This year the International Press Academy’s prestigious TESLA AWARD honoring Visionary Achievement in Filmmaking Technology will be presented to acclaimed British Cinematographer Dick Pope.
At 74, Pope continues to astound the critics, recently with Harry Macqueen’s Supernova, released in 2020, with many reviews noting the exceptional Cinematography. From a dramatic horror vampire film Reflecting Skin, to a charming Hindi comedy It’s a Wonderful Afterlife, to a sun-baked East Africa in The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind, to wintry streets of Manhattan in Motherless Brooklyn, Pope transforms different worlds to the big screen using the camera like the artistic palette of a painter.
He could go hand-held with his camera as he did with Naked, or have non-stop movements in an action thriller like The Way of the Gun. He has worked with a most eclectic variety of great directors such as Richard Linklater, John Sayles and Mike Newell. He lensed movies like Man of the Year for Barry Levinson and Swept from the Sea for Beeban Kidron.
Actors who wanted to try their hand at directing tapped into Pope’s talents, such as Edward Norton with Motherless Brooklyn, who wanted his movie to look like Edward Hopper’s Nighthawks painting, with desaturated shadows of browns and greens. And then he worked with Chiwetel Ejiofor in Malawi for a lyrical story The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind.
Pope was nominated for an Academy Award in Cinematography for The Illusionist and Mr. Turner. He won a Satellite Award in Cinematography for Mr. Turner. He also received Golden Frog awards from the Camerimage festival, honoring the art of Cinematography for Secrets & Lies, Vera Drakeand a duo award shared with Mike Leigh.
Variety recently declared: “From the gritty realism of Mike Leigh to the mysterious Reflecting Skinand The Illusionist, Mr. Pope is one of the most underrated cameraman working right now.”
Dick Pope joins the International Press Academy’s distinguished roster of TESLA AWARDrecipients, which includes Douglas Trumbull, Robert A. Harris, Rick Baker, Garrett Brown, James Cameron, Jerry Lewis, Stan Winston, Richard Donner, Dennis Muren, George Lucas, Walter Murch, Industrial Light & Magic, Roger Deakins, John Toll, Robert Legato, Kevin Baille and Joe Letteri.
The award is named after Nikola Tesla, the Serbian-American revolutionary engineer and inventor whose devices and discoveries laid the foundations of many branches of modern science. The award statuette was designed by noted sculptor Dragan Radenović, whose works are in the private collections of Kirk Douglas, Sophia Loren and Princess Grace of Monaco.
— Michael Szymanski
