A Conversation with Roger Deakins

Roger Deakins, ASC, BSC is the recipient of the American Society of Cinematographers 2011 Lifetime Achievement Award in recognition of his still evolving body of work. Deakins has earned Academy Award nominations for The Shawshank Redemption (1994), Fargo (1996), Kundun (1997), O Brother, Where Art Thou? (2000), The Man Who Wasn’t There (2001), The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford (2007), No Country for Old Men (2007) and The Reader (shared with Chris Menges, BSC, 2008). He has also won ASC Outstanding Achievement Awards for The Shawshank Redemption and The Man Who Wasn’t There, along with seven other nominations.

The presentation will be made during the 25th Annual ASC Outstanding Achievement Awards celebration at the Hyatt Regency Century Plaza Hotel in Hollywood in February.

"The Lifetime Achievement Award is a reflection of the impact that a cinematographer has made on the art of filmmaking rather than the capping of a career," says ASC president Michael Goi. "It is our way of acknowledging a true artist in his prime. Roger Deakins raises the artistic profile of our profession with every movie and he will continue to do so for many years."

"I had mixed emotions when I was told about this recognition," Deakins says. "To be honest, I am flattered, but I also feel like I am only just getting started. I'm enjoying what I do more than I ever have and there seems to be so much more I want to do. I feel like I'm getting this award about halfway through my career. It is great to realize that my colleagues watch my work and get something out of it."

ASC awards committee chairman Richard Crudo says, "Roger Deakins overcame formidable obstacles during the dawn of his career and went on to help create some of the most memorable films of our times. Roger has inspired young and older filmmakers to pursue what sometimes seems like impossible dreams."

Here, then, a conversation with Roger Deakins:

Digital Cinema Report: Where were you born and raised?

Roger Deakins: I was born and raised in Torquay—a small fishing and seaside holiday town on the coast of Devon, England. It was a great place for a kid to grow up.

DCR: Were you interested in photography or movies during your youth?

RD: I was crazy about movies. My brother and I would walk three to four miles, sometimes in the rain, to see films. I joined a local film society, but never thought about filmmaking as a career at that point in my life. My mother was an actress before the war. I suspect it was her passion for painting, which inspired me to explore a visual form of expression.

DCR: Where did you go to school and what did you study?

RD: I enrolled at the Bath Academy of Art as a graphic arts major. That’s where I discovered photography. I would go off for weeks at a time taking still pictures and spent my nights in the college darkroom when everybody else was asleep. I applied to the National Film School in London the year it opened, but was turned away. I spent the next year working as a still photographer documenting life in rural Devon, and was then accepted at the National Film School in its second year. I shot around 15 dramatic and documentary films, either of my own or for other students, during my three years at the school.

DCR: What did you do after graduation?

RD: I wanted to make documentaries like the ones produced and directed by Frederick Wiseman, Ricky Leacock and D.A. Pennebaker. One of my first jobs was shooting an around-the-world yacht race that lasted for nine months. I was director/cameraman but also part of the crew. It ended up being a two-hour film that was as much about the crew – and how they got along with each other (or didn’t) while living in a confined space under extreme conditions – as it was about the hazards or the romance of ocean racing.

DCR: Did that lead to other opportunities?

RD: The same television channel that sponsored that project sent me and a journalist to cover the liberation war in Eritrea, which was at the time a northern province of Ethiopia, for three months. It was an amazing experience. We focused on a village called Zager that was being held by the Eritrean People’s Liberation Front and under constant threat from the Ethiopian regular army. After that I worked on a variety of documentary films for about seven years.

DCR: When and how did you get an opportunity to shoot a narrative film?

RD: I started by shooting television drama but it was Another Time, Another Place for Channel 4 (in England) in 1983 that was my first feature. Michael Radford, whom I met in film school, was the director. The following year, we collaborated on 1984, which was based on George Orwell’s book. John Hurt and Richard Burton were in the cast.

DCR: What was the first film that you shot in the United States?

RD: We shot part of Sid and Nancy in New York (1986), but The Long Walk Home (1990) was the first film on which I worked that was shot entirely in the U.S.

DCR: You recently shot True Grit. That was your 11th collaboration on a film that was written and directed by Ethan and Joel Coen. When and how did you connect with them?

RD: I was very lucky there. Barry Sonnenfeld, who had been shooting their films before we met, was moving on to directing. Ethan and Joel had seen some of my work, I think Sid and Nancy, Stormy Monday and 1984, and they contacted me. The first film I photographed for them was Barton Fink (1991).

DCR: You earned your first Oscar nomination and took top honors in the ASC Outstanding Achievement Awards competition for The Shawshank Redemption in 1995. It was an amazingly realistic and emotional movie that focused on the relationship between two men in jail. Morgan Freeman got an Oscar nomination for portraying one of the main characters. Do your experiences filming documentaries influence how you shoot films like that?

RD: Every experience you have in life, including the films you work on, affects how you approach your next projects.

DCR: Do you envision images when you read a script for the first time?

RD: The first time I read a script, I don’t think about photography or the way I could make it look. I’m more interested in what the story has to say, what emotional effect it has on me, and how I relate to its characters. Once I have a feel for the story and its characters, I read the script again and only then do I consider its visual possibilities.

DCR: You made a bit of history when you shot O Brother, Where Art Thou? with the Coen brothers in 2002. It was among the first films where a cinematographer used digital intermediate post-production technology. Can you tell us about that?

RD: Before I read the script, Joel and Ethan told me that the story was set in a southern state during the summer. They envisioned a dry, dusty, very hot look as the right background for the story. About half of the picture was exteriors. I had shot films during summers in that region before, so I knew it would be wet and that any foliage would be a lush green. The digital intermediary process was completely in its infancy, but it was the only way we could see to de-saturate the green tones and make them brown and yellow.

DCR: Do movies play a role in our lives other than pure entertainment?

RD: I don't think there's anything wrong with entertainment, definitely not, but it can be more interesting when films also provoke and make you think about something that isn’t purely an escape. I like to go to a cinema and feel I'm looking into another world like when I look at a painting or photograph. I love films from the ‘60s and ‘70s like The Wild Bunch, Dr. Strangelove, Fat City and Army of Shadows, because they have such a breadth and variety. Those were films that sent us home thinking as well as having been entertained. I often watch classic films for inspiration. I watched L’avventura directed by (Michelangelo) Antonioni, and Rocco and his Brothers directed by (Luchino) Visconti, just the other night. It’s like visiting old friends.

DCR: If you could go back in time and work with any director, who would it be?

RD: John Houston, Kurosawa, Mizoguchi, Melville, Tarkovsky—there are so many.

DCR: How do you reply when young cinematographers ask for advice?

RD: When young filmmakers ask for advice, which they do all the time, I tell them to stick to what they feel is right. The most important thing to know is what you want, not necessarily the technique required for getting there. I tell them never to try to copy somebody else, but to find and nurture their own way of doing things. Every individual is unique in some way.

Roger Deakins photo by Douglas Kirkland