OUAN502 - Emmanuel Lubezki

Emmanuel Lubezki is a Mexican cinematographer that has worked on a number of films and some of the films that I admire most in terms of the cinematography. Over recent years especially he has fallen into the forefront of the cinematography world for his work - being nominated eight times for the Academy Award in the category of 'Best Cinematography'. Impressively he has won the award three times and the three most recent award ceremonies and means he has now become the first person to win the award three times consecutively. The films he has won the award for are, Gravity (2013), Birdman or (2014), and The Revenant (2015). I've heard him sometimes referred to by his friends and colleagues as the nickname 'Chivo', which translates 'goat' in Spanish. Over his career so far, Lubezki has worked with a huge range of directors and many of them highly acclaimed or academy award winners in their own right. These directors include, Martin Scorsese, Michael Mann, Joel and Ethan Coen, and directors who is a frequent collaborator with include Terrence Malick, Alfonso Cuarón, and Alejandro González Iñárritu - who he has won his two most recent academy award in collaboration with. In terms of his beginnings as a cinematographer, Lubezki began his career in Mexican film and television productions during the late 1980s and his first film outside of his native Mexico was the independent film Twenty Bucks, which followed the journey of a single twenty-dollar bill.

Lubezki and fellow Mexican filmmaker Alfonso Cuarón have been friends since they were teenagers and also went to the same film school at the National Autonomous University of Mexico. In total the pair have worked in on six motion pictures together; Sólo Con Tu Pareja, A Little Princess, Great Expectations, Y Tu Mamá También, Children of Men, and Gravity. The most recent of their work, specifically Children of Men (2006) and Gravity (2012), have received universal acclaim for the cinematography. Lubezki is renowned for his innovative approaches for cinematography and often attempts to push the technology and ideas that can be utilised in the production of film. This can be seen across all of his work but the most obvious example is Birdman which was created in such a way where it feels to the audience like the whole scene is one continuous take. Children of Men also utilised a range of techniques that were otherwise unexplored prior to the making of the film. One example of this is the "roadside ambush" scene, which was shot in one extended take using a bespoke camera rig. For this scene in particular and the undertaking of the shot mentioned, a vehicle was altered so that the seats were able to tilt and lower actors out of the cameras path. The wind shield of the car was also designed in a similar way and was able to tilt in such a way to allow a the camera to move in and out of the front of the car vehicle. A crew of four, including Lubezki, rode on the roof. Another mentionable achievement within the film was the seven-and-a-half-minute battle sequence which was made up of around five different edits stitched together.

The first Academy Award for Best Cinematography that Lubezki won was also in collaboration with Alfonso Cuarón, and was given to him for his work on Gravity. Talking about this film specifically, it was praised heavily for the way two shots were combined through digital backgrounds of space in order to create the illusion of scenes done in a single shot. At this point I think that Lubezki is making a name for himself and almost adopting a trademark by using the technique of stitching scenes together and using long hand held shots in his work. Four of his films most notably use this kind of technique; Gravity, Children of Men, Birdman and most recently in 2015, The Revenant - where it is used several times, with the start of the film being one of my personal favourite scenes in his work. Lubezki's second Academy Award for Best Cinematography in the following year for his work on Alejandro González Iñárritu's Birdman. The technique previously described in the film Gravity was also used here to give the effect of one continuous take. His latest Academy Award for Iñárritu's The Revenant meant he was the first cinematographer to win three Academy Awards in a row. This film doesn't bring up any particularly revolutionary technique however, the film was shot entirely in snow-covered locations to avoid the use of CGI and only natural light was used as lighting to make way for authenticity, atmosphere and realism.



Emmanuel Lubezki