Academy Award Winners for Best Cinematography: 1992 — Robert Richardson, ASC JFK (1991) Directed by Oliver Stone Aspect Ratio: 2.39 : 1
Written as a “jigsaw” and “a fragmentation of reality,” Stone wanted the visuals to be equally fractured — “anything that would dent the narrative,” he says. Black-and-white 16mm and 35mm re-create events on Dealey Plaza and in government back rooms; shots on 8mm color echo the Zapruder film; video, archival footage, and news photographs come into play, plus different styles of shooting. “Bob [Richardson] had a documentary background, which we used a lot in Salvador, but we’d refined it by the time we got to JFK,” says Stone. “The suggestions for all the visual stocks and things to make it more fragmented, a lot of that came from Bob and from the editors. It was a hectic shoot, very hectic.” — The American Society of Cinematographers, February 2019