Writing with Light

Book excerpt: A unique tribute to art films as seen through the eyes of master cinematographer Vittorio Storaro, the winner of three Academy Awards. The volume is a compendium of Storaro's extraordinary fifty-year career and a tribute to the creative sources of his work, as celebrated through more than 500 illustrations that reflect his singular style. In cinematography, there is not just one kind of light, but an infinite range of variants: not only the day and night specified in the screenplays, but also the daylight and artificial light, the darkness and the twilight, the sunrise and the sunset, the sun and the moon. And each one tells a story, expresses an idea or an emotion, and digs down into the subconscious. "The Muses" are the female figures of Greek mythology who have inspired the cinematography of Storaro in terms of aesthetics, light, color, and value.