NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN/BRITISH VISION

Could anyone be less British than the Coen brothers? Well, yes, any American director/s who didn’t rely so much on British cinematographer Roger Deakins!!!!

Devon born Deakin has just grabbed a Career Achievement Award from the National Board of Review for the Coen Bros’ latest, No Country For Old Men, which opens on January 18 next year.

The film - a thriller involving heroin, two million dollars and a hitman - is set in West Texas, a long way from Deakin’s bourgoise Torquay but the master had no trouble coping with the arid climate and gives No Country a harrowing beauty.

Hardly surprising since he only recently finished lensing The Assassination Of Jess James, another taut Western set drama and the equally distinctive looking In The Valley of Elah.

Speaking of foreign locations, his other recent work included the Middle East war tale Jarhead and chiller M. Night Shyamalan’s The Village.

But Deakin is by no means limited to the exotic and quirky, having also handled the photography for films as diverse as the academic Beautiful Mind, Cuba missile history Thirteen Days and comedies The Ladykillers and Intolerable Cruelty.

Previous jobs for the Coens include the B&W Man Who Wasn’t There, the Biblical O Brother Where Art Thou, the edgy Barton Fink, the ice bound Fargo and the irresistible Big Lebowski. In short, nearly everything they have done.

Yet he has still found time for these titles as well: Courage Under Fire; Dead Man Walking; The Shawshank Redemption; and The Hudsucker Proxy. Not a bad work load by anyone’s standards.

Why he has even managed to chalk up a few British scripts in the 80s before the Coen and others stole him away, including Pascali's Island, Stormy Monday, The Kitchen Toto, Personal Services, White Mischief, Sid and Nancy and Defence of the Realm.

Yes, that is all he has done. Really, it makes you wonder why they give these career awards. Seems just about anyone can get one!!!!

Actually, you have to think that what Deakins might like more than Awards recognition would be a day off.

But he’s not likely to have it in the near future!!! Having only just wrapped Sam Mendes’s Revolutionary Road, his “To Do” list reads The Reader (British, currently filming); Doubt, with Meryl Streep; and Hail Caesar for, you guessed it, those pesky Coen Brothers!

Filed December 11, 2007.