Portrait of a Lady on Fire (Portrait de la jeune fille en feu) won the Best Cinematography Award at the 2019 New York Film Critics Circle on December 4. The NYFCC is often a harbinger of more awards to come. It already was nominated for the Palme d’Or and won best screenplay at Cannes.
Directed by Céline Sciamma with stunning cinematography by Claire Mathon AFC, it is “a superbly elegant, enigmatic drama” (The Guardian) — an 18th century story of a young woman facing marriage and an artist commissioned to paint her portrait.
It is also a portrait in Large Format cinematography: RED MONSTRO 8K VV, LEITZ THALIA primes, Preston Light Ranger 2 and more. More on all these things and an interview with Claire Mathon in the next edition of FDTimes.
Along with the blessed absence of superfluous ‘noise’ and unkind people, the stunning cinematography is the reason I have seen this film 11 times already. Every scene is a feast to the eye.
I’m fortunate enough to work both as a cinematographer and as a cinema technical engineer in the San Francisco Bay Area. Upon calibrating a 4K Barco projector this morning, I had the extreme pleasure of experiencing Claire Mathon’s peerless imaging in “Portrait of a Lady on Fire.” Her assured camerawork and world-class lighting effectively render paintings of old brought to life, some seemingly lit solely by candlelight, but imbued with a softness (and very impressive depth of field on a Monstro 8K VV) that hint at broader reinforcing sources. From relating her experience on the production to detail of her technique, I’m thanking you ahead of time, Jon, for your interview the Ms. Mathon!