While I kneel at the altar of Deakins' work on both NO COUNTRY and JESSE JAMES, I think you're completely off the mark about Kaminski's work on DIVING BELL. I think it's the most beautifully shot film of the year and the look and the style is completely appropriate to the subject matter. That you can't appreciate Kaminksi's work in general, shows a deficit in your appreciation for classy cinema. I won't shed any tears if Deakins wins for NO COUNTRY (much preferred it to JESSE JAMES), but Kaminski's use of camera is sublime and in my opinion is the deserved winner. Where's Darius Wolksi's nom for SWEENEY TODD?

Deakins should win for Jesse James...hands down.

Here's my top 5 for the year:

Deakins, Jesse James
Deakins, No Country
Elswit, There Will Be Blood
Kaminski, Diving Bell
McGarvey, Atonement (that 6 minute tracking shot...)

Runners up:

Gautier, Into the Wild
Savides, Zodiac/Gangster
Wolski, Sweeney Todd/Pirates 3

"there are legions of milky-white-light haters out there"

First of all, it would help if you could actually articulate what you're talking about in any kind of technical sense. Second, no there aren't.

Uh oh. The famous, non-sensical "split vote" --just as Jef worried this would take out Soderbergh, it actually increased his odds as it will for Deakins. Move along.

Lachman or Savides, please.

I was fortunate enough to meet with Seamus McGarvey a number of years ago and we had a good ole laugh at what he called the sunsets and waterfalls school of cinematography... or more accurately, what he referred to as what audiences think cinematography is. The vast majority of us think it is nice framing and colors and pretty pictures. When really, it is manipulating or at least, controlling light. And the most difficult thing to do is when you are outside filming in naturual light and all you have is a silk to stop the frame from glaring. Of course, it is also about making the star look as appealing as possible (if that's what the director wants). I sincerely doubt that McGarvey is alone in his estimation. The Academy gives the Oscars to pretty pictures or pictures that have a lot of momentun behind them (Titanic wasn't really best cinematogaphy ... it was most lights). I am with most other people here on the blog:
In that way, McGarvey's work on Atonement is brilliant... where were the lights on that tracking shot... nowhere.
And Jeff. You are an utter moron speaking about Kaminski like that. You are revealing more about yourself and your myopic understanding of cinematography than you are revealing about Kaminski. He is a master. Period. He paints with light and he happens to have found himself a signature... like Renoir and Monet did with the Impressionists. Every master has their own signaure. Rembrandt and the Dutch Masters went very dark for the Northern Renaissance.
Of course the great thing now for DoPs is the whole new territory of post... but that does not make it any easier. It just adds to the dictionary.

I wasn't going to take the bait on this one, but it's too easy. Judging by the nominations, it turns out there are legions of Kaminski admirers out there (milky-white-light lovers or no) who actually photograph movies for a living and therefore know a great deal more on the subject than you do.

"First of all, it would help if you could actually articulate what you're talking about in any kind of technical sense. Second, no there aren't."

Uh, yeah there are. He and Jett.

Clearly, Jeff is a better judge of cinematography than cinematographers. But seriously, I've been a Robert Elswit fantatic forever and it's really great to see him getting some recognition in the last couple years. Still, I'm torn. I think TWBB is the best film of 2007, but Roger Deakins' work in BOTH No Country and Assasination is even more eye-popping than Elswit's. Of course, the other issue -- which gives Elswit the edge in terms of sheer accomplishment, not in terms of likelihood of winning -- is PTA's decision not to let Elswit use DI or any significant digital tampering in post-production on TWBB. Deakins, on the other hand, was one of the earliest proponents of DI and, while this obvioulsy yields beautiful results in the right hands, I feel this diminishes the DP's real accomplishment in a sense. Anyway, you can read an interesitng article about this aspect of TWBB at http://tinyurl.com/ytnoh5 .

No matter how many times he iterates the contrary, Jeff knows ZERO about the art of cinematography. He makes that more apparent every day.

Digital color-timing is not digital tampering. Traditional chemical color-timing is incredibly imperfect. It can sometimes take multiple passes to arrive at an accepted answer print. Meanwhile, that's your negative that keeps getting put through the process over and over putting it in harm's way.

With DI you have a much greater ability to control the final product. I can't imagine bothering with a chemical-time at this point. And most uses don't do anything too significant -- it's still mostly general tone adjustments.

