It’s that time of year when everyone is talking about their favorite films and performances, but not nearly enough attention is given to everything else that we love about the art of movies. We asked our contributors to pick out one tech element – cinematography, editing, score – to praise from 2024. Anything that wasn’t acting. The contributions below highlight some of the most remarkable of the year in cinema, just as essential as any performance. Maybe even more.
Direction, Gary Hustwit, “Eno“
The liner notes to Brian Eno’s groundbreaking 1975 album Discreet Music begin “Since I have always preferred making plans to executing them, I have gravitated towards situations and systems that, once set into operation, could create music with little or no intervention on my part.” The surprisingly lyrical tones of Discreet Music are the result of two tape recorders in conversation, no musician necessary. The first pressings of Eno’s second solo album, the stupendous Taking Tiger Mountain (By Strategy) had a locked groove at the end of side one, repeating the ominous synth-generated cricket chirpings that were a nagging sonic motif on the song “The Great Pretender.” If you never lifted the needle, who knows where the drone might have taken you.
Taking inspiration from his subject, who’s a musician, producer, and all-around post-modern idea guy, filmmaker Gary Hustwit has embedded his digital film with an algorithm that projects a different documentary every time it is screened. This sounds a little overwhelming in theory. But in practice it’s quite a bit of fun, because the topics are so diverse — it’s rarely “this group that I was in” or “and then I wrote,” although those themes do rear their heads. (The group he was in was Roxy Music; and while he’s rarely credited as a writer with U2, he’s a co-producer on some of their most monumental records). It’s more “what if you took this idea and aimed it at what seems a completely inappropriate target,” and that sort of thing. And since every version of the film is anchored by the witty, warm and wise human presence of Eno himself, every version works. – Glenn Kenny
Pierre Olivier Persin, Makeup/VFX, “The Substance”
“The Substance” was a disgusting film—in the best way imaginable. From exploding heads and grotesque creatures to blood-soaked carnage that could even make Quentin Tarantino envious, this movie brought 1980s horror camp roaring back to modern cinema. Despite its $17.5 million budget, the film relies heavily on practical effects rather than digital enhancements. Special makeup effects designer Pierre Olivier Persin proves that practical techniques are far from obsolete.
Taking inspiration from David Lynch’s “The Elephant Man” and David Cronenberg’s “The Fly,” Persin, in collaboration with director Coralie Fargeat, delivere a one-of-a-kind creation: a ‘feminine’ monster, “like an elephant but wearing ballet shoes”. There’s something undeniably special about the tactile artistry of silicone, latex, and carefully applied adhesives. Demi Moore’s monstrous transformation into Monstro Elisasue feels authentic because it was physically real.
Through detailed designed prosthetics and advanced puppetry, Persin brings larger-than-life creatures to the screen while grounding them in reality. He proves to be a master of detail; every wrinkle, hair, and blotch of pallid skin gradually erases Moore’s recognizable features. The glamour is stripped away, and the horror takes center stage.
“The Substance” signals a shift in Hollywood’s approach to filmmaking, championing practical effects and making cinema tangible again. – Brandon Towns
Cinematography, Ranabir Das, “All We Imagine as Light“
With a color palette of plum and lapis and cityscape night photography that shines with nocturnal incandescence, writer-director Payal Kapadia turns Mumbai into a twinkling backdrop for this intimate but sprawling drama navigating the boundaries of romance, race and religion. One of the great “city films” this decade, we watch nurses Prabha (Kani Kusruti) and Anu (Divya Prabha) traverse cramped apartments that overlook the checkered glow of high-rises, take endless journeys by bus and train, and visit food stalls bursting with so much life they evade capture in a single shot. Each is presented with a miraculous sense of place and, and you come to know this city as well as any city can be known through film alone. This immersive logic follows as we travel to a beachside village in the final reel, completing the vivid impression you have lived alongside these characters. Shot digitally but finished with the convincing look of celluloid, Cinematographer Ranabir Das turns all sources of light into glowing halos blooming across the night sky, giving Mumbai the feel of an elemental plane, making what could appear like small dramas – new loves, old sorrows – seem seismic.
