How Emmanuel Lubezki became the world’s most… | Little White Lies

In Praise Of

How Emmanuel Lubez­ki became the world’s most influ­en­tial cinematographer

18 Jan 2016

Words by Nicholas Page

Two people photographing near a frozen river surrounded by pine trees and snow-capped mountains.
Two people photographing near a frozen river surrounded by pine trees and snow-capped mountains.
The Revenant marks yet anoth­er mes­meris­ing high point in the career of Ale­jan­dro González Iñárritu’s most trust­ed collaborator.

When search­ing for evi­dence of the mag­ic of Mex­i­can cin­e­matog­ra­ph­er Emmanuel Chi­vo” Lubez­ki, it’s tempt­ing to look no fur­ther than his most recent tech­ni­cal mar­vels – the poet­ic cam­er­a­work that ele­vat­ed Grav­i­ty or the fre­net­ic long takes that gave Bird­man its wings. Yet it is an ear­ly scene from Alfon­so Cuarón’s 1995 film, A Lit­tle Princess, that per­haps best encap­su­lates the inno­v­a­tive use of fram­ing and light­ing that would even­tu­al­ly see him become one of Hollywood’s most cel­e­brat­ed cinematographers.

The scene in ques­tion jux­ta­pos­es the telling of a sto­ry with the open­ing of our own. Lubezki’s cam­era drinks in every detail, cran­ing sharply upwards to reveal the colos­sal head of a fall­en stat­ue, sur­round­ed by lush veg­e­ta­tion and pool of water in which a near­by ele­phant frol­ics play­ful­ly. The hint at some­thing big­ger – some­thing more sub­lime – as well as the idea of nature reclaim­ing that which is man-made, are recur­ring motifs in both Cuarón and Lubezki’s work, but this beau­ti­ful moment rep­re­sents a cre­ative genesis.

Many of the scenes found in A Lit­tle Princess are spec­ta­cles of light­ing and move­ment – snow swirling through an open bed­room win­dow, the earthy green-and-brown palette of a birth­day par­ty – which the cam­era observes pas­sive­ly. And con­sid­er the sta­t­ic train scene in their next col­lab­o­ra­tion, Great Expectations.

Of course, Lubez­ki and Cuarón have a long his­to­ry togeth­er: they first met each oth­er at film school, from which both were expelled. Cuarón main­tains that the pair sim­ply had a dif­fer­ent way of see­ing things,” but that they were also very arro­gant.” What­ev­er the per­ceived pros and cons of attend­ing film school, Lubezki’s expul­sion ulti­mate­ly result­ed in a body of work that is defined by think­ing out­side the box. And while there is film pedi­gree in Lubezki’s blood (his father, Muni, is an actor and pro­duc­er) it is his sta­tus as a Hol­ly­wood out­sider – a Mex­i­can with Jew­ish and Russ­ian roots – that sets him apart.

If there is a defin­ing char­ac­ter­is­tic of Lubezki’s recent work, how­ev­er, it is the rov­ing, rest­less cam­era. His col­lab­o­ra­tions with Ter­rence Mal­ick, begin­ning with The New World in 2005, are punc­tu­at­ed by scenes of sim­ple for­ward cam­era move­ments, as though track­ing the pas­sage of some ethe­re­al, unseen being. This can also be found in Cuarón and Lubezki’s grit­ti­est, most dynam­ic film, Chil­dren of Men, in which we’re exposed to a crip­pled post-apoc­a­lyp­tic Lon­don. The infa­mous car scene and the storm­ing of the build­ing in Chil­dren of Men are sequences defined by chaos, yet both were method­i­cal­ly planned and exe­cut­ed with har­mo­nious precision.

Then there are Lubezki’s col­lab­o­ra­tions with Mal­ick, which seek to cap­ture the world in its most ethe­re­al and organ­ic state, with an empha­sis on the use of nat­ur­al, rather than arti­fi­cial light. The New World in par­tic­u­lar makes excel­lent use of the cinematographer’s mea­sured patience when it comes to pick­ing the right moment – the mag­ic hour between day and night. This is basi­cal­ly a sun­lit movie,” Lubez­ki has said of The New World.

When we were shoot­ing, we were extra aware of how every­thing in nature is con­stant­ly shift­ing. We became aware of the earth mov­ing, the shad­ows chang­ing, the colour tem­per­a­ture con­stant­ly shift­ing, the rivers chang­ing colour and the tide shift­ing, and all of that hap­pens real­ly fast. Shoot­ing stu­dio movies, you tend to want to con­trol the ele­ments, but on this pic­ture we didn’t – we want­ed to cap­ture life.”

Lubezki’s use of soft, nat­ur­al light in bucol­ic set­tings can be traced back as far as Alfon­so Arau’s 1995 film, A Walk in the Clouds, and arguably has nev­er looked bet­ter than in Malick’s The Tree of Life. Yet for all the lush imagery found in both The Tree of Life and The New World, what tru­ly dis­tin­guish­es Lubez­ki is his desire to con­tin­u­al­ly inno­vate and take on new chal­lenges. The Revenant is yet anoth­er cru­cial evo­lu­tion – a defin­ing shift in the career of a unique talent.

You might like