Academy Award Winners for Best Cinematography: 2000 — Conrad L. Hall, ASC American Beauty (1999) Directed by Sam Mendes Aspect Ratio: 2.39 : 1
When Conrad L. Hall sat down to watch the finished film with Sam Mendes, he felt he was witnessing an artistic homicide. ”It was like somebody had taken a sword and drawn it through my gut,” says Hall, forcefully miming a hara-kiri gesture. ”I felt like, what the hell happened?” A radical postproduction rejigger, that’s what. In a bold move that has certainly paid off, Mendes unflinchingly sliced out a number of scenes that had been shot. Not only did the chopping radically alter the ending of the film, it also left some of Hall’s most ravishing work in the trash bin. — Entertainment Weekly, October 1999
