Wally Pfister Takes Cinematography Top Honors from the ASC for 'Inception'
Deakins has got to still be the Oscar front-runner
Well now here is a shocker, not because his work wasn't commendable, but because I pretty much thought Roger Deakins (True Grit) had this one in the bag. The American Society of Cinematographers held the 25th annual American Society of Cinematographers Outstanding Achievement Awards tonight and Inception director of photography Wally Pfister took home top honors beating out the likes of Deakins, Matthew Libatique (Black Swan), Danny Cohen (The King's Speech) and Jeff Cronenweth (The Social Network).
Pfister's nomination for Inception with the ASC was his third from the group after being nominated for both The Dark Knight and Batman Begins, but this was his first win. He is also nominated for an Oscar for his work on Inception and has been nominated three times prior, all for films with director Christopher Nolan including The Dark Knight, The Prestige and Batman Begins, but he didn't win the Oscar for any of them.
Pfister will face off against all four men again at the Oscars and faces a formidable foe in Deakins, a nine time Oscar nominee who's lost the eight times prior and many believe (myself included) his work on True Grit is going to be the one to end the streak. However, is it now possible Pfister may pull off the upset?
Before you answer that question, just know that in the 24 years the ASC has been handing out this award only nine times has it matched up with the Academy. So while I am sure Inception fans are excited tonight don't get ahead of yourselves. Last year it was Christian Berger (The White Ribbon) winning with the ASC while Mauro Fiore won the Oscar for Avatar.
Additionally, Deakins was awarded the ASC Lifetime Achievement Award from Joel Coen tonight. While accepting the award Deakins was quoted saying, "I'm not about to retire. I love cinematography as much as I ever have."
For those of you keeping score, I have already updated the Oscar Overture with Pfister's win and the next group we can look forward to handing out their honors is the American Cinema Editors on February 19th. Stay tuned.
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I think maybe Pfister's win here makes it more certain that Deakins will win the Oscar. I say this because:
(1) Deakins won an honourary award at ASC, so they may have been inclined to give the main award to Pfister;
(2) They might (maybe) want to honor both men – by giving Deakins the Oscar and Pfister the ASC. I think this is possible because a large portion of the academy members who vote for best cinematography are likely to be ASC members (not so?). This may also explain why there is seldom a match between Oscar and ASC. Of course, the complete opposite may be true.
Personally, I want a movie with beautiful cinematography to win (ie True Grit) rather than "big" cinematography (like Avatar, or Inception).
Black Swan should have won this.
Well, Deakins has already won the ASC twice, so he wasn't overdue there.
Yes Black Swan has a very terrific an innovative camera.
my money's on Deakins at the Oscars….Pfister done a great job on Inception though
Interesting, but I'd probably agree with Emilio that they wanted to honor someone else because they were already honoring Deakins with the lifetime award. This is probably the only Oscar True Grit stands a chance of winning, and I can't see a film that was so well received going 0-for-10. Of course maybe there's a notion among the technical guilds that they need to be the ones to honor Inception since it's getting shafted by directors, writers, and the Academy as a whole in terms of Best Picture.
Regardless, that still you posted there Brad, is stunning.
Both Deakins and Pfister were stellar!