Tributes have been paid to the craftsmanship of Portuguese cinematographer Eduardo Serra who has died in Paris aged 81 on August 19 after a short illness.
Serra’s extraordinarily wide range of credits included UK indie films, European arthouse films and US blockbusters. He worked with revered French auteurs Claude Chabrol and Patrice Leconte, as well as on UK titles including Peter Chelsom’s Funny Bones, Iain Softley’s The Wings Of The Dove, and Michael Winterbottom’s Jude, and on several US productions, including Vincent Ward’s What Dreams May Come, Kevin Spacey’s Beyond The Sea, M. Night Shyamalan’s Unbreakable and Edward Zwick’s Blood Diamond.
He also shot the final two Harry Potter titles, Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows Part 1 and Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows Part 2, both directed by David Yates.
“He really had a painterly sense,” said UK director Peter Webber who worked with Serra on Girl With A Pearl Earring. “For DoPs to become great, they need to be storytellers. There is a personality aspect as well. You’re working with actors on set, under time pressure, and the more you can be a calm, authoritative presence the better. Eduardo was very much like that. He never showed the stress. He was almost like a Buddha as he sat by the monitor, calmly doing the best work.”
The director described Serra as “a great listener” and as “a really, really lovely man.” He recalled how Serra steeped himself in the work of Johannes Vermeer and other Dutch painters to prepare for the project which starred Scarlett Johansson and Colin Firth and was adapted from the Tracy Chevalier novel set in Delft in the 1660s.
Serra won a European Film Award for Girl With A Pearl Earring in 2003 and was nominated for a Bafta and an Oscar for the film. He was also nominated for an Oscar for The Wings Of A Dove in 1997.
“At the end of a day shooting in Vermeer’s studio as lit by Eduardo we would ask the electricians to leave the lights on and stay for drinks in the most beautiful place on earth,” added producer Andy Paterson. “Two masters of light at work. He knew exactly what he wanted. It was an absolute joy to watch him work.”
Serra’s last feature was Leconte’s The Promise in 2013.
Serra was born in Lisbon in October 1943. Having studied engineering at Lisbon’s Instituto Superior Técnico, he left Portugal during the Salazar dictatorship, moving to France where his career as a cinematographer began in earnest. He had studied film at the École Nationale de Photographie and had also taken a degree in Art History and Archaeology at the University of Paris-Sorbonne in 1970.
Late in his life, Serra suffered from primary progressive aphasia and was cared for at his home in Paris. He is survived by his wife, Hélène, and son, Gabriel.
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