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Michael
Chapman Named ASC Miroslav Ondricek, ASC • Howard A. Anderson Jr., ASC • Irwin Winkler • Kevin Brownlow
“Michael Chapman has made extraordinary contributions to the art of filmmaking,” says ASC President Richard Crudo. “He is an innovative storyteller with an original approach to cinematography, which is sometimes complex and often elegantly simple. I admired him from afar when I was starting my career. His artistry and courage are a source of inspiration for all aspiring filmmakers with unrealized dreams.” Chapman has compiled some 40 narrative credits as a cinematographer since launching his career with The Last Detail in 1974. He earned Oscar nominations in 1981 for Raging Bull and in 1994 for The Fugitive. His body of work consists of such diverse films as Taxi Driver, The Wanderers, The White Dawn, Invasion of the Body Snatchers, The Last Waltz, Doc Hollywood, Personal Best, Dead Men Don’t Wear Plaid, Rising Sun and Primal Fear. His upcoming releases include Eulogy and Suspect Zero. Chapman joins an impressive list of former ASC Lifetime Achievement Award recipients, including several with whom he worked as a crew member at the beginning of his own career. He was a camera operator for Bill Butler, ASC on Jaws and for Gordon Willis, ASC on Klute, The Godfather and several other films. “I also worked with Gordon (Willis) on many commercials,” Chapman says. “It was quite a ride. I got to watch while a man make up a whole new style of ‘seeing.’ I knew I could never imitate Gordy, but from our years together, I took away the seriousness of purpose that he saw, and the idea that light could be organized to express strong emotions.” Past award recipients include Willis, George Folsey, ASC, Phil Lathrop, ASC, Charles Lang, Jr. ASC, Stanley Cortez, ASC, Joe Biroc, ASC, Haskell Wexler, ASC, Conrad L. Hall, ASC, Sven Nykvist, ASC, Owen Roizman, ASC, Victor J. Kemper, ASC, Vittorio Storaro, ASC, AIC, Vilmos Zsigmond, ASC, Laszlo Kovacs, ASC, William Fraker, ASC and Bill Butler, ASC. Chapman was born and raised in Massachusetts. He attended Andover and then Columbia University. After college, he spent two years in the United States Army, and then two more as a freight-brakeman on the railroad. He was eventually led into the movie business by his father-in-law Joe Brun, ASC, a French cinematographer who earned an Oscar nomination for Martin Luther (1953). During his initiation into the New York filmmaking community, Chapman met several cinematographers including Boris Kaufman, who won an Oscar in 1955 for On the Waterfront. That led him to a camera crew job at MPO, a commercial company in New York, where he met Willis, Roizman, director Michael Cimino and other narrative filmmakers. Willis introduced Chapman to director Hal Ashby, which led to his first feature film credit on The Last Detail. Chapman’s next film was The White Dawn, the first of his four collaborations with director Philip Kaufman. During that seminal period, Chapman also collaborated with directors Martin Ritt on The Front and Martin Scorsese on Taxi Driver. Film critic Pauline Kael tabbed Chapman as someone to watch while reviewing Taxi Driver. She wrote, “His depiction of street life in New York added a seamy, rich pulpiness to the story.” Chapman also worked with Scorsese on The Last Waltz and Raging Bull. “Marty has a very special insight into the grammar of camera movement, angles and composition,” Chapman says. “One of the big things I learned from working with him was to think of the camera as an actor responding emotionally to the scene.” Chapman is a member of SAG with around a dozen acting credits, mainly bit roles on films he has shot. In Raging Bull, he portrayed a still photographer who is seen at ringside with a cigar in his mouth and a Speed Graphic camera poised to shoot. Chapman has also directed several films, including The Clan of the Cave Bear and All the Right Moves, as well as writing The Viking Sagas. “Cinematography is a lot like acting,” Chapman observes. “You don’t have time for introspection. You have to trust your instincts. The audience doesn’t consciously see everything we do, but they remember how it made them feel. I’m never totally satisfied when I see one of my old films. It always starts me thinking about how I could have done something differently. Filmmaking is a serious business, but there is also a subconscious yearning for something far more ethereal and deeper.” Roizman, who chairs the ASC Awards committee says, “I wish I could tell you that I noticed Michael Chapman when we were working at MPO during the 1960s, and recognized that he was going to become one of the most influential filmmakers of our times. The truth is that a lot of people have natural talent. Michael has that extra something, which separates the great artists from the good ones. He has a fierce determination to keep learning and growing. That’s how you build a great body of work.” Click here for information about last year’s ceremony and more information on the history of the ASC Outstanding Achievement Awards.
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In
honor of his outstanding and enduring contributions to advancing
the art of filmmaking, Michael Chapman, ASC will receive the ASC
Lifetime Award at the 18th Annual ASC Outstanding Achievement Awards
in Los Angeles at the Century Plaza Hotel on Feb. 8, 2004.