Keepers of the Magic (2016)

(On TV, December 2020) An explicit interest in cinematography is often how you can distinguish moviegoers from cinephiles – understanding how the images of cinema come to be created is a bold leap in the technical aspect of filmmaking, and unlocking the secret language of cinema – beyond script, beyond acting, even beyond directing – is often about how visuals affect our emotional reaction to the content of a film. In Keepers of the Magic, we get a good evocative look at some of the best cinematographers in the business as of 2016, and highlights of previous decades. It’s an introductory film (it’s hard to be that technical in 90 minutes) and it relies on interviews and anecdotes more than analysis or historical reporting – but it’s quite a bit of fun for those who are familiar with the films being discussed, and those who want to explore the often crucial but seldom highlighted relationship between directors and cinematographers. Heck, writer-director-cinematographer Vic Sarin’s Keepers of the Magic goes even a little bit further – in a telling anecdote, we’re told how a clever cinematographer can help out actors by providing them with a break and blaming it on resetting equipment. There’s a lot of footage to illustrate the anecdotes, and it almost always looks terrific due to the nature of the topic being discussed. As someone who has, thanks to the pandemic lockdowns, recently watched an unhealthy number of movies, I really enjoyed the result: I can always use reminders that films are more than plot engines, and that there’s a significant effort in showing us things in evocative ways.