by Frako Loden
In all my filmgoing career, spotting a female name for the cinematographer credit has been a rare and confounding experience. First, its rarity makes me take notice. (Rachel Morrison was the first woman nominated for a cinematography Oscar, for 2017’s Mudbound. The first woman invited to join the American Society of Cinematographers, in existence since 1919, was Brianne Murphy in 1980 for Anne Bancroft’s Fatso.) Second, what’s confounding is not knowing what to make of the credit. Should I look for what might be an essentialist female vision? A feminist vision? A female gaze? A gaze that transcends notions of gender? A completely rare vantage altogether, and then what would that be? As the number of women directors of photography increases in narrative and documentary films, will their gender cease to matter?
