Cinematographer's Best #24: Michael Chapman

“I consider myself so fortunate to have been able to work with Michael Chapman. Michael and I made three films together—’Taxi Driver,’ ‘The Last Waltz,’ and ‘Raging Bull,’ and he brought something rare and irreplaceable to each of them.”

“I remember when ‘Taxi Driver’ came out and Michael became known as a ‘poet of the streets’—I think that was the wording, and it seemed right to me. Michael was the one who really controlled the visual palette of ‘The Last Waltz,’ and on ‘Raging Bull’ he and his team met every single challenge—and there were so many. One of the greatest of those challenges was shooting in black and white, which Michael had never done before, a fact that still astonishes me. His relationship with the camera and the film that was running through it was intimate, mysterious, almost mystical. He was a great artist, and it saddens me that I won’t get to see him again.”