Bradford Young. Learn that name, because the guy is about to break out in a big way. The cinematographer has been doing great work for a while now on films like Pariah and Middle of Nowhere, but his 2014 features A Most Violent Year and Selma display some of the best cinematography of the past few years. The guy has a bold, confident voice, and what’s spectacular about his work is that his approaches to A Most Violent Year and Selma are incredibly different, but both are absolutely phenomenal. A24 Films has released a new A Most Violent Year featurette in which director J.C. Chandor and Oscar Isaac talk about Young’s work on the film, which follows a businessman and his wife trying to hold on to their company in early 1980s New York. Young says he wanted to capture a “refined quality of decay” of the city in the film, and he does so to spectacular results.
Watch the A Most Violent Year featurette after the jump. The film opens in limited release on December 31st before expanding in January 2015. Selma opens on Christmas Day and expands on January 9, 2015. Both are well worth seeing.
Via A24.
Here’s the official synopsis for A Most Violent Year:
A MOST VIOLENT YEAR is a searing crime drama set in New York City during the winter of 1981, statistically the most dangerous year in the city’s history. From acclaimed writer/director J.C. Chandor, and starring Oscar Isaac (INSIDE LLEWYN DAVIS) and Jessica Chastain (ZERO DARK THIRTY), this gripping story plays out within a maze of rampant political and industry corruption plaguing the streets of a city in decay.
J.C. Chandor’s third feature examines one immigrant’s determined climb up a morally crooked ladder, where simmering rivalries and unprovoked attacks threaten his business, family, and - above all - his own unwavering belief in the righteousness of his path. With A MOST VIOLENT YEAR, Chandor journeys in a bold new direction, toward the place where best intentions yield to raw instinct, and where we are most vulnerable to compromise what we know to be right.
