Matthew Libatique

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Matthew Libatique (2011)

Matthew J. Libatique (born July 19, 1968 in Queens , New York ) is an American cameraman . Since the early 1990s he has worked on more than 40 film productions, mostly dramas, and over 80 music videos . He gained fame primarily through his longstanding collaboration with the film director Darren Aronofsky .

biography

Training and meeting with Darren Aronofsky

Matthew Libatique was born in New York to Filipino immigrants Justiniano and Georgina Libatique. His mother came from Lucena ( Quezon ), his father from Dagupan ( Pangasinan ). Both parents spoke Tagalog with Libatique before everyday life was dominated by the English language due to school attendance. In a 2010 interview with the Philippine Daily Inquirer , he stated that he still sees himself as a Filipino today. His father, an amateur photographer who died in the early 1990s, worked as a technician in a film laboratory and introduced his son to photography at an early age. At the age of eleven, Libatique moved with his parents to the Californian desert region, where his father wanted to open his own business as a refrigeration technician. He first came into contact with film as a college student at California State University in Fullerton . Libatique joined the local film club and began editing corporate videos from the Orange County area for a friend . He later switched from psychology to sociology and communication studies and graduated from college in both subjects.

Inspired by Vittorio Storaro's camera work on The Great Mistake (1970), Libatique moved to Hollywood , where he did an internship at a company that produced short films by debut directors. After a year he was the post-production coordinator . But he soon gave up the position to train as a cameraman at the American Film Institute (AFI) from 1992 to 1995 against his parents' wishes . There he met guest lecturers such as John Bailey , Allen Daviau , Conrad L. Hall , Victor J. Kemper and Owen Roizman . Libatique graduated there with a Master of Fine Arts (MFA).

While studying at AFI, Libatique met the director Darren Aronofsky . Both came from New York, were the youngest students in their year and shared, among other things, the same love for music and film. He compared their relationship with that between Bernardo Bertolucci and Storaro in The Big Mistake and spoke of a "partnership based on friendship" . Libatique took over the camera work on Aronofsky's first short films Fortune Cookie (1991), Protozoa (1993, "an adrenaline rush" ) and No Time (1994) as well as on various low-budget productions by other directors.

Work in the music business and on feature films

Due to new technological developments in the field of music videos, Libatique also turned to this field of activity from the mid-1990s. After a brokered order for a music video for the rapper E-40 , Libatique has been responsible for the recordings of over 80 music videos to date. He worked with such well-known artists as Tracy Chapman , The Cranberries , Incubus , Jay-Z and Moby . Libatique values ​​music videos potentially as an art form that enabled him to work on his dexterity and camera technique. At the same time, his knowledge of post-production helped him.

The breakthrough as a cameraman paved Libatique's renewed collaboration with Darren Aronofsky on his feature film debut Pi (1998). For the study of a psychopathic mathematician (played by Sean Gullette ) who believes he can find the key to understanding the world through playing with numbers, the director and cameraman preferred alienating black and white shots. At the same time, they invented devices for the experimental science fiction thriller that were attached to the main actor's body and better absorb physical and mental impulses - a "heat cam" that generated small heat waves in front of the lens and a "vibrator cam" for jolting effects . Libatique's reward was winning the Chlotrudis Award for best cameraman in 1999 and his first nomination for the Independent Spirit Award .

Libatique was also responsible for the images for Aronofsky's subsequent feature films. In 2000, the filming of the Oscar- nominated drug film Requiem for a Dream followed , in which Aronofsky and he relied on "extreme close-ups, hectic cuts, color manipulations, split-screen and feverish accelerations " . The production earned Libatique the Independent Spirit Award and would later be voted one of the best-filmed films from 1998 to 2008 in an online vote by American Cinematographer , the magazine of the American Society of Cinematographers (ASC). "The destruction of the conventional film language, the delirious scraps of optical and acoustic perception, which Aronofsky's 'Requiem for a Dream' occasionally bring close to surrealism, serve nothing other than to illustrate the most merciless form of human self-destruction," said Franz Everschor ( film service ). In the fantasy film The Fountain , on the other hand, the German film critic noticed images that would be reminiscent of Carl Theodor Dreyer's well-known silent film The Passion of the Maiden of Orléans (1928) - "primarily" old-fashioned "light and recording technology, combined with enlargements of microscopic chemical processes" , so Everschor.

Success with "Black Swan"

After the French Maryse Alberti took over the camera on Aronofsky's award-winning drama The Wrestler , Libatique only worked with the American director again on the psychodrama Black Swan in 2010 . In the film Natalie Portman is seen as a young and fragile New York ballet dancer, whose preparation for the difficult double role of Odette / Odile in Tchaikovsky's Swan Lake leads to a self-destructive metamorphosis. For Libatique, working on Black Swan was the highlight of his career as a cameraman so far. For the pictures taken with a hand-held camera, which rarely leave the large setting, he won awards from the film critics' associations of Los Angeles , New York and the Independent Spirit Award and was awarded the Oscar , British Academy Film Award and the American Society Prize of Cinematographers (ASC) nominated.

