On the career of cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki and why his achievement across the 2010s is unprecedented in American cinematography.

Lubezki won three consecutive Academy Awards for Best Cinematography — Gravity (2013), Birdman (2014), and The Revenant (2015) — which had never happened before. But the consecutive wins, while historically notable, are less interesting than what connects the three films cinematographically.

All three are experiments in the duration of the take. Gravity's long takes create the disorientation of orbital mechanics. Birdman's fake continuous shot creates the relentlessness of performance anxiety. The Revenant's natural-light cinematography creates a physical presence in landscape that the conventional coverage of a Western would preclude.

In each case Lubezki and his director are using the length of the take not as technical demonstration but as argument: duration produces a specific relationship between viewer and film that editing interrupts. When you cannot cut away from a situation, you have to be in the situation. That's not a stylistic choice; it's a philosophical position about what cinema is for.