The “amazing” documentary Roger Deakins “always remembered”
Routinely cited as one of the greatest cinematographers in the history of the medium, Roger Deakins is undoubtedly among the handful of true pioneers who are still working today. Having garnered widespread acclaim for his collaborations with directors like Denis Villeneuve and the Coen brothers, Deakins has mastered his craft – both on film as well as digital methods. Just a brief glimpse from a work like Fargo or Blade Runner 2049 is enough to prove the iconic cinematographer’s brilliance.
Even when the project isn’t exactly great, Deakins’ visual language often elevates the entire movie and makes it better than it really is. This is certainly the case with his latest feature: Sam Mendes’ Empire of Light, which came out last year. A mixed bag of an effort with half-baked narrative strands about racial injustice and patriarchal oppression, Mendes’ lacklustre effort is completely transformed by Deakins’ stunning cinematography.
During multiple interviews and conversations, Deakins has often spoken about the influence of directors like Andrei Tarkovsky and Michelangelo Antonioni. However, the English artist has also been deeply inspired by the documentary format. Peter Watkins’ The War Game is one documentary that he has never been able to forget, featuring one of the most harrowing depictions of a potential third World War and the consequential nuclear holocaust.
“The War Game was one of the first films I saw in that film society,” Deakins told A.Frame. “It won ‘Best Documentary’ at the Academy Awards that year, but it’s not a documentary. It’s what would happen if a nuclear bomb fell on London. It’s a black-and-white recreation of the breakdown of society after a nuclear attack, and to watch it as a teenager during the Cold War, as it was then, was pretty intense. It had such an effect on me. I’ve always remembered that film and the style in which it’s done.”
“People think that the handheld camera and documentary realism is something new, but that film is the ultimate in shooting that style, as though you are just grabbing things,” he added. “It’s actually all constructed, but it’s all constructed with non-actors, with real London people, in different parts of London. It’s a pretty amazing film. You could say it’s dated now, because it’s grainy and it’s black-and-white, and it’s 16mm, but it’s still so effective to watch. It’s still not really been beaten in terms of its visceral connection to something like that.”
Considered controversial at the time, Watkins’ masterpiece was actually removed from the broadcasting schedule, only making it to TV almost after two decades. Despite it being a dramatised hypothesis of a future catastrophe, The War Game is frequently classified as a documentary because it uses the frameworks of videojournalism to recreate what would happen in such a state of emergency. It’s one of those rare works that becomes more ominous with each passing year.
Watch an extract from the film here.
