In learning about cinematography, through the eyes and lens of Matthew Libatique, what’s illuminating to me is the conscientiousness that permeates his work.

It’s not to say that that other filmmakers are thoughtless in their creative direction, that every shot is serendipitously stitched together — that most definitely isn’t the case, with so many breathtaking films and renowned cinematographers. It’s more that the depths of Libatique’s thinking and decisions with light and his camera speak to his immense love of the form and awareness of the effect it holds on viewers.

Our attention only goes so far — and yes, although a film dictates our gaze in the first few minutes, this flighty and easily lost thing must be earned throughout the rest of the hour. And it seems that the threshold into focus, a sharp kind of engagement where the moving pictures have an audience pinned in place, is blurrier and difficult to reach, in practice. I’ve noticed that many times, the best films only feel like one after the credits roll. It’s like the idea that I’m actually watching something, that what I’m watching is a movie, disintegrates and the parts only piece themselves together after.

The more films I watch, the more I see how subconsciously, good cinematography captures me. Flashy, pointedness in what’s captured in the frame is sometimes so striking and commanding that it is jarring. But to realize the frame’s holding power on the technical terms, on a very conscious level, rather than subliminally understanding its perfect manifestation within and of the story, is the difference between taking you out of it and drawing you that much closer, between distracting the story, even if it is a beautiful distraction, and ascending it.

It’s also intriguing to me how he talks about how conscious he is about history, legacy, and power — who wrote it, creates it, holds it, and most importantly, who shares and tells others of it and how. What has defined and dominated our artistic appreciation, is so intrinsically tied to a discriminatory curation, a red rope that has left countless voices, stories, visions and ideas go unheard.

So many — especially black and indigenous people, people of color, the LGBTQ+ community, women — have been disenfranchised in creative ways that seem insignificant alongside political and historical injustices, but are in fact, the truth and mark of the political and the historical.

When Libatique speaks about Spike Lee and his first time seeing Do the Right Thing, and how Lee awakened a new understanding of cinema for him, I could feel how monumental that moment was for him. And that realization that this was a possibility, took Libatique to where he is now, making films that hopefully are sparking the same fire in other young aspiring filmmakers and creatives.

Yu Young Lee is our Digital Media Coordinator and Co-Host The Creative Process’ - Poetry & Prose.