There’s a palpable loneliness in these city shots, yet Das’s lens gives constant attention to textures and touch: Prabha’s arms tenderly cradling a rice cooker from a distant husband, or the arousing excitement of Anu’s body pressing into her secret boyfriend on a packed bus. The camera lingers on these private moments of connection in the urban sprawl, giving them space to be felt in a city of ceaseless momentum. – Brendan Hodges
Original Score, Alex G, “I Saw the TV Glow”
For many indie music fans, Alex G has been a staple in the scene for 15 years now. And while he’s leaned on more instrumentation-heavy songs in the past and has always engaged with experimental soundscapes, his first foray with Jane Schoenbrun in “We’re All Going to the World’s Fair” was a marked change of pace. He continues his collaboration with Schoenbrun with his score for “I Saw the TV Glow,” which, like “World’s Fair,” expertly sets the film’s tone. The deep-felt, pervasive sensation of dread looms heavy over us as his music begins to play. It delivers the perfectly biting melody to a film that seeps into our skin.
His role is twofold here, too, as he both scores “I Saw the TV Glow” along with the pivotal series within the film, “The Pink Opaque,” the latter of which adopts a more ‘90s, made-for-TV inspired lilt, without ever sacrificing the underlying unease of the film. The score is elastic and versatile, moving through motions of string-heavy numbers to musical hellscapes that sound as if they were recorded in a trashcan, tinny and unsettling. But it’s the trifecta of “Buried Alive,” “Planetarium (Inside),” and “Planetarium (Outside”) that best showcases his ability to perfectly marry Schoenbrun’s visuals and narrative with his sonic expression. As Maddie’s words about rebirth and transformation hit their devastating peak, reaching out a hand to Owen in a potential, life-altering offering, Alex G’s music hits its devastating crescendo. The score beautifully encompasses the strange and melancholy tonality of the film, playing with form and genre to create something new. – Ally Johnson
Direction, Ivan Sen, “Limbo”
Every so often, I feel the impulse to drown out the voices of the characters and the music, disregard the narrative, and simply appreciate a film for how it looks. “Limbo” is one of those films. Directed, written, shot, edited and scored by Ivan Sen, it has a strong authorial vision. In Sen’s mind, the narrative and visual language are equals. The cinematography is not only there to service the story, but to elevate the film as a piece of art.
The town of Limbo is a place filled with broken people haunted by tragedy. Sen chooses to drain all the color from the yellow or brown color palette one would associate with the desolate southern Australian landscape. Instead, he opts for a washed-out monochrome look. The cinematography is symbolic of life slipping away, of time lost for these trapped characters. It might also be symbolic of the racial tensions between the white Australians and the aboriginal community that scars Australian history and its physical landscape.
There’s a sense Sen shoots his film as if he’s photographing images. It’s by unifying photography and cinema, that he shows his directing prowess. We think of paintings and photographs as being still images, but they actually capture a world brimming with movement and sound set in stillness. “Limbo” is fascinating because it plays with the contradictions of stillness and movement in the photographic and cinematic forms. As a result, there are plenty of shots that could be photographs on display in a gallery. – Paul Risker
Original Score, Kris Bowers, “The Wild Robot”
The animation in “The Wild Robot” is stunning. It has the lushness of an oil painting, but one that moves, talks, and plays music.
There are hardly any words for the first act, leaving Kris Bowers’ score to take center stage. It does so effortlessly in that act and beyond, filling out the lush and harsh world of “The Wild Robot” without taking over. Bad scores become distractions, didactically pushing the audience to feel or react a certain way. Not here. The music supports, helping us understand Roz’s emotional journey from the directive-driven robot to the empty-nest mom. His music helps us feel what Roz is risking: the impossibility of parenting, the joy and the pain of seeing a child grow.
Bowers has had a long and varied career, serving as the composer on productions as varied as the frothy “Bridgerton” and the celebrated/derided “Green Book.” He did the music for Disney’s “Haunted Mansion” flop and the insightful “Dear White PeopleDear White People” series. He’s able to make music that is its own piece of art, while building the vibes, emotional arcs, and sense of place of the workings on screen. “The Wild Robot” shows off his skills, revealing a composer at the height of his craft, deserving of all the accolades. – Cristina Escobar
Art Direction/Production Design, “Memoir of a Snail”
Whenever one watches a stop-motion ...
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