A masterpiece of cinematography.

In his enthralling thriller of 1948 Rope, Alfred Hitchcock used the ‘One Take’ artifice to add spice to a story of two psychopaths who murder a friend for fun. A perfect John Dall leads a cast with Jimmy Stewart and Farley Granger in what purports to be a movie shot in one take. In practice a roll of movie film ran some 12-15 minutes back then and Hitch cleverly changes reels by zooming in on the back of one of the participants, freezes the frame, and inserts a new roll in the camera. It’s pretty seamless and coaxes the actors into stage quality performances as there can be no retakes.

British cinematographer Roger Deakins had no such constraints in the making of the 2019 classic 1917 whose two hour length is also shot in one take. And the result is positively hypnotic. Deakins is no stranger to readers of this journal and for an extensive survey of his work you should go here. After a multi-year Oscar drought – what are those Academy members thinking of? – Roger has now garnered two Oscars in as many years for his camera work, and looking at 1917 it’s hard to see how anything could compete. Here’s to many more Oscars for the master.

Roger Deakins. The master at work.