Emmanuel Lubezki is the GOAT of cinematography in more ways than one. For one, he’s known as el Chivo or “The Goat,” a nickname he earned as a child, but he also happens to be one of the greatest cinematographers of all time. While you might be surprised to see his name appear in the credits of movies like the so-bad-it’s-good The Cat in the Hat, Chivo has flexed his cinematic talents across genres. His most famous work may be heavy in tone, but his skill for calibrating mood, be it in a downright comedy like The Birdcage or a serious biopic like Michael Mann’s Ali, never falters.
While he has worked with many prolific directors, his closest collaborations have been with American Terrence Malick and his countrymen, members of the three amigos, Alfonso Cuarón and Alejandro Iñárritu. His first collaboration with Cuarón was on the director’s breakout comedy Sólo con tu pareja, which has never gotten a U.S release but was given new life by the Criterion Collection. He immediately followed this up with the colorful romantic drama Like Water for Chocolate, though his collaborations with Cuarón seem to be where he found his distinct voice. Across all six of them, distinct sides of his talent shine through. You can see him use natural light in Y Tu Mamá También, giving it a realistic feel, while also using a studio to masterfully mimic the light of outer space in Gravity. Chivo loves to use wide-angle lenses to capture both the foreground and the background in a single shot for deep focus. This allows for his shots to be exceptionally expressive and full of depth — the actors’ emotions fully visible while the world remains rich and textured around them. Here are eight of the best films shot by Emmanuel Lubezki
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8 A Little Princess
Warner Bros.
This early English-language collaboration with Alfonso Cuarón is a heartwarming contrast to Chivo’s later, grittier work. A Little Princess follows the story of a girl named Sara who is sent away from her father to live in a strict boarding school. The headmistress has it out for her, but Sara hasn’t forgotten her friendships, nor the positive lessons her father taught her—and she’ll always have her powerful imagination. A far cry from the brutal realism of Chivo’s later work, he wowed critics a different way here. The colorful production design and Chivo’s sumptuous, whimsical shots brought Sara’s imagination to life in style. They place the viewer in her unique, imaginative point of view to magical results. He got his first Oscar nod for his work on the film, an award he would be nominated for seven more times, winning three.
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7 Burn After Reading
Focus Features
One of the best examples of Chivo’s comedic sensibilities, Burn After Reading is a classic Coen Brothers comedy of errors, complete with their unique style of slapstick violence. It follows the gruesome misadventures that ensue when the memoirs of an ex-CIA analyst (John Malkovich) fall into the hands of a pair of airhead gym workers. Chivo brings a minimal touch, framing the characters perfectly and allowing the dialogue and action to speak for itself. Several memorable scenes involving Brad Pitt’s character stand out as particularly well-composed, including one of the funniest punches to the face ever. Lubezki also seamlessly illustrates the character’s paranoia in his work here, often bringing the cinematic language of a spy thriller to a comedy.
6 Y Tu Mamá También
IFC Films
The mother of all road trip films, Cuarón’s Y Tu Mamá También follows two teenage boys who hit the road with a Spanish woman in her twenties named Luisa. They head from Mexico City to a town they’ve concocted, called Boca del Cielo (literally “heaven’s mouth”). But the destination is never the point of a journey like this one, anyway. While the film focuses on the central trio and their tangled feelings, the Mexican countryside they drive across becomes a character in its own right thanks to Lubezki’s wonderful cinematography. Much of the film feels like a loving homage to the beauty of his homeland and its people. This is the film Lubezki credits as his most pivotal, and it’s easy to see why. He experimented with long shots and a handheld documentary style that makes the viewer feel like they’re part of each scene. The trademark bob of his wide-angle handheld camera injects a warm personal nature into the story, and the lingering takes allow every emotion to come through beautifully. A memorable first-person shot of Luisa dancing makes us feel like we are right there with her, swaying to the rhythm.
