Майкл Чэпмен: Американ операторының өмірі мен шығармашылығы

American cinematographer (1935–2020)

Michael Crawford Chapman, American Society of Cinematographers (November 21, 1935 – September 20, 2020) was an American cinematographer and film director well known for his work on many films of the American New Wave of the 1970s and in the 1980s with directors such as Martin Scorsese and Ivan Reitman. He shot more than forty feature films, over half of those with only three different directors.

Chapman was born in New York City in 1935, but raised in Wellesley, Massachusetts, a suburb of Boston, without much of an interest in film. As a youth, he was more interested in sports than photography or painting. He graduated from high school at Andover, a college preparatory school in Andover, Massachusetts. After high school, he attended Columbia College, where he majored in English. Upon his graduation, he worked temporarily as a brakeman for the Erie Lackawanna Railroad in the Midwest. In 1958, he was drafted in the United States Army, where he served in the Signal Corps stationed in New Jersey and Thule Air Base in Greenland. His final film was Bridge to Terabithia (2007). According to the DVD commentary, Chapman planned to retire after the film was finished, saying he would like to have the last film he shot be a good one.

Chapman was married to screenwriter Amy Holden Jones. His father in law, Joe Brun, was an Oscar nominated cinematographer who had emigrated from France in the early 20th century. He stated later in his life that he no longer watched films directed by frequent collaborators Martin Scorsese or Steven Spielberg, as he knew their general style would not change much. "Unless a director makes some huge sea change in what he does, that the work, the mechanical work, is going to be vaguely the same — or of the same school, anyway — but what changes is the intelligence and passion behind it in the script." He also admitted that his preferred method was to watch movies at home and that he rarely, if ever, went to a theater any more.

Chapman died from congestive heart failure on September 20, 2020, at his home in Los Angeles.

Chapman was nominated twice for the Academy Award for Best Cinematography: for Raging Bull and The Fugitive. He was the winner of the National Society of Film Critics Award for Best Cinematography in 1981 for his work on Raging Bull. He received the 2003 ASC Lifetime Achievement Award. Chapman received the Lifetime Achievement Award at the 24th International Film Festival of the Art of Cinematography Camerimage in 2016.

Year Title Director DoP. Notes 1965Who Killed Teddy BearJoseph CatesJoseph C. BrunAssistant camera1966The Fat Spy1968The Thanksgiving VisitorFrank Perry1970End of the RoadAram AvakianGordon WillisCamera operatorLovingIrvin KershnerThe LandlordHal AshbyThe People Next DoorDavid GreeneHusbandsJohn CassavetesVictor J. Kemper1971Little MurdersAlan ArkinGordon WillisKluteAlan J. Pakula1972The GodfatherFrancis Ford CoppolaBad CompanyRobert Benton1975JawsSteven SpielbergBill Butler1982The Slumber Party MassacreAmy Holden JonesStephen L. PoseyUncredited;Director of photography: prologue 1998HomegrownStephen GyllenhaalGreg GardinerAdditional photography