Articulo_10_EN_Doxa_31_Study_on_the_cinematographic

1. Introduction

Cinema has become an effective communication instrument since its origins at the end of the 19th century. At first, the function of moving images and its influence on education and literacy in society was studied. The Russian formalist school had already researched human beings’ visual perception and how it would no longer be necessary to understand written or spoken language. Consequently, cinema’s messages were guaranteed to be understood (Romaguera and Alsina, 1989). Cinema can be considered as the seventh art as it is an expressive and emotive medium. The spectator forms the last link in the cinematographic story, which occurs when the consumer receives the story (Guerín, 2004).

Consequently, the audience’s subjectivity is one of the essential elements in a film and is influenced by a film’s cinematography. Therefore, this research analyses expressive features in the cinematic composition of images: framing, light, and colour. We have studied the director of photography Roger Deakin’s work, focusing on his feature films: Fargo (Joel Coen, 1996), The Man Who Wasn’t There (Joel and Ethan Coen, 2001), Sicario (Denis Villeneuve, 2015), and Blade Runner 2049 (Denis Villeneuve, 2017) to demonstrate their communicative and expressive facets.

The study of the selected works will make it possible to understand Deakins’ work, its expressive function, and identify features that characterise it. We are inclined to think that he does have a personal style, which we will verify throughout the following paper. In one of his interviews, he questions whether he has his own creative style and states that he hopes to have a style that adapts to each project.

1.1. Photography direction in cinema: a technical-creative process

A film’s photography is one of the essential features in the Seventh Art. It constructs the image of the film and marks its identity and aesthetics. However, this aspect is still one of the least known in a film. Thus, we decided to study a director of photography’s work to evaluate the techniques he uses and present cinema as an expressive and communicative medium that enables emotions to be conveyed through the composition of images. Despite being one of the most significant cinematography aspects, this creative-technical process is still not widely known and is rarely recognised in the cinema profession. Nowadays, film photography is becoming more relevant. For instance, after awarding this category during the advertising break in the XCI Edition of the Oscar Awards, the Mexicans Guillermo del Toro and Alfonso Cuarón spoke out in defense of photography- The former considered photography direction as a representation of cinema itself, “I do not

of his works: Fargo, The Man Who Wasn’t There, Sicario, and Blade Runner 2049. We also consider whether the cameraman has a defined style. At the same time, we intend to highlight the director of photography professional as the figure in charge of constructing the film narrative frame.

Keywords:

Roger Deakins; director of photography; lighting; colour; frame.

gación analiza el trabajo de composición cinematográfica de Roger Deakins en cuatro de sus obras: Fargo, El hombre que nunca estuvo allí, Sicario y Blade Runner 2049. Asimismo, planteamos también si el camarógrafo tiene un estilo definido. Paralelamente, pretende-mos poner en relieve el oficio del director de fotografía, como figura encargada de la construcción del cuadro del relato fílmico.

Palabras clave:

Roger Deakins; director de fotografía; luz-iluminación; color; en-cuadre.