Janusz Kaminski

      Chances are if you’ve seen any of Steven Spielberg’s last few films then you’ve seen Janusz Kaminski’s work. He’s the Academy Award winning Director of Photography for films like “Schindler’s List” and “The Diving Bell & The Butterfly.” He’s fantastically talented and has produced a lot of inspired work over the years. More than likely you’ve got a great big boner for his work and think he’s just about the greatest thing to come along since Mumford & Sons and Urban Outfitters.

      I genuinely hate to rain on anybody’s boner parade but I’d like to prepare you for the fact that I’m about to step on your unwarranted Kaminski boner with my steel toed word boots.
It starts with this simple fact. You don’t know shit about cinematography. I’m sure there’s a moral highroad 3 miles back in a nice, silent little hamlet where everyone drives a Toyota Prius and the clergy even have a gay priest in one of their parishes and they would all be mortified at the precocity of my aggressive statement but I really don’t give a damn.
You think high contrast images with intense and improbable shadows are the work of a God. You think midday sun that shines with a more pigmented orange than an Oompa Loompa’s face is quite simply the most inspired piece of lighting in the last 25 years. I hope you have some napkins on hand if the man is bold enough to put a catch light in an actors eyes so you can see the deep brooding blue of his expressionless stare into oblivion, otherwise you’ve just spoiled that brand new pair of faded bootcut denims for no good reason.

      You have the aesthetic sensibilities of a raccoon pining for a piece of shiny scrap tin at the bottom of a hollowed out log. Your visual allegiance is dictated by the barometer of  academy awards season and you’ve all the artistic integrity of a pair of knock off thick frame Alan Ginsberg glasses.
He finished “Diving Bell & The Butterfly” and thought, “Eh, time for a break.” But the applause hasn’t stopped. What people are cheering for is the work of an over-funded, under-motivated, bored yet still talented director of photography.

“It was gorgeous.”
“It was beautiful.”
“It was amazing.”

      These adjectives are certainly positive but are they the appropriate ones for the story that was attempting to be told? The fact is that pretty pictures aren’t so difficult to create, but the appropriate images for the story and the proper visual language to set the necessary tones are. That’s something he hasn’t shown an ounce of interest in since 2007. The last time he gave a damn was a half-decade ago when people were just beginning to realize that Coldplay was the greatest thing ever. Now it’s 2012 and he’s shown absolutely no progression or interest in progression since then and people are finally realizing that Coldplay sucks.

      Munich wasn’t bad. Munich was pretty much par for the course and certainly showcased his vast expertise yet all of his films since have shared very similar visual motifs. High contrast film stocks with slightly overexposed negative that are then pulled down in processing to reduce grain then accented with DEEP shadows and smoke filled rooms and tangible shafts of light. His camera movement, when he works with Spielberg, is all dictated by Spielberg himself, beyond that it’s standard fare…..maybe even a bit below standard because they have been comedies; I can’t think of an easier way to collect a paycheck.

      Now with Lincoln set to come out mid-November it appears as though he hasn’t deviated from this course in the least little bit. Are the images bad? Certainly not, they are quite pretty from what the trailer indicates. It is, of course, just a trailer so it’s impossible to tell if he’s reckoned on the right tone or overall aesthetic for the film but a few things are almost certain. People will love it and praise it and make guttural noises when people mention it’s name, and it will get an Academy Award nomination.

      The same argument could be made for most other departments. Especially production design and costume design. Victorian films should always win because of how giant and beautiful and wonderful and intricate and detailed and rich and authentic and inspired and gorgeous and labor intensive they are by most peoples standards.
What is luxurious and excessive is not always appropriate. In America that doesn’t really concern us though. We have no concept of perspective and propriety with regard to supplemental material and departments in support of story. If any one element of the film speaks louder than the story itself then it has failed.

But nobody seems to get that.

      We just like pretty pictures that evoke surface emotions. We want the instant gratification that comes from being able to immediately identify something that looks good and to be able to feel the small, yet forgettable tingle that a pleasing picture has in the core of our stomachs. We can’t sit and wait and look for something more than that. And therein lies the appeal of Janusz Kaminski’s most recent work. It’s an episode of How I Met Your Mother, or a passage from a Tom Clancy novel. You don’t have to know anything to enjoy it……….and that’s exactly why you do.