It’s a testament to the quality of his work and seemingly unparalleled knowledge in the field that a key part of the press tour for Sicario are interviews with cinematographer Roger Deakins. We recently had an extensive chat with him about the making of Denis Villeneuve‘s latest thriller and now today we have a few more conversations to share. Notably, the longest features a conversation with Dick Pope, the great cinematographer behind Mr. Turner and many Mike Leigh films.
When we talked to Deakins last week, he said, “I mean, we were certainly looking for shots that told the story without a lot of cutting. Again, going back to Jean-Pierre Melville. His action scenes were not really action scenes in the sense of a modern film where you cover a scene from a lot of objective angles and cut it together very fast. That’s kind of a device, really. I think the way, for instance, Denis had portrayed the action both in this film and in Prisoners was much more realistic in the sense that things happen very brutally fast — not always on screen, but when it happens, it’s there and gone. It’s like you’re left wondering, “Oh my God, what just happened? Did I see it? Did I miss it,” you know?”
Going more into his approach and his legendary career, check out the conversations below, with the first non-embeddable, so click the image.
What did you think of the conversations?
Sicario expands wide on Friday, October 2nd.