From Nick Davis’s appreciation of Terrence Malick’s “The New World,” tucked within his marvelous larger appreciation of 2006:
Emmanuel Lubezki, a craftsman who needs no assistance from anybody, conducts his own jaw-dropping symphony of 100% natural-source lighting. I’d rank it up there with the three or four most impressive technical accomplishments I witnessed over the course of the decade. I’m just sad that Lubezki has personally assassinated the entire families of so many Oscar voters. Or, I’m sorry, do you have another theory as to why he still hasn’t won?
(Sidebar: Remember that brief window of hope when it looked like “The Tree of Life” might come out in 2009? What a happy time that was.)
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13 responses to “Truer words”
He should have won for Children Of Men, too.
Please, Mark, that wound is still fresh.
Nick’s pique over Lubezki’s loss for “Children of Men” is implicit in the comment, I should think.
The main problem I have with Malick is that his pictures are wholly lacking in tension, drama, character development and conflict. Still, at least the cinematography is nice to look at for a while, until the inevitable happens and one falls asleep in boredom.
“The New World” is, in my opinion, THE most under-rated movie of the decade. It easily makes my top 10. And Lubezki’s work is astounding. And yes, Guy, I remember the rumors that said, for a split second, that “Tree of Life” would make it out of the gate in 2009. We should have all known better…Malick is notorious for taking longer than anticipated to finish his movies, we should have known this would be no exception. Still, I can’t wait.
Q’orianka Kilcher should have won every lead actress award available for that film. It’s an absolute disgrace she was so ignored – especially in a reasonably weak year for lead actress performances. We need to complain more about this.
Ugh, the Best Actress race of 2005 … let’s not even go there.
(I remain content with the eventual winner, however. But the nominees were a royal cock-up.)
I need to watch “Walk the Line” again now that this time has passed, because I was so angry at the time that Reese Witherspoon won. As far as I’m concerned, Felicity Huffman’s loss to her is one of Oscar’s greatest outrages.
I agree with you Hunter…The New World is a pretentious bore. As one critic put it, “It’s like watching paint dry.”
A beautiful, beautiful film.
I’m going to have to disagree that Felicity Huffman should have won, everything was “I’m acting! I’m acting!” in her performance in Transamerica.
Losing cinematography for Children of Men may be the biggest mistake the Academy made this decade. Shameful. He’s the new Gordon Willis: ignored by the Academy.
Indeed, I am referring to all of Lubezki’s losses, as well as his failure to even be nominated for win-deserving films like Y tu mamá también and Ali. But he’ll get one eventually. And I actually think the work in New World is even stronger than in Children of Men, though there’s probably no point in ranking such colossal and dissimilar accomplishments.
Thanks, Guy, for this link!
Emmanuel Lubezki is like a modern day Roger Deakins. Except not even he’s got one yet. But at least he’s getting nominated occasionally and when he does it’s for un-loved projects like “New World” and “Children of Men”. He could be like Alexandre Desplat getting token nominations for his weakest work and being ignored for the brilliant stuff he churns out yearly.