Cinematographer Robert Elswit won the Oscar in his field for Paul Thomas Anderson’s 2007 film THERE WILL BE BLOOD. Seven years later, with acclaimed writer Dan Gilroy’s directorial debut NIGHTCRAWLER, the DP created a visual aesthetic that in many ways can be considered a dark reflection of the former film.
In both, the landscapes – rural and urban, respectively – are central to the narrative to the point of being silent narrators that forge and in many ways control the particular characters that roam them.
In both, it is the lone figures against these landscapes that exemplify the narrative conflicts, internal and external.
But where THERE WILL BE BLOOD is blinding with uninterrupted sun and fires that pierce the nights, NIGHTCRAWLER is built of shadows, the shapes that move among them, and the glints that illuminate not the foreground but the deepest, darkest, most dangerous corners. This frame in particular, with the addition of smoke to shadows and Lou Bloom holding the old, diffuse like, perfectly captures these notions.
the flawless frame 