Beautiful Ambiguity: The Cinematography Of Jake Magee
Jake in the Olive Fronds BBQ Shirt | Photo: Brisick
Cinematographer Jake Magee is a committed storyteller who strives to bring images to life across narrative, commercial, and documentary films. His work has taken him to Chengdu, Sao Paulo, Paris, Dubai, Tokyo, Seoul, and Kathmandu. His clients and collaborators include Nowness, Levis, Mexican Summer, Another, Huck, W, Vice, Amber Coffman, Ariel Pink, etc. Here are some samples of his rapidly-expanding oeuvre—
APSIS, directed by Max Weinman
“I first studied film in the more experimental sensibility, which for me was about going out with a 16mm camera and a meter and just trying things. I came to looking at images and cinematography in that way, just going out and making films myself, approaching it like daydreaming. I studied with this landscape filmmaker named Peter Hutton who was an observational filmmaker—he placed an emphasis on just looking and listening with the camera, letting the world do its thing. He was a lone pirate filmmaker, out in the world with a Bolex, making things on ships and in deserts. Peter’s approach was simple and sublime. His films are silent and slow, but he had an idea of narrative that was very expansive. I felt very lucky to learn from him, to think about narrative in a nontraditional way. That’s where my cinema spirit first really turned on.”
APSIS, directed by Max Weinman
“I grew up in New Mexico, in the mountains, spending a lot of time outdoors just looking and listening. One of my first films was with my dad as this wandering cowboy in the desert. It was just me, him, and a 16mm camera. That was in 2010. I’ve been working on films in different capacities and as a cinematographer since then. In the last couple of years I’ve gotten to work with Chris Blauvelt, who’s shot movies for Kelly Reichardt, Gus Van Sant, and a recent film for Jonah Hill. He’s my mentor and one of my cinematography heroes. He has an amazing idea of the camera department as a sort of family working together to make something beautiful and cool. This all came down from the great Harris Savides, who is one of my favorite cinematographers of all time.”
Naz & Maalik, directed by Jay Dockendorf
“The filmmakers I admire—whether it’s Ingmar Bergman or Michelangelo Antonioni or Apichatpong Weerasethakul (just to name a couple)—always earn what I feel is a sublime tone in their films. The moments when an emotion really lands or comes together is often when things are not really being concretely explained and so there’s a beautiful ambiguity, there’s some space and things aren’t being dictated to you. When you’re allowed space to breathe in an image and the audience is allowed to wander— those are the things I really look for in a story.”
Up The River, directed by Ben Greenblatt
“I recently saw the Stephen Shore exhibit in New York, and I was so struck by how much he was able to drain expression and subjectivity out of his photography and still make things that are very beautiful. We live in a pretty saccharine, pretty plastic-feeling age right now. The way we push images out into the world is pretty drivey, pretty subjective. I love stories where I’m doing my best to hang back, to be minimally suggestive. This is hard to do, but it’s what good cinematography is all about. When you’re doing really good cinematography, it’s like you’re trying to carry a big bowl of water across the room and not lose a drop. And you’re trying to stay invisible, you’re in service to the story.”
Up The River, directed by Ben Greenblatt
“It’s difficult to do your work and not feel the need to cater to a specific aesthetic or style or mode of thinking. But that’s the great thing about cinematography: every story, every narrative deserves its own type of image-making. So for me it’s this wonderful path of discovery to try and get to that language with each different project. There’s kind of two schools of cinematographer: there are ones whose styles are unmistakable and they’re pursued for that; and there are ones who are chameleons. To be honest I don’t feel determined to be either. Maybe a style will come out at some point but I don’t feel I have a definable aesthetic yet.”
Water Witch, directed by Jake Magee
“I want to make films that create change and create possibility for people and their imaginations. To me that is important. We’re so overwhelmed with images, especially now, that are loud and trying to sell things. Of course I want to have my own success commercially. In a broad sense, I ultimately want to make movies that are quiet and subdued and give you the chance to daydream.”
Water Witch, directed by Jake Magee
“I’ve always had an interest in all of the different aspects of the arts. Early on when I was at Bard I was painting and doing sculpture and studying theory and architecture. I sort of couldn’t focus on any one of these things. The amazing thing about filmmaking is that it really channels all of the different traditions of art and history into one practice. It makes for something that’s so incredibly complicated and takes an incredible collaboration and effort between many, many different people, but that’s also the fun of it”
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