The Master of the Light: Andrew Lesnie’s greatest moments

Following his death, there’s been an outpouring of love for cinematographer Andrew Lesnie’s work from film fans all over the world. Best known as the man who shot Middle-Earth, he worked with Peter Jackson on the Lord of the Rings films (and the latest Hobbit trilogy to boot); but apart from giving New Zealand’s tourism industry a bump up the backside, he also had extraordinary achievements elsewhere. From kids flicks such as Babe and its sequel Babe: Pig in the City, to framing superstar Will Smith in box office smash I Am Legend, to letting us watch an army of primates take over the world in Rise of the Planet of the Apes, he was clearly a man who understood the medium of cinema, and how to get only the very best results.

His final movie, The Water Diviner – directed by and starring Russell Crowe, who called him a ‘master of light’ when he learned of his death – gave him a chance to show us just some of the horrors of WWI, and serves as a potent reminder that Lesnie really knew how to shoot movies. From the very beginning of storyboarding, to the the film set itself, right until the end of post-production, the director is the brain of the entire project – and the cinematographer is very much the eyes. Those who have worked with Lesnie, such as Jackson and Ian McKellen, have commented on what a gentle, kind soul he was to be around; for the rest of us, all we have are his films. Here, we’ll look briefly at some of the director of photography’s greatest moments, from across his incredible body of work.

The Isengard Dive

During the pre-production on The Lord of the Rings trilogy, the ingredient that was clearly the most important was the world-building; how do you tell a story well, while also building a sprawling, mythical world around it? Throughout these movies, there are a countless number of breathtaking shots – but one in particular, in the first half of 2001’s The Fellowship of the Ring, proved that Jackson and co. were really onto something. The camera gently ascends the great tower of Orthanc, overlooking the charred landscape of Saruman’s domain before coming to a rest by Gandalf, imprisoned at the monuments’ summit in the serene moonlight, until we’re dropped 500 feet feet all the way back back down into the fiery bowels of Isengard. Lesnie let Jackson’s imagination run wild, and this shot – where the sides of good and evil in Middle-earth are sublimely portrayed – was just the beginning of a partnership that would only get more epic (and earn Lesnie an Oscar in the process).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tnidHtNzK-0

Greeting at Skull Island

Following the multiple-year odyssey that was making The Lord of the Rings movies, Lesnie signed up for some more insanity with Peter Jackson on 2005’s King Kong. The film starts in a near-fantastical New York City, its immense CGI backdrops shadowing colourful characters who could have been pulled from a comic strip – but when we finally reach Skull Island, the dreaded abode of the gargantuan gorilla Kong, a nightmare becomes sickening reality. When the intrepid film crew explore the desolate village, they’re greeted by murderous natives; the entire sequence is shot with a stark objectivity, accentuated by the REM-inspired stuttered-frame motion Lesnie perfected in The Fellowship of the Ring, all layered with the kind of grim hues that chill to the very bone. Remind us never to visit Skull Island for a holiday.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R_tx6q_F5Hc

Turning Reality into Dream

Both Babe movies were the reason that Jackson handpicked Lesnie for The Lord of the Rings; in the director’s own words, he chose him for ‘the way he’d used backlight and the sun and natural light to create a very magical effect. And Babe had that larger-than-life feel about it that I wanted.’ (It certainly paid off for Jackson.) In Babe’s 1998 sequel, the mundane is certainly turned into something magical – but it wasn’t just because of the talking animals. Lesnie shot George Miller’s gigantic city sets with a dreamlike quality, basking their clear artificiality in a keen self-awareness that make it stand out as a wonderfully crafted family film. You can see Pig in the City’s influence on later kids’ flicks, like Charlotte’s Web (also about a pig), and Nanny McPhee, where both injected a little absurdity into normality.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=al91hfncfC4

Streets of Rage

I Am Legend is evidence that even though the movie may not be great, Lesnie could still make it look so. The joy to be had from watching this 2007 Will Smith vehicle is in its opening act, where we get to learn about the world that he occupies – a world with no people, but plenty of night-stalking vampires. Drenched in warm sun beams, New York City is turned into a silent but beautiful oasis of concrete and solitude; here, Lesnie allows the buildings to loom over Smith, getting us to really feel that, despite the quiet, someone is always watching us. He would also get some of Francis Lawrence’s better ideas to shine through; that absurdly creepy shot of the mannequin in the empty road (see below) serves as a particular highlight of when a director’s vision and a DP’s talent come together perfectly.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_tts6_LpGnk

Light versus Dark

The Lord of the Rings, on paper and on screen, is about the mighty struggle between good and evil. Having to keep reminding audiences of that over three films would seem a chore for the director, and an even bigger labour for the audience. Of course, if you had Andrew Lesnie as cinematographer on your picture, then visual storytelling would become a succinct and elegant affair, even when blown to epic proportions. Just like that incredible camera swoop from the bowels of Isengard to the skyward tip of Orthanc in Fellowship, another indelible image comes in 2003’s The Return of the King, when Gandalf bounds across the Pelennor fields to rescue the remaining guard of Gondor from flying Nazgul snapping at their heels. The wizard’s staff blasts a ray of light at the dark creatures, a shield for the fair whites and greens of Middle-earth against the ash clouds of Mordor. This image could hang as an oil painting in a cathedral, a stunning mural depicting light battling darkness, a sequence that could easily have come across as preposterous; Lesnie was always able to find a way of framing Jackson’s rampant imagination with a point-of-view that stunned, rather than fatigued, the audience.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Owq_aBJ9G6Q

Reclaiming the Homeland

Even though CGI had almost become an assumed standard by the time The Hobbit movies rolled into production, Andrew Lesnie was always able to give these binary creations a living, breathing world to live in. Case in point: Erebor, from The Hobbit films. First glimpsed in 2012’s An Unexpected Journey, we got to fully explore the lost domain of the Dwarves in 2013’s The Desolation of Smaug – and Lesnie realised that the visuals for the sequel had to be even bigger than the first time round. An immeasurably vast underground city of marble-green architecture, awash with colossal rivers of gold, it’s in the echoey city of Erebor that Bilbo meets his first live dragon, Smaug. You may think that it’s Smaug’s personality which fills these empty halls – but rather, it’s the very grandiosity of Erebor that gives the winged serpent the stage to slather Bilbo with his evil-hearted spiel in the first place.

Gallipoli

Lesnie’s final film, The Water Diviner, will remain a worthy testament to the man’s astonishing cinematography. Its standout sequences are set during the Battle of Gallipoli, one of the bloodiest events in the history of any war – but it’s not the subject alone that gives weight to proceedings. Mainly shot at night, Gallipoli’s darkest moments (literally and figuratively) are captured poetically, as Lesnie’s flair for hushed light allows long, deep shadows to cast themselves across not only the bullet-hewn battlefield, but the desperate faces of the soldiers too. In Lesnie’s hands, both landscapes become maps of madness and despair in the face of such breathtaking violence. There’s only so much credit Russell Crowe can take for The Water Diviner’s most visually arresting, emotionally gripping moments before it becomes clear that Lesnie – ‘the master of the light’, as Crowe himself put it – was just as responsible for them as the director himself.