Nominated for Best Cinematography in this year’s Oscar competition, this single nod for EMPIRE OF LIGHT marks cinematographer Roger Deakins’ fifteenth nomination. If he wins it will be his third, the second for a film directed by Sam Mendes.
An impressive achievement and there can be no argument that EMPIRE OF LIGHT is a beautiful looking film, one of the most stunning and memorable of the year. It is a celebration of cinema.
Set in coastal Margate circa early 1980s, EMPIRE OF LIGHT resonates with contemporary issues like Me 2, Black Lives Matter, RUOK, and the rise of Right wing politics.
Margate is where Elliott wrote The Wasteland which is referenced with a crossword puzzle clue early in the film. It is one of many literary allusions in EMPIRE OF LIGHT, ranging from Auden to Larkin.
Of course, being set in a cinema, film allusion is paramount as well as music, as the era saw the phenomena of two tone, an infusion of black and white beats of the ska/punk engagement.
The songs that populate the film are the soundtrack of the politics of the period, especially the racial politics, Thatcher’s ‘there’s no such thing as society’, the racism of Enoch Powell and the National Front, the Brixton riots, the Toxteth riots, the high unemployment and extreme divisiveness, all fed into the music and the culture of the period.
The movies memorialised include The Blues Brothers, Stir Crazy, Chariots of Fire, and Being There, the latter film giving rise to a resonating quote, “Life is a state of mind.”
EMPIRE OF LIGHT boasts another beautifully realised performance from Olivia Colman as Hilary, duty manager of the Empire cinema, home to a makeshift family of misfits. It is an outstanding portrayal and one can only surmise that the actresses who have been nominated for this year’s acting awards are thanking their lucky stars that she has been omitted.
Another startling omission from the Academy Award nominations is Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross’ score which is as rich and lustrous as the cinematography and the myriad performances.
