Best Cinematography – 1980

Official Nominations: Tess. The Blue Lagoon. The Coal Miner’s Daughter. The Formula. Raging Bull

Another instance of a fairly hefty snub. We all know Raging Bull should be winning this one, by some distance. Tess looks great, The Blue Lagoon actually doesn’t look that great especially in retrospect, and The Coal Miner’s Daughter is more a case of the movie needing to be nominated because it’s also in the bigger categories. The Formula is a long forgotten John G Avildsen movie which also features John Gielgud, George C Scott, and Marlon Brando. It’s not great, but with that list of names you have to give it a go. It looks fine, doesn’t need to be nominated, hasn’t a chance to win, and look at the films which were missed.

My Winner: Raging Bull

My Nominations: Raging Bull. The Empire Strikes Back. Altered States. The Big Red One. The Elephant Man. The Fog. Heaven’s Gate. Inferno. Kagemusha. The Shining.

What a banging list, all worthy, but only one an Official Nominee. I still think Raging Bull wins this so it’s of no consequence, but some of these come close and have stood the test of time. Altered States sees Russell and Jordan Cronenweth pulling out all the stops as reality blurs, while The Empire Strikes Back is arguably the best looking, best shot Star Wars movie. Adam Greenberg – known for his moody sci-fi work – cut his teeth in the big time many years into his career on The Big Red One, a downbeat grizzled war movie. The Elephant Man not getting a nomination is ridiculous, Heaven’s Gate was so destroyed critically and commercially that it was never going to get nominated (even though time has shown it to be a gorgeous movie), and Kagemusha deserved a nomination given the Western Producing influence (beyond the quality of the movie). My final three picks fall to the Horror genre – Inferno isn’t quite on the level of Suspiria but it’s only a slight notch down, The Shining is cold, distant, spacious and claustrophobic, and The Fog is one of the most underrated Horror movies in terms of how it looks, which is unfortunate because it nails the look of a campfire ghost story better than anything else I’ve ever seen.

My Winner: Raging Bull.

Let us know your winner in the comments!