MOVIES OF THE ‘80s : CINEMATOGRAPHY : NOIR, ENCORE

Cinematography is often taken for granted, probably never more so than now, at its current level of extraordinary technical facility. What would William Friedkin’s “To Live and Die in L.A.” be without Robby Mueller’s dynamic images or Brian De Palma’s “Body Double” without Stephen H. Burum’s giddy arabesques?

In a sense, camerawork, like music, isn’t supposed to call attention to itself, but consider how crucial it is for mood-setting and sheer aesthetic pleasure. Traditionally, comedy is light and bright--and that’s exactly the way cinematographers Thomas E. Ackerman and Jan De Bont shot “Back to School” and “Ruthless People”; while Victor Kemper made “Pee-wee’s Big Adventure” verge on the glary and garish. On the other hand, the criticism directed at Spielberg’s “The Color Purple,” photographed by Allen Daviau, often focused on the bright and cheery colors, more appropriate to their previous “E.T.” Romantic comedy calls for a certain warmth, and that’s the quality William Fraker gave “Murphy’s Romance.” Even richer was the glow Carlo di Palma brought to “Hannah and Her Sisters”; the actresses in that film never looked more natural--or more beautiful.

If there’s a trend in films it seems to be past naturalism toward expressive darkness (perhaps keyed by Gordon Willis.) A dramatic, fatalistic play of light and shadow was a crucial ingredient of the stylized film noir of the ‘40s and ‘50s, but in recent years advances in film stock and light-weight equipment permit directors and cameramen to work in the murkiest settings for life-like effects in color. Think of the darkness that symbolically engulfed Paul Newman as a Boston attorney struggling against himself and corruption in “The Verdict” (photographed by Andrzej Bartkowiak). Or New Orleans cop Clint Eastwood, in his struggles in “Tightrope” (Bruce Surtees). Or Geraldine Page, in “The Pope of Greenwich Village,” sitting in a dank and darkening apartment (John Bailey). Or William Hickey in “Prizzi’s Honor” (Bartkowiak again), a film that often seemed as pitch black as its humor.

Not surprisingly, a number of the “darker” Hollywood films have been shot by Europeans. Fair enough; the foreign cinemas have a tradition of a subtler use of color. Surely, there’s been few more glorious uses of it in recent years than in Akira Kurosawa’s “Ran.”

British cameraman are known for the clarity and purity of their color--as in David Watkins’ vistas in “Out of Africa”--but many of the recent intimate films have gone very dark, too. Think of “Dance With a Stranger,” “My Beautiful Laundrette,” “Letter From Brezhnev” or, most recently, “Mona Lisa.”

Old and new in camera styles come triumphantly together in Alan Rudolph’s “Choose Me” and “Trouble in Mind.” Rudolph has captured the aesthetic sensibility of the ‘80s--cool, bemused, nostalgic. In both he and his cameramen--Jan Kiesser on “Choose Me,” Toyomichi Kurita on “Trouble in Mind”--have created a distinctive, slightly absurdist and surreal world that combines the deliberate artificiality of film noir with a bewitching naturalism.

Today’s cinematography has a consistently high standard of quality. Now, if only more movies were as well-directed, well-written and well-acted as they are photographed. . . .