I'd say no -- that it should fall into the visual effects category. I look at that and it's like gazing at conceptual Ralph McQuarrie art for the STAR WARS movies -- not anything that was "achieved in real space" with an actual camera.
Just read your exchange, it doesn't surprise me there are people VERY defensive of the current state of the film industry, and especially Marvel fanboys in particular. In general I think a "look" that is primarily comprised of an artificial element -- be it a setting, an environment, or something that is not actual in that frame -- shouldn't constitute "cinematography" as we know it. Or to put it another way, if that shot can be achieved artificially, entirely through the use of a
computer and not a camera, then how can it be a part of a category that used to be defined as what a camera person achieves through on-set photography. There's a huge difference between being a computer effects artist and an on-set cinematographer, yet their functions seem to be crossing in Hollywood all the time.
Just the other day I was watching THE SICILIAN which is a profoundly bad film but whose Alex Thomson cinematography and location shooting made me think -- what would be done with this movie today? Would they ever leave the green screen complex in L.A. or Louisiana or Montreal or whereever they shoot these films? Someone had to shoot this landscape. Someone wrangled the sheep and the sheep herder who's off in the distance. It's a gorgeous looking movie, and an actual person put this shot together with their own eye, and their own physical, "live" presence on-set...and who does that today? Now it's all some guy sitting behind his PC workstation, who frankly is probably more important than the DP at this point in time.
More and more movies today are looking like -- in their own way -- movies from decades back that used cheap back-lot sets and rear projection. They look more real now, obviously, but they're just as phony in their own way. You can't disguise something like CGI. It's creating a generic looking brand of film and TV that's polished and saves them a great deal of money -- but the difference is obvious. It's like trying to square any of the Douglas Slocombe-shot, location-based Indiana Jones movies with KINGDOM OF THE CRYSTAL SKULL, which looks nothing like them.
At any rate, at least the guy agreed with you that LAWRENCE OF ARABIA is a more technical achievement than THOR, so there's that.
I realize it's become a grey area over the last 20 years, but whenever I see a greenscreen fest like Avatar or Life of Pi win Best Cinematography, I think it's something of a cheat, especially as both films also won for Best Visual Effects. Thoughts...?
