They Get the Picture

Four of the five were born outside America. Several share a past in documentary filmmaking. And each is quietly insistent on sharing credit with his crew and director.

But this year’s Oscar-nominated cinematographers could not be more different in their subjects, from the bitter white snowscapes that envelop the residents of “Fargo” to the sun-baked orange desert of 1930s Egypt in “The English Patient” (the location in fact was Tunisia, filmed in chilly winter). Meet the five men who, in the words of the academy, turned simple words on a script page into visions of light.

ROGER DEAKINS, ‘FARGO’

Like the desperate kidnappers in the Coen brothers’ black comedy, Deakins--a soft-spoken native of Torquay, England--knows how easily plans can go awry. Both “Fargo” and his latest project, Martin Scorsese’s Dalai Lama biography “Kundun,” filmed in Morocco, depended on landscapes of snow. In both cases, nature had other ideas.

“During the whole period we shot on ‘Fargo,’ it snowed for just a couple of days” on the Minnesota location, recalls Deakins, 48. “We had to keep moving north, till we were five miles from the Canadian border. A lot of snow in the film is created.”

For his third teaming with the brothers Coen, Deakins took an approach far different from its predecessors. “ ‘Barton Fink’ and ‘The Hudsucker Proxy’ were very stylized, almost pastiches of other films, but ‘Fargo’ we deliberately wanted to set in a reality, with a very simple style.

“We did change one thing: We said we’d shoot it in an observational way; we didn’t think we’d move the camera. That went right out the window with the second shot we did, a long tracking shot! But I think we were faithful to the concept.”

A former Oscar nominee for “The Shawshank Redemption,” Deakins says he avoids big-budget projects in favor of “scripts about human beings,” like the $7-million “Fargo.” But one major studio film, “Courage Under Fire,” did give special pleasure.

“What was interesting was the juxtaposition of quiet, emotional scenes with the violent flashbacks of war. It was exciting to do, because visually, it was three different styles: helicopter scenes with Meg Ryan, the [Desert Storm] tank scenes with Denzel [Washington], then the contemporary drama.”

CALEB DESCHANEL, ‘FLY AWAY HOME’

The teaming of Deschanel and “Fly Away Home” director Carroll Ballard dates back nearly three decades, to a series of educational films. But their signature partnership came with 1979’s “The Black Stallion,” a story that, like “Fly Away Home,” is told through poetic images of a child and animals, free in nature.

“Carroll’s best storytelling comes from what he puts in between the lines of a simple story,” says the 52-year-old Philadelphia native, a past nominee for “The Right Stuff” and “The Natural.” “You understand the characters because of what they’re seeing.

“I think all films have to have some sort of mystery to them or they’re not very interesting. That’s what appeals to me when I read scripts.”

In 1963, a single image, now hanging in his office, drew Deschanel to his work: a Life magazine photo of Stanley Kubrick holding a still camera. (Deschanel has also emulated Kubrick by juggling camera work and directing, helming films like “Crusoe” and TV shows like “Twin Peaks.”)

He is particularly pleased to be nominated this year for a non-period film (a type he says is often overlooked in the voting). Among his favorite work in “Fly Away Home”: the title sequence, with a car crash from the point of view of the young heroine, an idea he credits to Ballard.

As for its co-starring geese, “the hardest thing was just getting looks on their faces--they won’t turn to look at sounds like a dog would. Also, you have to watch where you step a little more than with other animals.”

DARIUS KHONDJI, ‘EVITA’

“What convinced me to do it was [director] Alan Parker telling me he didn’t want to do a nice, beautiful musical,” recalls first-time nominee Khondji, 42. “He wanted to make it like a political statement--gritty, sometimes dark, [with] not too much glamour but glamour where it was needed.”

The key adjective may be “dark.” With “Evita,” “Seven” and “Delicatessen,” Khondji, who was born in Tehran and raised in France, has proven himself a master of chiaroscuro lighting. In those films, and the upcoming “Alien Resurrection,” Khondji has employed the Technicolor system ENR, in which silver is added to the film during processing. The result is greater contrast, with blacker blacks and brighter light tones.

