Cinematographers Pick Top Five, Will Oscar Votes Go the Same Way?

Deakins is nominated for the 13th time for the American Society of Cinematographers (ASC) Award, which he has won three times, for Sam Mendes’ “Skyfall” (2013), Frank Darabont’s “The Shawshank Redemption” (1995) and the Coen brothers’ “The Man Who Wasn’t There” (2002). His other nominations include the Coens’ “Fargo” (1997), “O Brother, Where Art Thou?” (2001), “No Country for Old Men” (2008) and “True Grit” (2011), Martin Scorsese’s  “Kundun” (1998), Andrew Dominik’s “The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford” (2008), Mendes’ “Revolutionary Road” (2009), Stephen Daldry’s “The Reader” (2009), and Denis Villeneuve’s “Prisoners” (2014). He won the ASC’s Lifetime Achievement Award in 2011. (Read: Bill Desowitz’s interview with him here. )

As expected, the nominees are:

Roger Deakins, ASC, BSC for Unbroken

Óscar Faura for The Imitation Game

Emmanuel Lubezki ASC, AMC for Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance)

Dick Pope, BSC for Mr. Turner

Robert D. Yeoman, ASC for The Grand Budapest Hotel

Deakins’ strongest competition comes from Lubezki, last year’s winner of both the ASC Award and the Oscar for “Gravity”; he also won for Terrence Malick’s “The Tree of Life” (2012) and Alfonso Cuaron’s “Children of Men” (2007), and was nominated in 2000 for Tim Burton’s “Sleepy Hollow.” (Read: Desowitz’s interview with Lubezki here.)

Pope previously earned a nomination for “The Illusionist” (2007). These are the first ASC nominations for Faura and Yeoman.

In a competitive year, the cinematographers in the running who did not land a nomination include Hoyt van Hoytema (“Interstellar”), Jeff Cronenweth (“Gone Girl”), Benoit Delhomme (“The Theory of Everything”), Robert Elswit (“Inherent Vice”), and Bradford Young (“Selma”). One of these could land an Oscar slot instead of Faura, but it’s unlikely. 

The winner will be revealed on February 15 during the annual ASC Awards gala at the Hyatt Regency Century Plaza in Los Angeles.