Perhaps the greatest living cinematographer, Roger Deakins has been working in Hollywood for the better part of forty years. Cinematographers tend not to have a great deal of name recognition, but his filmography speaks for itself. Chances are if a shot in a movie remains particularly memorable, Roger Deakins was behind it.
His work? The Shawshank Redemption, Fargo, Kundun, O Brother Where Art Thou?, Jarhead, The Man Who Wasn't There, No Country for Old Men, The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, Revolutionary Road, The Reader, True Grit and Skyfall. And those are just the films he received an Academy Award nod for.
People are so impressed with Deakins' abilities, his announcement that he would no longer be working on celluloid after True Grit was met with disappointment. Some saw it as a small death of cinema that a leading cinematographer would stop using film. Flash forward two years and we have his remarkable digital work on Skyfall, the picture that earned his tenth nomination.
Deakins' work with digital effects has been widely praised, but he knows better than to rely on that crutch. "You've got to know why you’re doing it, it’s got to be for a reason within the story, and to further the story. There’s nothing worse than an ostentatious shot.” And there's nothing ostentatious about his work. The most exquisite sequence of Assassination of Jesse James required no special effects, just the natural light of a train illuminating the West's largest mythic character.
As impressive as his work has been, Roger Deakins has yet to receive cinema's greatest honor in the form of an Academy Award. Deakins has been in the industry since the mid 70s and has ten Academy nominations to his name, yet, zero victories.
On the surface, 2007 appeared to be his year. He lensed for both No Country for Old Men and The Assassination of Jesse James, the Academy Award would have to be his. Well, that didn't happen. Votes were split among the two films and Robert Elswit wound up winning for There Will Be Blood. 2012 also looked like a good shot with his universally-praised work in Skyfall, but Mr. Deakins didn't carry home the trophy that year. It will happen... eventually. Oscar is an foregone conclusion for a man of his talent.
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