Cinematographers See the Light

When they vote for awards, most Hollywood craft guild members seem to go for what they enjoy, with little regard as to whether it's a sterling example of artistically doing what they do for their livings. In that way, they're just like the Academy Awards and People's Choice balloters.
One glowing exception to that rule this year is the American Society of Cinematographers, whose five nominees for best director of photography appear, to me, to be unusually perceptive about what makes for superb moving pictures - as well as represent a nice, rigorous refusal to listen to award campaign strategists or care what less-discerning eyes think is prestigious, acceptably enjoyable or likely to be some popularity contest winner.
Of course, another way of looking at it is, the DPs don't care what else goes wrong with a movie as long as the lighting's exquisite and the camera moves are awesome. But even that attitude is worth applauding now and then; the fundamental at of movies is conveying stories through pictures, after all, and if you love the form, at least occasionally you've just got to look at it that way.
So here's to nominees Emmanuel Lubezki, whose extended "Children of Men" takes have been duly noted for their techincal audacity, but also deserve praise for the way they involve a viewer so intimately in complex action; "The Illusionist's" Dick Pope, who gave both a historically persuasive and otherworldly feel to fin de siecle Austria; Robert Richardson - deservedly admired for the flashy work he's done for Oliver Stone, Martin Scorsese and Quentin Tarantino - who proved himself also a master of classic compositions and restrained yet emotionally precise framing with "The Good Shepherd"; Dean Semler, whose hi def digital lensing of "Apocalypto" brought new kinds of visceral adrenalin, strangeness and terrible beauty to the screen; and past master Vilmos Zsigmond, whose elegant shadows and camera choreography salvaged all there ways to save - and it turned out to be substantial - of the madly mucked-up "Black Dahlia."
Not all of these were the artiest films of 2006. But their cinematographers certainly put great art into them.