criterionforum.org

Turhan Bey.

Sammi Kane Kraft, only 20 years old.

Harris Savides.

Awful, terrible news. He leaves behind such an impressive body of work, most obviously Birth and Zodiac. I'm also very fond of his work on Margot at the Wedding.

His work on Milk was phenomenal as well, and the perfect fit for that film. He really had an eye for matching a visual style with the material, rather than just sort of bringing his own constant stamp to each and trying to get the material to fit into that box. Amazing cinematographer, sad loss.

Zodiac was the first movie to convince me that digital could look just as beautiful as film

A terrible shock and a huge loss to the international film community. Birth, Zodiac, Margot, sure. But for me it's all about Gerry, Last Days and Elephant. Van Sant will never find another collaborator like him.

A massive loss for the cinema. His recent work was just as strong - Greenberg, Somewhere... The only thing he did in the last decade that I wasn't really taken with was American Gangster which still looked fantastic, just a bit more slick I'm assuming due to Ridley Scott's influence.

He did a nice job on Whatever Works, too. And while Restless wasn't great, his work on it was gorgeous - I said this elsewhere on the forum but I don't believe the pacific northwest has ever looked better than it does in that movie. And 55 is just too young. Very sad.

Terrible. I was automatically interested in any movie he shot, even if it had nothing else to recommend it.

Matt wrote:Terrible. I was automatically interested in any movie he shot, even if it had nothing else to recommend it.

I'll second those sentiments. He shot many of my favorite movies in the past decade.

Not to mention the varied cinematography he did for music videos directed by Michel Gondry (Like A Rolling Stone) and Mark Romanek (Scream, Criminal and the utterly gorgeous looking videos for Madonna's Bedtime Story and Rain).

And how could I forget Closer!

Scorsese's pretty fun commercial The Key to Reserva is also fantastically shot illustrating his variety of style pretty well.

Andre Jurieu wrote:

Matt wrote:Terrible. I was automatically interested in any movie he shot, even if it had nothing else to recommend it.

I'll second those sentiments. He shot many of my favorite movies in the past decade.

Thirded, I'll never forget the shot in Elephant

Spoiler

where the shooting commences and the character we've been following for a significant time is killed out-of-focus in the background.

colinr0380 wrote:Not to mention the varied cinematography he did for music videos directed by Michel Gondry (Like A Rolling Stone) ...

How did I not know that? That's one of my favorite videos.

Andre Jurieu wrote:

Matt wrote:I was automatically interested in any movie he shot, even if it had nothing else to recommend it.

He shot many of my favorite movies in the past decade.

Agreed on both counts. He was easily my favorite working cinematographer, with his work often being the most interesting thing about even films that were very good in general. Just an incalculable loss. By all accounts, he was an incredibly nice guy too. Despite the fact that he had apparently been quietly battling cancer for some time, he managed to shoot Sofia Coppola's upcoming The Bling Ring earlier this year.

Damn, I was just admiring The Game for its look as much as anything else like three days ago- I really wish Criterion had gotten a new interview or something with Savides before it was too late.

matrixschmatrix wrote:I really wish Criterion had gotten a new interview or something with Savides before it was too late.

I just rewatched his trip to the Criterion Closet. He talks about some of the films in the collection that influenced him, and his comments regarding Yi Yi are particularly poignant today.

I'm even surprised he fit in the Criterion closet...

manicsounds wrote:As for Harris Savides, watching the making-of (on "Somewhere"), that man needs to lose some serious serious serious weight! Watching him getting in the car to do a car shot, it looked like he barely fit inside that thing. If he doesn't lose about 300 pounds, he's not going to be lensing movies much longer....

manicsounds = Jeffrey Wells? Who knew?
Here's an interview with Savides that I quite enjoy.

Yikes, manicsounds. Yikes.

Hey, I was concerned about his health for quite sometime. Very sad that he passed on.

(Sorry, I had to search who Jeffrey Wells was...)

Just to be clear, Savides' wife has said that he died from brain cancer.

In other news, Hong Kong screenwriter Szeto Kam-yuen has died from lung cancer at 48 -- no English sources for this yet. He was an early member of the Milkyway team and co-wrote some of the company's best early output (Too Many Ways to Be No. 1, Expect the Unexpected, A Hero Never Dies, The Longest Nite), and later returned for Exiled. He also worked on nearly all of Soi Cheang's films to date, along with Wilson Yip's S.P.L./Kill Zone and Flash Point.

Gary Collins.