I find this Atonement-Hillary Clinton parallel remarkably interesting. Both of them have done absolutely nothing wrong (and in other years, would essentially be guaranteed victories), but this year their is something in the air-something that makes the typical choice unplalletable-in so much to cause a backlash to such a large extent. But will it eventually cause voters to step back and choose the reliable choice? Who knows?

(And personally, I'm an Edwards/Jesse James man, myself, so I couldn't care less.)

(I should've spell checked that one, whoops.)

I find this Atonement-Hillary Clinton parallel remarkably interesting. Both of them have done absolutely nothing wrong (and in other years, would essentially be guaranteed victories), but this year there is something in the air -something that makes the typical choice unpalatable - in so much to cause a backlash to such a large extent. But will it eventually cause voters to step back and choose the reliable choice? Who knows?

(And personally, I'm an Edwards/Jesse James man, myself, so I couldn't care less.)

Lost in the shuffle is that neither Deakins nor Elswit, despite their impressive resumes, has never won an Oscar, yet another example of the irrelevance of these awards.

Make that . . . has ever.

If there were an award for best cinematography - single scene, I would say that 'Jesse James' takes it for the train...

But the cinematography in 'No Country' is actually vitally important to the storytelling. It's rare that cinematography is used to that extent. Deakins deserves it for this.

That said, it should be noted that, in the Oscars, Cinematography is almost always regarded as a technical category, not an artistic one. I had been expecting 'Sweeney Todd' to be the big technical movie this year, but now that I've seen 'Blood', I think it could wind up pulling several of those art direction awards, and might take cinematography. It depends who gets nominated -- whichever movie gets nominated for the most technical awards almost always wins Cinematography. This is why 'Pan's Labyrinth' won last year over 'Children of Men'.

At first I thought it was T. Holly, not T.S. Idiot, correcting for clarity, and I nearly choked on a piece of chicken at the irony.

The problem with Atonement is that in any other year, its narrative trick would make it stand out from much of the other Academy fodder. Unfortunately there are some really mindblowing films that are also contending, and so by comparison it seems rather tame.

But Deakins really needs to win, and for Jesse James. It would probably be the most deserved award of the night, no? Second to Daniel Day-Lewis then?

And Sean, I don't necessarily think that's true. Philipe Rousselot for A River Runs Through It, Conrad Hall for American Beauty and The Road to Perdition (over Gangs and Chicago with more tech noms), John Toll for Legends of the Fall.

I think that often cinematography is won in the midst of a sweep by epic films more often than what you're claiming.

Atonement's 'narrative trick' isn't really much of a trick. I mean, correct me if I'm wrong, but it only applies to a single scene and that epilogue sequence, right?

Well yes, but it makes you reconsider about half of what you've just been watching. It's still gimmicky, and it's still a trick.

Deakins' work this year has been fantastic, and he undoubtedly deserves to win for Assassination of Jesse James, which for me was the just beautiful. (Although I could see him winning for No Country if that film gets swept up in a whirl wind of Academy love.)

How come everyone, including Wells, mentions Deakins' dynamic duo, but everyone, including Wells, neglects to mention that Elswit also filmed the Oscar-worthy "Michael Clayton"? The "Clayton" work isn't as breathtaking as the other three, but I think the movie might grab several nominations, pulling Elswit's work along with them.

Wells will probably pull his hair out if that happens. But if everyone in the Academy can vote on cinematography nominations (I think that's the rule, right?), it seems just as likely that Elswit will grab two cinematography nominations as it does that Deakins will.

Discman: Only members of the Cinematographers branch vote on cinematography nominations. Everyone in the Academy then votes on the final winner. Most categories are done this way, with a few exceptions.

laz - Conrad Hall is the exception; he was the only -- or last -- cinematographer in Hollywood who was recognized as an artist.

Beyond that, you have to reach back 15 years, which hardly disproves the obvious current trend*. They used to spread out the technical awards between three or four movies; it would be a big story if one movie won them all, and usually mean that the movie was on its way to Best Picture (which still happens sometimes, obviously). In recent years, this has clearly changed, where you tend to have one movie taking most -- sometimes all -- of the small technical awards, which usually include Cinematography. [I'm just glad that 'Editing' seems to be considered creative.]

A lot of people didn't believe me last year, and, though I wound up losing my Oscar pool, I made up for it with side bets on cinematography.

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* = also, look through 1994. 'Forrest Gump' was the movie which got the most technical nominations, and won all of the "creative" awards it was up for (except for Sinise)... but lost Cinematography, and almost all of the other technical awards it was up for (except for Visual Effects). And 'Unforgiven' lost any technical award it was up for, but won every creative award (except for Eastwood's performance).