07 · 06 · 16

Rodrigo Prieto: Emotions in Cinematography

Arantxa Luna (@mentecata_)

Without a doubt, filmmaking in Mexico has formed great talents. Rodrigo Prieto, a renowned Mexican cinematographer, has built a solid career capturing essential moments of national and international cinema with a unique style.

Graduated from the Centro de Capacitación Cinematográfica (CCC) in Mexico City, Prieto began his career in student projects like El sótano (1988) by Patricia Martínez de Velasco; La Venganza (1989) and Dama de noche (1993) by Eva López Sánchez. Some years later, he worked in a number of Mexican films that won many awards: Sobrenatural (1996) by Daniel Gruener and Edipo Alcalde (1997) by Jorge Alí Triana, both won the award for Best Cinematography at the Cartagena International Film Festival; Un embrujo (1998) by Carlos Carrera won the Ariel award for Best Cinematography and Best Cinematography at the San Sebastián Film Festival; and Fibra Óptica by Francisco Athié won the award for Best Cinematography at the Latin American Film Festival in New York.

What Prieto is interested in capturing with his camera is the full power of the characters, “Far from finding images that accompany the story, the objective was to portray the characters and their physical context in a realistic way, and at the same time in a powerful way […] The camera ‘lives’ with the characters, with what happens to them, and it reacts with them, that is how we try to involve the spectators in the story, putting them in the middle of the situations.”

Once consolidated in the national cinematographic circuit, the work that granted him the most international visibility was the award-winning Amores Perros (2000) by Alejandro G. Iñárritu, production that was followed by more collaborations with the Mexican director: 21 Grams (2003), Babel (2006), nominated to the BAFTA award for Best Cinematography, and Biutiful (2010). In 2002, Prieto worked as cinematographer in Frida by Julie Taymor, three years later, his collaboration in Brokeback Mountain by Ang Lee resulted in his first Academy Award nomination for Best Cinematography.

During filming, for Prieto it is fundamental to “follow the emotional path of the characters visually”, a mission that has transformed his style into world where the frame is defined by the use of vibrant colors, by drastic changes in mood, and an eagerness to distance itself from artifice to grant space to the camera as a character inside the film.

“I don’t think good photography is necessarily beautiful. I don’t think it is about that. Images should excite and contribute to the story.” After winning the Goya Award for Best Cinematography for Biutiful, and after collaborating with Pedro Almodóvar in Los abrazos rotos (2009), Prieto’s career has included collaborations with Oliver Stone in Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps (2010), Ben Affleck in Argo (2012), Tommy Lee Jones in The Homesman (2014), and with Martin Scorsese in The Wolf of Wall Street (2013) and in his most recent film Silence (2016).

“I enjoy working with different kinds of directors and that is what I have done throughout my career. I like to enter their world, their mind, and be flexible.” Rodrigo Prieto also explored directing with his short film Likeness (2013), starring Elle Fanning and nominated for Best Narrative in Short at the Tribeca Film Festival.

For Prieto, “Ilumination and photography are an abstract form of expression. It is an art form that is not concrete. It is just using the energy of light to express emotions.”