Rob Tregenza (born November 14, 1950) is a North American

cinematographer The cinematographer or director of photography (sometimes shortened to DP or DOP) is the person responsible for the photographing or recording of a film, television production, music video or other live action piece. The cinematographer is the ch ...

film director A film director controls a film's artistic and dramatic aspects and visualizes the screenplay (or script) while guiding the film crew and actors in the fulfilment of that vision. The director has a key role in choosing the cast members, p ...

, and

producer Producer or producers may refer to: Occupations *Producer (agriculture), a farm operator *A stakeholder of economic production *Film producer, supervises the making of films **Executive producer, contributes to a film's budget and usually does not ...

who has worked as a director of photography with other directors, including Béla Tarr (''

Werckmeister Harmonies ''Werckmeister Harmonies'' (; hu, Werckmeister harmóniák) is a 2000 Hungarian drama film directed by Béla Tarr and Ágnes Hranitzky, based on the 1989 novel ''The Melancholy of Resistance'' by László Krasznahorkai. Shot in black-and-white a ...

''), Claude Miller (''

Marching Band A marching band is a group of instrumental musicians who perform while marching, often for entertainment or competition. Instrumentation typically includes brass, woodwind, and percussion instruments. Most marching bands wear a uniform, ofte ...

''), Pierre William Glenn ('' The Sad and Lonely Death of Edgar Allan Poe''), and

Alex Cox Alexander B. H. Cox (born 15 December 1954) is an English film director, screenwriter, actor, non-fiction author and broadcaster. Cox experienced success early in his career with ''Repo Man (film), Repo Man'' and ''Sid and Nancy'', but since th ...

(''

Three Businessmen ''Three Businessmen'' is a 1998 comedy film directed by Alex Cox and written by Tod Davies, who was also the producer. It is an international co-production between the United Kingdom, Netherlands, and United States. Two businessmen, played by Mig ...

'').

Early work

A native of

Kansas Kansas () is a state in the Midwestern United States. Its capital is Topeka, and its largest city is Wichita. Kansas is a landlocked state bordered by Nebraska to the north; Missouri to the east; Oklahoma to the south; and Colorado to the ...

, Tregenza earned his PhD in theater arts from the

University of California, Los Angeles The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is a public land-grant research university in Los Angeles, California. UCLA's academic roots were established in 1881 as a teachers college then known as the southern branch of the California St ...

in 1982. In the following years, he would continue to make experimental films out of his

Sykesville, Maryland Sykesville is a small town in Carroll County, Maryland, United States. The town lies west of Baltimore and north of Washington D.C. The population was 4,436 at the 2010 census. BudgetTravel.com named Sykesville 'Coolest Small Town in America' ...

studio, financially supporting his work by making advertisements and industrial films with wife and producer J.K. Eareckson. Tregenza eventually made his feature film debut, ''

Talking to Strangers ''Talking to Strangers: What We Should Know about the People We Don't Know'' is a nonfiction book written by Malcolm Gladwell and published by Little, Brown and Company (hardcover version) on September 10, 2019. The audiobook version of the book f ...

'', which premiered in 1988 to great acclaim. Since then, he has produced, directed and photographed three more feature films: ''The Arc'' (1991), a co-production with

Film Four International Film4 Productions is a British film production company owned by Channel Four Television Corporation. The company has been responsible for backing many films made in the United Kingdom. The company's first production was ''Walter'', directed by ...

, ''Inside/Out'' (1997), and ''Gavagai'' (2016). ''

'' won him the praise of

Jean-Luc Godard Jean-Luc Godard ( , ; ; 3 December 193013 September 2022) was a French-Swiss film director, screenwriter, and film critic. He rose to prominence as a pioneer of the French New Wave film movement of the 1960s, alongside such filmmakers as Fran� ...

, who subsequently helped Tregenza make '' Inside/Out''. Richard Brody, of

The New Yorker ''The New Yorker'' is an American weekly magazine featuring journalism, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons, and poetry. Founded as a weekly in 1925, the magazine is published 47 times annually, with five of these issues ...

, wrote of the main character, Jesse, in the film: "The drive for ispurity extends through all domains—intimate, intellectual, artistic, and, for that matter, religious—as the quest for experience comes into conflict with the yearning for the realization of a higher, even transcendently great, ideal".

