Emmanuel Lubezki Children of Men (2006)
Emmanuel "Chivo" Lubezki Morgenstern, AMC, ASC (born November 30, 1964, Mexico City) was the cinematographer on Children of Men (2006).
Lubezki and Cuarón have shot every Cuarón film together since 1995
Lubezki and Cuarón (in Children of Men) met at film school in Mexico City in the 1980s and have collaborated on every Cuarón feature since A Little Princess (1995). By 2006 they had developed the long-take, natural-light style that would carry them through Children of Men, Gravity (2013), and Roma (2018). See The Long Take.
| Year | Film | Director | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1995 | A Little Princess | Cuarón | First Lubezki / Cuarón US film |
| 1998 | Great Expectations | Cuarón | |
| 1999 | Sleepy Hollow | Burton | First Oscar nomination |
| 2001 | Y Tu Mamá También | Cuarón | |
| 2005 | The New World | Malick | Second Oscar nomination; first Malick |
| 2006 | Children of Men | Cuarón | Third Oscar nomination |
| 2011 | The Tree of Life | Malick | Fourth Oscar nomination |
| 2013 | Gravity | Cuarón | First Oscar win |
| 2014 | Birdman | Iñárritu | Second Oscar win (consecutive) |
| 2015 | The Revenant | Iñárritu | Third Oscar win (consecutive — first cinematographer to do this) |
Children of Men is where Lubezki's mature style consolidated
Children of Men is the film in which Lubezki's two later careers fully merge — the Cuarón long-take collaboration and the Malick natural-light wandering camera. The car ambush and Bexhill stairwell takes are the immediate technical legacy. Lubezki has been candid that the Children of Men work was the project where he and Cuarón figured out how to do extended takes that would not feel like stunts:
"The long take doesn't work if it feels like a long take. The audience has to forget the shot is going on." — Emmanuel Lubezki, American Cinematographer (2007)
The car ambush required a custom Doggicam rig — a Chevy people-mover gutted to its frame — and two weeks of rehearsal. The version in the film is take six. The Bexhill stairwell required squibs that wouldn't trigger until specific frames, a stand-in baby for most of the shot, a real newborn for a single beat, and a famous moment in which a drop of stage blood lands on the lens.
"The blood landed on the lens. We were going to do another take but it was getting dark, so we kept it." — Emmanuel Lubezki, American Cinematographer (2007)
Lubezki was nominated, did not win, and won three years in a row afterwards
Lubezki lost the 2006 cinematography Oscar to Guillermo Navarro for Pan's Labyrinth — a defensible choice in a strong year. Industry observers widely considered the subsequent three consecutive Oscar wins (Gravity, Birdman, The Revenant) as the Academy's slow-motion correction. He is the only cinematographer in Academy history to have won three years in a row.
Lubezki's collaborations with Malick
Beyond Cuarón, Lubezki's other defining partnership has been with Terrence Malick — The New World (2005), The Tree of Life (2011), To the Wonder (2012), Knight of Cups (2015), Song to Song (2017). The two of them developed the wandering, natural-light, magic-hour-only style that has become Malick's late signature. Children of Men's Bexhill exteriors and woods sequences carry the Malick influence; the urban street scenes and interiors carry the Cuarón.