Janusz Kamiński to Receive THR Visionary in Cinematography Award

Two-time Oscar-winning cinematographer Janusz Kamiński will receive this year’s THR Visionary in Cinematography Award at the ToruńCamerimage Film Festival.

The award recognizes Kamiński’s exceptional contribution to the art of cinematography and his visionary approach to shaping the visual language of modern filmmaking. He will receive the honor at the ToruńCamerimage festival on Nov. 7.

The acclaimed Polish filmmaker is among the most influential cinematographers in contemporary cinema. His work with Steven Spielberg — Kamiński has shot 20 films with Spielberg, including his latest, Disclosure Day — has rewritten the visual grammar of Hollywood.

The stark black-and-white of Schindler’s List (1994) and the chaotic handheld battle scenes of Saving Private Ryan (1998), changed the look and feel or period drama and war films forever. Both won Kamiński the Oscar for Best Cinematography, and both were included in the American Society of Cinematographers’ list of the best-photographed films of the 20th century.

Every Kamiński film is beautiful, but not one of them looks the same. Every lens and every color choice matches the story being told. The tech-dystopian Washington of Minority Report (2002) is bleached in cold blues and metallic noir shadows. The style of Munich (2005) evokes the aesthetics of 1970s thrillers and news footage. In one of his non-Spielberg collaborations, Julian Schnabel’s The Diving Bell and the Butterfly (2007), Kamiński evokes the lead character’s locked-in syndrome with a radically restricted point of view and minute shifts in focus.

Kamiński’s life reads like a Hollywood movie. A political refugee from Poland, speaking no English when he arrived, he trained first at Columbia College in Chicago, then at the American Film Institute and rose through the ranks, working as a gaffer on no-budget Roger Corman productions and on TV movies. It was his work on Diane Keaton’s TV movie Wildflower (1991) that convinced Spielberg to offer him a job, first on the TV movie The Class of 61, which Spielberg produced, then on Schindler’s List.

Kamiński has worked with the likes of Judd Apatow (Funny People) and Cameron Crowe (Jerry Maguire) but it is his work with Spielberg which has brought him the most acclaim, and 6 of his 7 Academy Award nominations for Best Cinematography.

The THR Visionary in Cinematography Award will be presented as part of the ToruńCamerimage festival, the largest film festival devoted to the art of cinematography. The 34th ToruńCamerimage runs Nov. 7-14.