WILLIAM LUBTCHANSKY

This is copied from my talk with a friend in Facebook:

Yes, I knew about the death of William Lubtchansky. You can see some of his images at Ed Howard's blog:
http://seul-le-cinema.blogspot.com/2010/05/william-lubtchansky-1937-2010.html

It's strange that I first took notice of his camerawork, not from Rivette's films, but from EVERYTHING'S FINE, WE'RE LEAVING (2001, Claude Mouriéras, A+++++). The camerawork in this film seems to portray the suffering inside the characters' souls very well, while the characters don't have to express their suffering as emotionally as in Ingmar Bergman's films. I think Lubtchansky's works are very interesting, because his works, in a way, seem to be the opposite of the "beautiful" images in the films by Terrence Malick, Jean-Jacques Beineix, Peter Greenaway, or Alain Robbe-Grillet. I think most of Lubtchansky's images are not calling attention to themselves, are not announcing, "Look how beautiful I am". His images seem to serve the story first. I love the faces of humans in his images very much. Somehow he finds the perfect distance, the perfect balance, or the perfect way to film the faces of characters. I also like "the atmosphere" in Rivette's films. Rivette's films are not as "atmospheric" as most atmospheric films, but are not focusing only on the characters or the actions of the characters in the frame, I guess. When I see Rivette's films, I can see the characters and their actions, and I can "sense the atmosphere" at the same time. I guess the credits for this should go to both Rivette and Lubtchansky.