Dante Spinotti Director Of Photography

Dante Spinotti joins director Brett Ratner for their fifth film together, following collaborations on X-Men: The Last Stand, After the Sunset, Red Dragon and The Family Man.

The cinematographer earned his first Academy Award® nomination on Curtis Hanson’s 1997 period drama L.A. Confidential (with additional nominations from the American Society of Cinematographers [ASC] and BAFTA), followed by a second Oscar® nomination (and a third ASC nod) two years later for Michael Mann’s acclaimed true-life drama The Insider.
Spinotti has worked with Mann on four other projects, including Manhunter, The Last of the Mohicans (for which the cinematographer won a BAFTA and earned his first nomination from the ASC), Heat and, most recently, the Depression-era gangster epic Public Enemies.  Spinotti has also enjoyed collaborating with director Michael Apted on The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, Blink and Nell.

Spinotti reteamed with Curtis Hanson on his acclaimed 2000 comedy-drama Wonder Boys, and has also directed the photography for such films as Flash of Genius, Beaches, Frankie and Johnny, The Other Sister, Deception, Slipstream, The Contract, Crimes of the Heart, Pinocchio (for which he earned his third David di Donatello Award nomination), Bandits, Goodbye Lover, The Mirror Has Two Faces and The Quick and the Dead.
His other feature credits include Hudson Hawk, True Colors, From the Hip, Illegally Yours, The Comfort of Strangers, Torrents of Spring and two films for which he won a David di Donatello Award: The Legend of the Holy Drinker (1988) and Il segreto del bosco vecchio (1993).
Spinotti’s other Italian-language films include Cenerentola ’80, Il Minestrone, Hearts and Armour, Sogno di una notte d’estate, Così parlò Bellavista, Fotografando Patrizia, Aria, Il quartetto Basileus and The Berlin Affair.

Born in the Friuli region of northeast Italy, Spinotti discovered his interest in film photography in his early teens.  He traveled to Milan, where he gained professional experience in Italian television, including the miniseries I nicotera (1972) and the movie Tracce sulla neve (1975).  After breaking into feature films, Spinotti worked extensively in his homeland collaborating with Lina Wertmüller (Sotto...sotto) and Liliana Cavani (The Berlin Affair), before coming to America to work with Mann on Manhunter.

In addition to his individual film honors, Spinotti received the 2009 Plus Cameraimage Lifetime Achievement Award at the International Film Festival of the Art of Cinematography in Łódź, Poland, which celebrated his body of work.  Keeping with their annual tradition, the festival published a book illustrating Spinotti’s career achievements.

More