ces petits riens

Sven Nykvist with Andreij Tarkovskij

There's a whole shebang of people to be credited for the effort of creating a feature film; there are producers, executive producers, screenwriters, editors, cinematographers and costume designers and pretty much a list that goes on from there. I admit to sometimes neglecting this fact when watching the Globes or the Academy Awards on television, wishing there was a fast-forward function to jump ahead, past awardings in categories such as Best Achievement in Sound Editing, straight 'til the far more suspensful and exciting moments of made-up-for-the-camera smiles for fellow contenders and larger than life speeches  in the actor categories. Yet, it's wonderul that these more anonymous contributors of a film are publically acknowledged, by and in front of their peers in such grand-scale at the most prestigious of functions imaginable.

Gone are the olden days when studio executives and producers such as the likes of Jack L Warner, Samuel Goldwyn and David O Selznick would end up with most of the credit for a film. Today, partly due to the effort made by the auteurs (directors) of the French Nouvelle Vague (Francois Truffaut, Jean-Luc Godard, Claude Chabrol, Alain Resnais et alia) in reclaiming this aforementioned credit, focus is to a much greater extent on the film director who serves as a creative leader, executing his entire vision into what is seen on the screen and thus making the magic happen. As such, late director Ingmar Bergman was a visionnaire of his very own kind, often ahead of his time in terms of the depth displayed in themes and writing.

One of  the great achievments of Bergman's films lies in their quality of being a visual treat for the eye. For this, much credit is due Bergman's cinematographer and friend Sven Nykvist who had an unique sense of natural lighting, using it masterfully to create ambience and enchancing sentiments of characters. He remains one of the most succesful cinematographers in film history and is a part of very small group of cinematographers who have been able to make a true mark for themselves that stretches far beyond the admiration of just the industry. Other notables include cinematographers Lazlo Kovacs (who worked on the American New Wave) and Wong Kar Wai's recurring team member, Christopher Doyle.

Nykvist achieved not only one but two Academy Awards for his work in Bergman's Cries and Whispers and Fanny & Alexander. Notably he also worked with other maîtres of the cinema such as Woody Allen, Michelangelo Antonioni and Andreij Tarkovskij.


Sven Nykvist with Woody Allen