The Favourite
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“Lights are Your Friends, but Sometimes They Don’t Need to Come Around to the Party”: Cinematographer Robbie Ryan on Shooting Yorgos Lanthimos’s The Favourite
In Yorgos Lanthimos’s The Favourite, two determined women — Rachel Weisz’s refined but ruthless Duchess of Marlborough and Emma Stone’s desperate and cunning chambermaid Abigail — vie for the titular preferential position alongside the ill and melancholy Queen Anne. Anyone expecting a beautifully mounted but stuffy 18th century period piece has not seen a Yorgos Lanthimos movie. Employing the same absurdist sense of humor as Lanthimos’s The Lobster, The Favourite also imposes the director’s preferred set of aesthetic restrictions — namely, wide angle lenses and shooting almost entirely with available light. Irish cinematographer Robbie Ryan (American Honey, Fish Tank), who […]
by Matt Mulcahey on Jan 12, 2019 -
Costume Designer Sandy Powell on Dressing Yorgos Lanthimos’ The Favourite
The career of costume designer Sandy Powell spans more than 30 years and three Oscars (for Shakespeare in Love, The Aviator and The Young Victoria) and shows a remarkable range, from period films like the beloved Carol to the mad modern world of The Wolf of Wall Street. Her costumes for this year’s The Favourite, a fiendish vision of Stuart England directed by Greek iconoclast Yorgos Lanthimos (Dogtooth, The Lobster), represent some of the most creative work that Powell has ever done. “I knew that Yorgos would not be doing a conventional costume drama,” she says, “which was what made […]
by Farran Smith Nehme on Dec 17, 2018 -
Filmmaker‘s Look at the Below-the-Line Stars of Some of the Awards Season’s Best Films
Movies aren’t just willed into existence, however much Alfred Hitchcock might have wanted them to be. We love to talk about visionary directors, but we often fail to properly acknowledge the artists, craftspeople and technicians who make their works possible. Luckily, many of these individuals — the below-the-line talent, as they’re sometimes called — receive some recognition during awards season, particularly from the guilds and, ultimately, the Oscars. And those who look at the late-year awards rush only through the lens of who’s going to win the big prizes — picture, director, performance, etc. — risk missing out on some […]
by Bilge Ebiri on Dec 17, 2018