Tregenza Tregenza is a Cornish surname. It derives from Tregenza in the parish of Creed; Tregenza is formed from the elements "tre" (homestead) and "kensyth" (meaning unknown).Hanks, Patrick, et al. (2002) ''The Oxford Surnames Companion''. Oxford U P; p. ...

's third feature, '' Inside/Out'', premiered at the

1997 Cannes Film Festival The 50th Cannes Film Festival was held from 7 to 18 May 1997 in film, 1997. The Palme d'Or was jointly awarded to ''Taste of Cherry, Ta'm e guilass'' by Abbas Kiarostami and ''The Eel (film), Unagi'' by Shohei Imamura. Jeanne Moreau was the mistre ...

in the

Un Certain Regard (, meaning 'a certain glance') is a section of the Cannes Film Festival's official selection. It is run at the Debussy, parallel to the competition for the . This section was introduced in 1978 by Gilles Jacob. The section presents 20 films w ...

section. In 1999, a retrospective of his feature films was shown at the

National Gallery of Art The National Gallery of Art, and its attached Sculpture Garden, is a national art museum in Washington, D.C., United States, located on the National Mall, between 3rd and 9th Streets, at Constitution Avenue NW. Open to the public and free of char ...

Washington, D.C. ) , image_skyline = , image_caption = Clockwise from top left: the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall, United States Capitol, Logan Circle, Jefferson Memorial, White House, Adams Morgan, ...

Tregenza's fourth feature film, ''Gavagai'' (2016) was shot in 35mm, in Telemark, Norway. It stars

Andreas Lust Andreas ( el, Ἀνδρέας) is a name usually given to males in Austria, Greece, Cyprus, Denmark, Armenia, Estonia, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Finland, Flanders, Germany, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland, Romania, the Netherlands, and Indonesia. The name ...

(

The Robber ''The Robber'' (german: Der Räuber) is a 2010 drama film directed by Benjamin Heisenberg. The film is based on a novel by the Austrian author Martin Prinz, and was shot on location in Vienna. The main character, Johann Rettenberger, is based ...

2010, Revanche 2008),

Anni-Kristiina Juuso Anni-Kristiina Juuso ( se, Ánne Risten Juuso; born 4 May 1979, in Ivalo, Finland) is a Sámi actress, who played the leading female role in the movies '' The Cuckoo'' and ''The Kautokeino Rebellion''. She was awarded Russia's Best Actress award ...

( The Cuckoo 2009) and

Mikkel Gaup Mikkel Mathis Gaup (born 16 January 1968) is a Sámi Norwegian film and stage actor. He is best known for his acting debut in the film ''Pathfinder'', directed by his uncle Nils Gaup, and he has also appeared in a number of other productions, incl ...

(

Kautokeino Rebellion The Sami revolt in Guovdageaidnu, also known as the Kautokeino uprising, was a revolt in the town of Kautokeino in northern Norway in 1852 by a group of Sami who attacked representatives of the Norwegian authorities. The rebels killed the local ...

2008) GAVAGAI was based on 15 poems by

Tarjei Vesaas Tarjei Vesaas (20 August 1897 – 15 March 1970) was a Norwegian poet and novelist. Vesaas is widely considered to be one of Norway's greatest writers of the twentieth century and perhaps its most important since World War II. Biography Vesaas ...

. It was distributed theatrically in North America b
Shadow Distribution
and was sixth in Metacritic's list of the best-reviewed feature films distributed in 2018.

Cinematic technique

Tregenza's work often employs the use of long takes to create mise en scene. His cinematic inspirations include the works of

Michelangelo Antonioni Michelangelo Antonioni (, ; 29 September 1912 – 30 July 2007) was an Italian filmmaker. He is best known for directing his "trilogy on modernity and its discontents"—''L'Avventura'' (1960), ''La Notte'' (1961), and ''L'Eclisse'' (1962 ...

Kenji Mizoguchi was a Japanese film director and screenwriter, who directed about one hundred films during his career between 1923 and 1956. His most acclaimed works include ''The Story of the Last Chrysanthemums'' (1939), ''The Life of Oharu'' (1952), ''Uget ...

, &

. He believes that cinema, in the words of Godard, is "reality walking hand in hand with fiction."

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Tregenza, Rob 1950 births Living people American filmmakers American cinematographers