Ed Lachman Bio

Ed Lachman to receive the Golden Camera 300 for Lifetime Achievement at 40th Manaki Fest

Edward/Ed Lachman, ASC BIO

-Born on March 31, 1948, in Morristown, New Jersey, USA

-Studied at Harvard University (BA, 1965), then continued his studies at the University in Tours, France, and in 1969 graduated in painting (BFA, Painting) at the University in Ohio.

-Ed Lachman is at the top of the American and world cinematographers for decades, with a couple of Oscar candidate films, for which he should have at least won one Oscar, but ended up with two nominations. For that reason, the Manaki Brothers Festival, at its very own jubilee, with great pleasure gives him our Oscar – THE GOLDEN CAMERA 300 FOR LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT, which he absolutely deserved. Even though physically handicapped, he impresses with his creative energy, from his beginnings at the start of the '70s, up to the most recent 3 full-length feature projects, recording a couple of films in one year, with over 80 so far. He is one of the rare cinematographers who besides his basic vocation has proven himself as a good director as well, having 10 films under his name, almost 20 times in the role of a cameraman in films, where colleagues of his, some even laureates of ours, are cinematographers, and also him doubling as a cinematographer-director, with special affection for the documentary film (short, medium, and feature length), as almost half of his works are in the documentary genre, recording and directing also for TV, as well as video commercials. Working with many directors, his creative expression consists of various styles which depend on the feature of documentary form, also adapting to the creative process and sensibility of the director in question.

Ed Lachman, with our Golden Camera 300 for Lifetime Achievement, certainly as one of the most significant ones in his career, has so far 41 worldwide prizes, as well as 42 nominations, to his name. The most significant nominations are the ones for the Oscars, twice at his grabs, with the masterpieces: FAR FROM HEAVEN (Oscar nomination for best cinematographer in 2002) and CAROL (Oscar nomination in 2015), both films directed by Todd Haynes, with who Lachman has the most fruitful and most effective collaboration, making up the world famous duo: cinematographer – director. In the meantime, the third film also done with the director Haynes, I AM NOT THERE (2007) was also a potential Oscar candidate with all the expression specifics of Lachman in the black-and-white and color picture. Even though he deserved the Oscar for CAROL the most, he still got a satisfactory result by winning a BAFTA award in 2016, as well as the annual BSC/British Society of Cinematographers award, and in 2017, the ASC/American Society of Cinematographers awarded him the Lifetime Achievement award. Before finishing up their most recent film project, which should come out next year, the duo Lachman-Haynes had another fruitful collaboration in their up to now last film from 2017, WONDERSTRUCK, with Julianne Moore as a mother of one of the two deaf children who are searching for their parents and who meet after 50 years in New York City, and Lachman visually creating this fairytale drama very playfully, with a spectacular finale at the Museum of Wonders.

-Another significant anthological film in the rich body of works of Lachman is ERIN BROKOVICH (2000) by the director Steven Soderbergh, which got 3 big awards to the great actress Julia Roberts: Oscar for best female leading role, Golden Globe and a BAFTA award.

Looking at the other American directors which Lachman has collaborated with as a cinematographer in their anthological films, I can mention: Larry Clark, with whom as a duo of director and cinematographer they made the cult film KEN PARK (2002); Robert Altman, with the film A PRAIRIE HOME COMPANION (2005); Paul Schrader with the two films: TOUCH (1996) and LIGHT SLEEPER (1991); Susan Seidelman with another cult film, the New York comedy which launched Madonna as an actor discovery – DESPERATELY SEEKING SUSAN (1985).

Lachman is traditionally connected to the European film as well, a starting chance given to him by Werner Herzog, with whom he will shoot 2 documentaries at the beginning of the '70s, and then in 1976, Herzog will get him on board as a cameraman for his film STROSZEK, where Thomas Mauch is a cinematographer. He will collaborate with the other German giant Wim Wenders in 1979, when along with cinematographer Martin Schafer, they will do a collaboration on the shooting of the anthological documentary portrait LIGHTNING OVER WATER, which Nicholas Ray co-directed with Wenders as a pre-death film portrait-testament for himself. He will collaborate as a cinematographer with Wenders again in his anthological documentary film A TOKYO STORY (1983). In Austria he will collaborate with the director Ulrich Seidl, a director close to him by documentary sensibility, in 4 films: the documentary IMPORT/EXPORT (2005), which was followed by the close trilogy of the common term PARADISE: PARADISE LOVE (2009), PARADISE FAITH (2009) and PARADISE HOPE (2009). In London, he will collaborate with the director Hanif Kureishi on the film LONDON KILLS ME (1991), and with the British director Marek Kanievska he will shoot his American film LESS THAN ZERO (1987), then he will also shoot with the world-class Indian director Mira Nair the film MISSISSIPPI MASALA (1990).

In 1985, as a director-producer, Ed Lachman shot the one-hour documentary REPORT FROM HOLLYWOOD, and he shot the long-length film MOTHER THERESA (1985) for almost 5 years with a couple of colleagues, for him to later become a multiple-time world film laureate.

Having him as a new laureate of the Golden Camera 300 for Lifetime Achievement, with the inspirational dimension of his tireless creative energy and with all his humane, altruistic nobility – in the sign of Ed Lachman, the celebration of the 40-year-jubilee of "Manaki Brothers" gets the most suitable act of glorification of the art of cinematographers.