8.Vittorio Storaro

Born 1940

Vittorio Storaro (born 24 June 1940 in Rome) is a three-time Academy Award winning Italian cinematographer. He is most famous for his work on Apocalypse Now (his first Oscar), where he was given free reign by Francis Ford Coppola to photograph the film’s acclaimed visual look. He went on to win Oscars for Reds and The Last Emperor, which was directed by Bernardo Bertolucci, his most frequent collaborator. Storaro is widely regarded as a master cinematographer with a sophisticated philosophy largely inspired by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe’s theory of colors, which focuses in part on the psychological effects different colors have and the way in which colors influence our perceptions of different situations. With his son, Fabrizio Storaro, he created the Univisium format system to unify all future theatrical and television movies into one respective aspect ratio of 2.00:1.

The clip is a scene from The Sheltering Sky, showcasing arguably the most beautiful desert cinematography ever put on film. For a much better quality view (and longer version) of this scene, go here. You will absolutely not be disappointed.

Notable films: The Conformist (1970), Last Tango in Paris (1972), Apocalypse Now (1979), Reds (1981), The Last Emperor (1987), The Sheltering Sky (1990)