Chris Menges

As an Academy Awardwinning cinematographer who made the successful segue to directing features Chris Menges has carved out a successful but understated career Menges got his start as an assistant editor and camera operator and even worked as a sound recordist several times before working his way up to director of photography Menges had his first real break as a documentary cameraperson and editor in the 1960s and 1970s traveling wherever there was war and insurrection Burma Angola Vietnam and Tibet while working with filmmaker Adrian Cowell Once he made the permanent jump to feature films in the 1980s Menges developed a style as a cinematographer that never overwhelmed audiences with gaudy colors or outlandish camera moves In fact Menges understood the oftaccepted theory that color could be less realistic than black and white because it focused the audience away from emotion to an object Menges work was defined by a lowkey naturalism plain composition and a mix of lenses to tug at the audience at the appropriate moments which helped him craft memorable images in several awardwinning films including The Killing Fields 1984 Michael Collins 1996 and The Reader 2008 IMDb mini bio by yusufpiskin