As with every project in preproduction, Libatique and Aronofsky agreed on the color scale with the production designer and agreed on how each color should be metaphorically related to the characters. Libatique said the greatest challenge was dealing with the imprecise lighting that arose from the 360-degree camera movements through the room. The scenes with mirrors, the film's "essential visual theme", also caused difficulties . "Our relationship naturally developed through age and experience," said Libatique in 2010 about the collaboration with Aronofsky. “When we first started we were very aggressive about what we wanted to achieve and sometimes it culminated in different views. But now I feel that we are more focused and relaxed than when we were banging our heads against the walls in order to be successful. ” With Noah , which was published in 2014, another collaboration with Aronofsky emerged.

Libatique also worked several times with Spike Lee on She Hate Me , Inside Man , Miracle at St. Anna , Passing Strange and Kobe Doin 'Work ( "Spike Lee is one of the reasons I became a filmmaker" ), Joel Schumacher ( Tigerland , Not hang up ! , Number 23 ) and Jon Favreau ( Iron Man , Iron Man 2 , Cowboys & Aliens ) together. Tigerland , in which he worked exclusively with handheld cameras for the first time, cited Libatique as one of the most pleasant memories of a film shoot. Schumacher was extremely supportive and let him bring in his "youthful creative aggression" . Unlike Aronofsky or Lee, working with the improvisational Favreau, who gives him a lot of freedom, but also uses a little self-censorship to stick to the narrative style of the former actor.

He compares camera work to learning a musical instrument - "I try to see the script in my mind and create a visual score based on the arc of the story," says Libatique. He feels most at home in urban film locations, as he grew up there. He cites outdoor shots with artificial light as challenges, such as B. Night scenes in the forest. Libatique's role models among the cameramen are alongside Storaro and Hall Henri Alekan , Néstor Almendros , Jack Cardiff , Raoul Coutard , Gordon Willis , Gregg Toland and James Wong Howe . Painters, photographers and illustrators include Jean-Michel Basquiat , Matthew Barney , Caravaggio , Roy DeCarava , Degas , Nan Goldin , Goya , Dave McKean , John J. Muth , Rembrandt , Velázquez and Vermeer .

In 2002 Libatique was a member of the jury of the Sundance Film Festival . He is a member of the American Society of Cinematographers (ASC).

Filmography (selection)

Music videos (selection)

Awards

  • 1999: Chlotrudis Award for Pi
  • 2001: Independent Spirit Award for Requiem for a Dream
  • 2006: Eastman Kodak Award for Excellence in Cinematography
  • 2010: Los Angeles Film Critics Association Award for Black Swan
  • 2010: New York Film Critics Circle Award for Black Swan
  • 2010: New York Film Critics Online Award for Black Swan
  • 2010: San Francisco Film Critics Circle Award for Black Swan
  • 2010: Austin Film Critics Association Award for Black Swan
  • 2011: BAFTA nomination for Black Swan
  • 2011: Nomination for the American Society of Cinematographers Award for Black Swan
  • 2011: Independent Spirit Award for Black Swan
  • 2011: Oscar nomination for Black Swan
  • 2019: Nomination for the American Society of Cinematographers Award for A Star Is Born
  • 2019: Oscar nomination for A Star Is Born
  • 2019: Satellite Award for A Star Is Born

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e f cf. Fil-Am Lenses Black Swan, both Iron Man Movies. In: Philippine Daily Inquirer, November 26, 2010, Part I (accessed via LexisNexis Wirtschaft )
  2. ↑ a b c d cf. Question & Answer Session at kodak.com ( Memento from March 19, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) (accessed on January 27, 2011)
  3. ↑ a b cf. Fil-Am Cinematographer Discusses Work With Aronofsky, Favreau. In: Philippine Daily Inquirer, November 27, 2010, Saturday Special, Part II, Saturday Special (accessed via LexisNexis Wirtschaft )
  4. ↑ cf. Criticism by Ralf Schenk in film-dienst 07/1999 (accessed via Munzinger Online )
  5. ↑ a b cf. Critique by Franz Everschor in film-dienst 22/2001 (accessed via Munzinger Online )
  6. ↑ cf. Critique by Franz Everschor in film-dienst 2/2007 (accessed via Munzinger Online )
  7. ↑ cf. Critique by Franz Everschor in film-dienst 2/2011 (accessed via Munzinger Online )
  8. ↑ cf. Interview ( Memento of the original from April 27, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. to The Fountain at ugo.com, 2005 (accessed January 28, 2011) @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.ugo.com
  9. ↑ cf. Portrait at kodak.com ( Memento from May 18, 2007 in the Internet Archive )
  10. ↑ cf. Burlingame, Burl: Shooting Star at archives.starbulletin.com, November 24, 2006 (accessed January 28, 2011)
  11. ↑ cf. McCarthy, Todd: Digital pics 'Velocity,' 'Tadpole' top Sundance. In: Daily Variety , January 21, 2002, p. 5.
personal data
SURNAME Libatique, Matthew
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Libatique, Matthew J.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American cameraman
DATE OF BIRTH July 19, 1968
PLACE OF BIRTH Queens , New York City