It was good to be from Australia at the 76th annual Academy Awards, held on February 29, 2004 at the Kodak Theater in Hollywood: Not only did New Zealander Peter Jackson's “The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King” sweep in the evening. with a record 11 awards… but even when “LOTR” wasn't a big winner, people from the antipodes often kept the statues.
Such was the case in the cinematography category, when Jude Law and Uma Thurman gave veteran Russell Boyd his first win, for “Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World.” Boyd made sure to give him his credentials from the beginning when he took the stage for his acceptance speech.
“I have an Australian accent,” he noted and then thanked the academy, its cast and crew. He nodded specifically to several people he had worked with, but then singled out his fellow Australian director: “Especially Peter Weir, who provided extraordinary inspiration for all of us to do our best.”
Cinematographer Russell Boyd is a frequent collaborator of director Peter Weir.
(Lawrence K. Ho / Los Angeles Times)
Boyd and Weir had collaborated on films as early as 1975 (“Picnic at Hanging Rock”); A brief summary of Weir's career shows that some of his best-known films include Boyd as director of photography: “The Last Wave” (1977), “Gallipoli” (1981) and “The Year of Living Dangerously” ( 1982). They would continue working together on Weir's final film (so far), “The Way Back,” in 2010.
“'Master and Commander,' wow, was a difficult movie to make,” Boyd told TheASC.com in 2018, noting that “The Way Back” was also a big challenge. “However, in many ways, those are two of my films that I am most proud of. Peter Weir once said to me (and I'll never forget it), 'Come and make a film of mine and I'll take you on an adventure.' And he does it!
However, Boyd's success meant another Australian was left behind: “Cold Mountain” cinematographer John Seale. Nominated five times, Seale won once: in 1997 for “The English Patient.” He would be nominated again in 2016 for “Mad Max: Fury Road.” “Mountain” was just his last work with director Anthony Minghella; The pair also shared credits on “The English Patient” and 1999’s “The Talented Mr. Ripley.”
As it turned out, most of the nominees in the category had international talent; Only one of the five contenders was American: John Schwartzman, who filmed “Seabiscuit.” It was the first and only nomination so far for the director of photography, son of producer Jack Schwartzman, stepson of Talia Shire and half-brother of Jason and Robert Schwartzman.
Eduardo Serra (“Girl with a Pearl Earring”), for his part, is Portuguese and that night he was in his second nomination; He was also highlighted in 1998 for “Las Alas de la Paloma”. He is known for using natural light almost exclusively, which made him the ideal person to film the film on the subject of a famous work by Johannes Vermeer, a painter known for his use of light.
“City of God” may have taken place in Rio de Janeiro, but cinematographer César Charlone is from Uruguay, and this was his first (and so far only) nomination in the category. He also directed the 2007 feature film “The Pope's Bath,” which Uruguay submitted to the 80th Academy Awards, but was not nominated.
