Since the first Academy Awards in 1929, there have been more than 600 nominees in the category of Best Cinematography. The cinematographer, who’s responsible for a movie’s lighting, framing and camerawork, is the second-highest position on a film’s call sheet, after the director – and that fact might help to explain why it is historically the biggest boys’ club in the history of moviemaking.
Of those 600 nominees, three have been women.
One of them is Mandy Walker, nominated this year for her vibrant historical re-creations and dreamy, fantasia-like camerawork on Baz Luhrmann’s “Elvis.” Walker, whose credits include “Shattered Glass,” “Hidden Figures,” Luhrmann’s “Australia” and “Mulan,” follows Rachel Morrison (2017’s “Mudbound”) and Ari Wegner (2021’s “The Power of the Dog”) as the only women ever nominated. Best Cinematography remains the sole award, aside from the male acting prizes, never won by a woman at the Oscars.
Walker might break that 95-year streak on March 12. In December, she won the AACTA (Australian Academy of Cinema and Television Arts) for the film, the first time a woman had ever won for cinematography in film at the “Australian Oscars.” In her speech, Walker emphasized that she hoped her win served to open the door for many more women in the camera department.
During a lively conversation for TheWrap Screening Series of “Elvis,” Walker was joined by producer-costume designer-production designer Catherine Martin and producer Gail Berman to discuss the hard work, craft, grit (and “girl power”) that went into making the dynamic, colorful biopic.
In speaking about the gender disparity in her field, Walker pointed out Luhrmann deserves credit for hiring her to lens a feature film in the first place, 15 years ago. (The two first collaborated when Walker photographed Luhrmann’s Chanel No. 5 commercial starring Nicole Kidman in 2004.)
“I have to champion Baz,” she said. “Because when I shot (2008’s) ‘Australia,’ no woman had ever shot a film that big and on that scale. He was the first one to give me that opportunity. So he was a trailblazer in that way. Now I feel that everybody is more conscious and aware that there aren’t many women in the camera department. I think it’s still only 6 percent of DPs that are women. So, yeah, for me it’s an exciting time that we are doing good work and being recognized for it.”
Walker also praised Luhrmann’s collaborative nature as a filmmaker. That even extended to Luhrmann’s insistence that Walker was present at Austin Butler’s audition for the title role.
“Baz will get us all involved really early,” she said. “And I was at Austin’s audition with my little camera running around, looking at angles on him, and then then jumping over to Baz and saying, ‘Look, on this three quarter shot, he really looks like Elvis, and when he moves this way this lens looks good on him.’ And exploring already the visual language of how we were going to shoot him.”
During the conversation, Walker explained the meticulous research she did for the production, which included placing her movie cameras inside the TV cameras that were used during Presley’s concerts, so that the angles and eye-lines were perfectly accurate.
But she also described the film’s otherworldly quality, as the camera often floats through the air, guiding us through Elvis’s life, courtesy of unreliable narrator and compulsive liar Colonel Tom Parker (played by Tom Hanks).
Walker explained, “Very early on Baz said to me, ‘There are three languages for the camera in this movie: The camera has to dance with Elvis; we have to fly with him when he’s flying; and then the drama is heavy or the emotions are intense, we would slow down and be very observational and elegant. The challenge was how to integrate that into the movie so it never skipped. That was something I worked on for a long time.”
As of 2022, Walker is on the Academy Board of Governor and mentors young women and people of color in the art of cinematography. “I personally am making a big effort to encourage women into my job,” she told TheWrap’s Brenda Gazzar last year.
For much more from Walker, as well as Catherine Martin and Gail Berman, check out the full video of the TheWrap’s “Elvis” Screening Series Q&A here.