Roger Pratt, the Oscar-nominated cinematographer behind “Brazil,” “Batman” and the first two “Harry Potter” films, has died at the age of 77. The British Society of Cinematographers revealed news of Pratt’s death, but a cause of death and the exact date were not given.
Born in Leicester in 1947, Pratt met director Terry Gilliam was working as a second assistant cameraman on 1975’s “Monty Python and the Holy Grail.” Gilliam then tapped Pratt to serve as cinematographer on his landmark 1985 sci-fi film “Brazil,” which made a bold aesthetic choice with extremely wide lenses and tilted camera angles (called “canted angles”).
Pratt and Gilliam would reunite on 1991’s “The Fisher King” and 1995’s “Twelve Monkeys,” but Pratt made another indelible mark by lensing Tim Burton’s 1989 blockbuster “Batman.” The comic book adaptation leaned hard into Gothic aesthetics, setting a new benchmark for how serious and “adult” comic book movies could be.
The cinematographer earned an Oscar nomination for his work on Neil Jordan’s 1999 romantic drama “The End of the Affair,” and he brought a darker aesthetic to the “Harry Potter” franchise by shooting the second film in the series, “Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets,” for Chris Columbus. He would return to the franchise for the fourth film, “Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire,” with director Mike Newell.
Other notable works in Pratt’s filmography include Wolfgang Peterson’s 2004 epic “Troy,” the 2000 Johnny Depp romance “Chocolat” and Kenneth Branagh’s 1994 adaptation of “Frankenstein.”
In 2023, Pratt received the British Society of Cinematographers’ Lifetime Achievement Award.
