best at lighting special effects. He is a big reason why Jurassic Park still looks great (Roger Rabbit, Back to the Future, etc), he knows how to light to the strength of the effect and it is really really hard to do. His work in Psycho II is also underrated. Love his work in the cheapies as well Satans Cheerleaders, The Witch Who Came From the Sea.

Charles Lang bunch of stuff, dude was a machine, but his work on The Big Heat was really inspiring.

Bill Butler If he just did The Conversation and Jaws it would be enough.

Stanley Cortez He did Night of the Hunter, he did The Magnificent Ambersons, he did Shock Corridor, and he did.....Abbott & Costello Meet Captain Kidd. I love craftsmen like cinematographers, dudes that took the jobs they were given and always brought something to it.

Freddie Francis I LOVE his stuff in Scorsese's Cape Fear, he is just having a ball doing all sorts of fun idiosyncratic camera shit. The tone he captures in The Straight Story is beautiful. He also did The Innocents.

Lucien Ballard another guy who has like 150 credits, but his work with Peckinpah is something else. The Killing with Kubrick is also a pretty great little picture.

Philip H. Lathrop Experiment in Terror, Lonely Are the Brave back to back!

Owen wrote: Wed May 18, 2022 7:45 pm Conrad L. Hall (The movie is whatever, but from a technical stand point (and a thematic one) his work in Road to Perdition is fucking jaw dropping. I was just wrapping up an advanced Cinematography class and our teacher literally cancelled the final so we could all just talk about the movie and if we could hold our own with him in the conversation you basically got an A on the final. Lotta cool Chicago stuff in there too.

Dean Cundey I love a guy that starts in real low budget exploitation and horror. Deans run with Carpenter is a thing of beauty. No one ever mentions it but the dude is like the best at lighting special effects. He is a big reason why Jurassic Park still looks great (Roger Rabbit, Back to the Future, etc), he knows how to light to the strength of the effect and it is really really hard to do. His work in Psycho II is also underrated. Love his work in the cheapies as well Satans Cheerleaders, The Witch Who Came From the Sea.

Charles Lang bunch of stuff, dude was a machine, but his work on The Big Heat was really inspiring.

Bill Butler If he just did The Conversation and Jaws it would be enough.

Stanley Cortez He did Night of the Hunter, he did The Magnificent Ambersons, he did Shock Corridor, and he did.....Abbott & Costello Meet Captain Kidd. I love craftsmen like cinematographers, dudes that took the jobs they were given and always brought something to it.

Freddie Francis I LOVE his stuff in Scorsese's Cape Fear, he is just having a ball doing all sorts of fun idiosyncratic camera shit. The tone he captures in The Straight Story is beautiful. He also did The Innocents.

Lucien Ballard another guy who has like 150 credits, but his work with Peckinpah is something else. The Killing with Kubrick is also a pretty great little picture.

Philip H. Lathrop Experiment in Terror, Lonely Are the Brave back to back!

On that...

They guy was also in on -

- The Illustrated Man
- Hard Times
- The Long Riders
- The Driver

Before being in on both Jekyll And Hyde...Together Again and Deadly Friend

To include someone from the "Credit Where It Might Just Be Due..." pile...

Joao Fernandez

As he hasn't been mentioned yet, Vittorio Storaro.