Until five days ago the Australian cinematographer Mandy Walker was widely considered an outside contender among her fellow Academy Award nominees. While a box office hit, Baz Luhrmann’s Elvis was up against Edward Berger’s All Quiet on the Western Front for best cinematography, the latter a harrowing pageant of graphic battle scenes and vast shattered landscapes. The film’s director of photography, James Friend, has already collected the best cinematography gong at last month’s Baftas.
Then at the weekend Walker made history, becoming the first woman to take out top honours at the American Society of Cinematographers awards. Since then her Oscars odds have changed dramatically.
