Storaro Will Receive ASC Lifetime Achievement Award

29-Sep-00

Vittorio Storaro, ASC, AIC will receive the American Society of Cinematographers' Lifetime Achievement Award. This recognition is given annually to a cinematographer whose body of work has made an important and enduring impression on the art of filmmaking. The presentation will be made at the 15th annual ASC Outstanding Achievement Awards dinner on February 18, 2001 at the Century Plaza Hotel.Storaro has earned OscarsÆ for his innovative cinematography on ""Apocalypse Now,"" ""Reds"" and ""The Last Emperor."" He received a fourth Academy AwardÆ nomination for ""Dick Tracy."" He is one of the very few cinematographers to earn three Oscars. Freddie Young, BSC, Robert Surtees, ASC, Winton Hoch, ASC and Arthur Miller, ASC join him in that honor. Only two cinematographers have received four Oscars - Joe Ruttenberg, ASC, and Harry Stradling, ASC. Storaro is the only contemporary cinematographer in these two groups. All of the above cinematographers, with the exception of Storaro, have compiled large bodies of work that consist of more than 100 Oscar eligible films. In contrast, many of Storaro's early films were produced and released in Europe. His body of work includes approximately 20 to 25 films that have qualified for Oscar consideration in the cinematography category. Storaro has also worked on such seminal films as ""The Conformist,"" ""1900,"" ""Last Tango In Paris,"" ""Luna,"" ""Tucker: The Man And His Dream,"" ""Ladyhawke"" and ""Bulworth."" His credits also include the mini-series ""Peter The Great,"" the opera ""La Traviata,"" the 15-hour documentary ""The History Of Rome"" which plays at museums around the world, and ""Captain Eo,"" an extraordinary 3-D film that ran for years at the Epcot Center in Florida.""All great films are a resolution of a conflict between darkness and light,"" he says. ""There is no single right way to express yourself. There are infinite possibilities for the use of light with shadows and colors. The decisions you make about composition, movement and the countless combinations of these and other variables is what makes it an art."" New York Times Critic Stephen Holden wrote about Storaro's current film, ""It is not meant disparagingly to describe ëGoya In Bordeauxí as a movie so ferociously red-blooded that at moments it threatens to slop off the screen. (Director Carlos) Saura and his brilliant collaborator, the cinematographer and lighting genius Vittorio Storaro, became so intoxicated with their subjects that they splashed their visual ideas on the screen as if they were throwing buckets of paint. Goya in Bordeaux explodes with (a) sense of unbounded visual exuberance.""""Some people will tell you that technology will make it easier for one person to make a movie alone but cinema is not an individual art,"" Storaro observes. ""It takes many people to make a movie. You can call them collaborators or co-authors. There is a common intelligence. The cinema never has the reality of a painting or a photograph because you make decisions about what the audience should see, hear and how it is presented to them. You make choices which super-impose your own interpretations of reality.""Storaro recently completed principal photography on ""Dune,"" a six-hour mini-series based on the classic Frank Herbert science-fiction novel. It will be programmed by USA Networks later this year.""Vittorio Storaro is an extraordinary artist with incomparable talents and skills,"" says ASC President Victor J. Kemper. ""He is still in the process of creating an extraordinary body of work, however he is already a role model and constant source of inspiration for cinematographers and other filmmakers everywhere in the world. Vittorio has made an indelible impression."" Kemper adds that Storaro has also played an important role as an outspoken champion for the rights of cinematographers as co-authors of the films they help to create.""It is our obligation to defend the audiences' rights to see the images and to hear the sounds the way we have expressed ourselves as artists,"" Storaro says.Storaro was born and raised in Rome, where his father was a projectionist at the Lux Film Studio. He began studying photography at a technical school at the age of 11 and subsequently enrolled at C.I.A.C (Italian Cinemagraphic Training Centre). After graduation, Storaro continued his education at the Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia (the state cinematography school). He began working as an assistant cameraman at the age of 20 and advanced to camera operator within a year. During a lull in the film production industry in Italy, Storaro spent several years visiting galleries and studying the works of great painters, writers, musicians and other artists. In 1966, he went back to work as an assistant cameraman on ""Before The Revolution,"" one of the first films directed by Bernardo Bertolucci.Storaro earned his first credit as a cinematographer in 1968 for ""Giovinezza, Giovinezza."" His third film was ""La Strategia Del Ragno,"" which began his long collaboration with Bertolucci. During the 1970s when most cinematographers described their art as painting with light, Storaro expressed a more complex idea. He said cinematography is writing with light and motion and pointed that there is more than a semantical difference. Writing with light and motion is a literal translation of the word cinematography, which derives from the Greek language.""It describes the real meaning of what we are attempting to accomplish,"" Storaro says. ""We are writing stories with light and darkness, motion and colors. It is a language with its own vocabulary and unlimited possibilities for expressing our inner thoughts and feelings.""Storaro joins an elite group of cinematographers who have received ASC Lifetime Achievement Awards, including Bill Fraker, ASC, Conrad Hall, ASC, Owen Roizman, ASC, Sven Nykvist, ASC, Haskell Wexler, ASC, Victor J. Kemper, ASC, Vilmos Zsigmond, ASC, Gordon Willis, ASC, Phil Lathrop, ASC, Charles Lang, ASC and Stanley Cortez, ASC.Storaro is the youngest person to receive a Lifetime Achievement Award. He and Swedish-born Nykvist are the only recipients who are not native United States citizens.""Our members came to the conclusion that while he still has many great films in his future, Vittorio deserves this recognition for his accomplishments which are universal rather than national,"" Kemper says. ""There was no point in waiting because there is no doubt that he is a great artist who satisfies all of the criteria for this award.""Storaro responds, ""I didn't expect to receive this recognition, however, I consider it the highest honor to have my work recognized by my colleagues."" ASC traces its roots to 1913, when the Cinema Camera Club was organized in New York and the Static Club in Los Angeles. The two clubs merged and formed the ASC with 15 charter members in January of 1919 with the sole goal of advancing the art of filmmaking. Membership has always been by invitation based on the individual's body of narrative film work. There are some 185 active members and 104 associate members in allied fields.For additional information about the ASC Outstanding Achievement Awards, contact Patty Armacost at 323 969 4333, 323 882 6391 fax or e-mail patty@theasc.com.

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