Academy Award Winners for Best Cinematography: 2023 — James Friend, ASC, BSC All Quiet on the Western Front // Im Westen nichts Neues (2022) Directed by Edward Berger Aspect Ratio: 2.39 : 1
One way the film places viewers up close to its fraught battle scenes is through its varied color palette. “The soldiers’ uniforms were designed to be camouflaged and blend in,” Friend says. “So, we would find any excuse to add a pop of color.” For example, when Paul and his comrades find themselves under attack from a tank division, the vehicles appear from behind a dramatic cloud of yellow smoke. “I don’t know if that color is historically correct,” Friend says. “It was dreamt up in a hotel suite between Ed [Berger, director] and me as we did visual notes and thought, ‘What horrible, acrid color can we introduce that will pop?’ We didn’t want the film to have that desaturated, almost black-and-white ‘war movie’ feel that has been visually exhausted.” — The American Society of Cinematographers, November 2022