“It brings me closer to black and white, which I love. Orson Welles said using black and white was like putting a magnifying glass on actors. It increases sharpness; color diminishes that.” (Not surprisingly, Khondji cites “Citizen Kane” cameraman Gregg Toland as a key inspiration.)

On “Evita,” Khondji admits he and director Parker worried early on about scenes in which Madonna would play Eva Peron as a teenager. But “we slowly shifted from thinking she had to look extremely young to the idea that it was a stylized piece. I softened the lighting a bit, but I didn’t have to alter it much for her; she was so strong as Evita. I just had to follow her, like a knight following Joan of Arc.”

Khondji and Parker used storyboards only for the funeral sequence; as a result, “now I prefer working more spontaneously. More and more, I’m fascinated with the actors, less about the perfection of lighting. Lighting a scene has to be a simple solution in the soul of the scene itself.”

CHRIS MENGES, ‘MICHAEL COLLINS’

The only previous winner among this year’s nominees, the British-born Menges earned Oscars for “The Killing Fields” and “The Mission” before moving to the director’s chair on films like the 1987 apartheid drama “A World Apart.” (Much of Menges’ work reflects his passion for politics; he’s a former documentary cameraman whose assignments included the Vietnam War.)

Menges was lured back to cinematography by “Michael Collins,” a script he’d been sent in 1982. Thirteen years later, when he learned director Neil Jordan had the green light, Menges phoned up and offered his services.

“It was 10 years since I’d shot a film, and I was very scared,” says Menges, 57. “The hardest part was to turn Dublin into the gray, dark city of [1916], particularly since most of the Georgian buildings are being polished now; they’re treated as great works of art.”

Menges’ solution: eliminating vibrant colors whenever possible. “Color can be very distracting from the narrative. When you put light by the camera, you tend to create color; when you have the light coming from the back, it can be subdued.”

Menges, who is now filming “The Boxer” for director Jim Sheridan, cites “Michael Collins” as a career high point, thanks to the story’s importance and director Jordan’s “completely inspirational” sensitivity to visuals.

Jordan returns the compliment: “Chris’ awareness of light is extraordinary. He doesn’t sleep at night, thinking about things. He’s ferocious.”

JOHN SEALE, ‘THE ENGLISH PATIENT’

The Australian cinematographer of “Rain Man” and “Witness” (both Oscar-nominated) recalls vividly the impulse that led to his calling.

“I was working in the back country of Australia, on 30,000 acres of empty land. There were visual aspects that were absolutely stunning, and I thought, ‘Wouldn’t it be great to have a job where I could photograph this to show other people?’ ”

After years as a documentary shooter and camera operator (on such films as “Gallipoli” and “The Last Wave”), Seale graduated to cinematographer, displaying a highly flexible visual style on projects including “Dead Poets Society,” “The Firm” and “The American President.”

For “The English Patient,” which earned Seale the American Society of Cinematographers Award, he and director Anthony Minghella separated the many time periods and settings with different visual styles.

“The Italian section being the aftermath of the war, we decided it should have a bleak, cold, green look to it,” explains Seale, 54. “So it would [contrast] with the warmer, yellow, reds of the desert.”

For the much-praised sequence in which Juliette Binoche is hoisted by rope to the top of a church surveying its frescoes with a flare, Seale and gaffer Mo Flam found a lighting solution that also increased their star’s safety.

“I was worried a real flare might burn her hand, so we designed a tube with bulbs in it. We ran the leads through her clothing, then down through the rope. We could switch it on and off. Then we needed smoke. So the special effects department devised pipes that went up through her clothing out through a little pipe into the tube.

“Students ask me, ‘How did you light that scene?’ I say, ‘Basically, there are only two lights lighting that scene--and she’s got one of them!’ ”