Owen Roizman, who passed yesterday aged 86, was one of Hollywood’s most important cinematographers, he defined the look of American ‘70s cinema. Hell, he’s one of the all-time greats purely for pulling off the above shot from 1973’s “The Exorcist.”
Roizman brilliantly made New York City look like the shithole that it was during that decade. Kudos to screenwriter and WoR reader Matthew Wilder for pulling this quote from Pauline Kael about Roizman: “[His photography] looked like a TV that needs tuning.”
As Wilder states, maybe that was the point. Roizman shot the seventies with a stunning body of work: NETWORK, STRAIGHT TIME, THE TAKING OF PELHAM ONE TWO THREE, THREE DAYS OF CONDOR, THE HEARTBREAK KID, THE EXORCIST, THE FRENCH CONNECTION…in the 80s TOOTSIE, ABSENCE OF MALICE.
What’s truly perplexing is how a rising talent like Powell, whose star had been steadily ascending thanks to smart film choices, would attach himself to a live-action Disney spinoff.