Hollywood Elsewhere’s least favorite cinematographer of all time is Bradford Young, a guy who seemingly lives for murky, muddy, under-lighted images (A Most Violent Year, Where Is Kyra?, Arrival), seemingly shot through some kind of muslin scrim.
And I’m saying this as a devoted fan of Gordon Willis, the “prince of darkness” who peaked in the ’70s, ’80s and ’90s. The difference is that Willis’s dark images have always been interesting and Young’s never have been. Young’s cinematography is about being at the bottom of a pond and half-covered in silt.
My first reaction to the new trailer for HBO’s Scenes From A Marriage miniseries (9.12.21) was “did Young shoot this?” And the answer was “no” — it was shot by Andrij Parekh, but clearly in a manner that apes the Young aesthetic, using some sort of natural light or muslin-scrim filter. One look at Parekh’s visual scheme and you’re thinking “oh, no…”