James Laxton

James Laxton is an American cinematographer who is best known for his collaborations with filmmaker Barry Jenkins, specifically his work on Jenkins' 2016 film Moonlight, for which he won an Independent Spirit Award and received an Academy Award nomination.^[2][3]

Laxton began his career at Florida State University, where he met his frequent collaborator, Barry Jenkins. Their relationship, which started in college, has led them to work together on numerous films, including the critically acclaimed 2016 film Moonlight, which received multiple awards and nominations. After graduating from the university, Laxton entered the industry by assisting the camera department on various features and shorts. He also took on projects from directors such as David Nordstrom, David Parker, Cole Schreiber, and many others.

During his childhood, Laxton accompanied his mother to film sets, an experience that played a significant role in his decision to join the camera department. He observed the rhythm of the set, witnessing moments of total chaos followed by a single action that brought everything to a calm, only for the director to call "cut" and the frenzy to resume. These moments left a profound impact on a young James Laxton, inspiring him to consider a career in the film industry as a viable option.^[4]

Feature films

Moonlight

Arguably his most critically acclaimed film was Moonlight directed by Barry Jenkins. The film takes themes of sexuality and explores them in a harsher urban environment. The cinematography of Moonlight took contemporary film-making and put a new lens on it. With a relatively low budget of 1.5 million dollars,^[5] there weren't a lot of resources that were able to be spent on things like underwater camera gear for example.^[6] However, challenges like these made it possible for Jenkins and Laxton to think outside the box on how they would be able to pull certain shots off. This ingenuity gives birth to the cinematic language of the film and it projects boldly with every scene.

If Beale Street Could Talk

After the commercial success of Moonlight, the next film for the two filmmakers would be a tragic love story between Tish Rivers played by KiKi Layne and a wood artist Alonzo 'Fonny' Hunt played by Stephan James as they meet begin to build a life together until Fonny is accused of a crime he didn't commit. From this point on, Tish is doing everything that she can in order to set her love free. With the film being based on a novel by James Baldwin, there are several instances where the cinematography feels "novel-like" to indicate the sense of losing oneself in any given scene and how intricately the characters traits and emotions intertwine with one another. "To find and fine-tune the precise visual grammar of Baldwin’s mastery Jenkins followed a process that served him so well with his previous Oscar-winner. One of the keys to Moonlight transcending the limitations of its $1.5 million budget – trading docu-realism for crafted visual poetry of the highest level".^[7] The language that Jenkins and Laxton created for Moonlight creates a look well beyond the low budget and shed more light on the verite style cinematography.

Filmography

Short film

Feature film

Television

Awards and nominations

References

External links

• James Laxton at IMDb

This page was last edited on 19 March 2024, at 18:56