5 Children of Men
Universal Studios
One of Lubezki’s boldest projects was shooting Children of Men, Alfonso Cuarón’s acclaimed dystopian thriller. Set in a world plagued by war and mass infertility, Cuarón and Lubezki realized a distinct vision to London’s future — an incredibly realistic one that felt at times like a war documentary. The London uprising scene is particularly memorable. Shot in one of Lubezki’s trademark long takes (aided by CG frames to appear completely unbroken), it tracks the escalating violence through the streets like a war reporter’s handheld video camera. It places you in the harrowing scene, forcing you to experience the longest 7 minutes ever. The violence is visceral, the explosions and gunshots felt as well as heard. Another of the film’s single-shot sequences taking place inside a car is even more famous. It starts with lighthearted fun and ends in horrific violence.
4 Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance)
Searchlight Pictures
Lubezki was already revered by this point as a master cinematographer, but Birdman took things a little further, and then down a series of narrow hallways. Alejandro Iñárritu’s dark comedy follows a troubled actor struggling under the weight of his glory days, back when he starred as a Hollywood superhero (he’s played, fittingly, by Michael Keaton). As he prepares a Broadway debut, backstage drama and angst ensues, and tension erupts between him and his pretentious method costar (Ed Norton). The film appears to be shot in one 2 hour supertake — an effect that was achieved through clever use of editing and computer generated frames. While the camera frequently pauses in rooms and lingers on characters, it never appears to cut to a new angle or shot. To add even more to the film’s distinct look and feel, it was shot mostly indoors, giving it a claustrophobic quality. Lubezki’s trademark wide-angle shots take on an almost oppressive quality in Birdman, mimicking the central character’s anxieties. This gave even the film’s most comedic moments a dark undercurrent of tension.
3 Gravity
Warner Bros.
Arguably one of the most impressive technical achievements in modern filmmaking, it’s impossible to fully appreciate the scope of Lubezki’s talent without seeing Gravity. Chivo and Cuarón’s most recent collaboration, this film shocked audiences with its realistic portrayals of outer space —allowing us to truly feel Sandra Bullock’s isolation and panic as she finds herself stranded in space. No movie will leave you wondering “how did they do that?” quite like this one — which required an inventive use of lighting to make it appear as if the actors were actually floating (or careening) through outer space. Because he was working with a largely imagined setting, Lubezki had to work with virtual cinematography for the first time, utilizing his extensive knowledge of lighting to make the extensive CGI in the film look as real as possible.
2 The Revenant
20th Century Studios
From the stunning opening shot to the bloody satisfying conclusion, Iñárritu’s The Revenant places you inside its universe so definitively that you’ll forget you’re watching a movie. Leonardo DiCaprio plays Hugh Glass, a fur-trapper who is mauled by a Grizzly and left for dead. There is little dialogue and the film relies heavily on DiCaprio’s acting and Lubezki’s camera work to tell this remarkable story of survival as Glass evades human, animal and environmental threats to deliver his revenge. The wilderness becomes a player of its own in this story, Chivo’s camera snaking through the trees in a fluid motion that reveals the next horror awaiting Glass. The movie was originally designed to be one massive take like Birdman, but the shoot was demanding enough already. This flourish would have been unnecessary — Chivo’s masterful use of natural light and immersive extended takes was enough to make this one of his most powerful films to date.
1 The Tree of Life
Lubezki has worked with Malick on four films including To The Wonder and The New World, but The Tree of Life stands out as his strongest collaboration with the arthouse legend. Loose on plot and partly improvised, Malick’s gorgeous film centers on a Texas family in the 1950s and their grown son Jack (Sean Penn) as he reflects on his childhood many years later. The movie follows a visual logic, interpolating shots of the family with an abstract series of shots that depict the birth of the universe. It’s a relentless collage of cinematic beauty that will leave you stunned even if you can’t quite grasp what it means. Lubezki depicts the vast expanses of outer space, the breathtaking landscapes of Earth and the intimate family scenes with equal beauty and care.
