It’s time to catch up on best picture nominees
Flike you’ve missed most of the nine films nominated for best picture at next weekend’s Oscars? That’s understandable, unless you’ve had plenty of time on your hands since Thanksgiving.
Aside from “Dunkirk,” which was released July 21, and “Get Out,” which came out all the way back on Feb. 24, 2017, “Lady Bird” has been in local theaters the longest, and it just arrived Nov. 17.
“Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri” followed five days later. “Darkest Hour” and “The Shape of Water” didn’t show up until Dec. 22. “The Post,” “Call Me by Your Name” and “Phantom Thread” waited until this year to earn wide releases, with the latter two finally hitting
LAWRENCE
was the perfect opportunity to pick up something I loved,” he notes.
By that time, photography had changed, with digital imagery replacing film cameras.
With the latter, “you only had 24 to 36 shots — and film is expensive,” Marchese explains. “With digital, you have unlimited capacity. You just shoot and shoot and shoot.”
Which is exactly what he did — on a 2016 around-the-world cruise Marchese took with wife, Patricia, former head of Clark County Parks and Recreation, to celebrate their 50th anniversary. (Some of the portraits featured in “Global Villagers” were shot on previous trips to Turkey, India, Nepal and Peru.)
Whittling down the thousands of photos he took to the 30 featured in “Global Villagers” requires a heavy-duty editing process Marchese dubs “killing your children.”
Every night on the ship, after returning from the day’s excursion, Marchese would review his photos and post the best ones on Facebook via a satellite uplink; the ones receiving the most “Likes” were, “about 90 percent of the time, what I would pick.”
Sometimes, however, a photograph stands out to Marchese because of the connection he shares with the subject.
One example: an aboriginal man in Cairns, Australia, who wanted “to bum a cigarette” — until Marchese offered to buy him a pack of smokes if he’d allow Marchese to take his picture. That one “resonated with me because words were spoken” — by two English speakers.
In other countries where he didn’t speak the language, “thumbs up is a universal gesture,” Marchese notes.
In Togo, West Africa, Marchese spotted a “very imposing” Tuareg tribesman “with a big scimitar he was trying to sell me,” he recalls.
“I had my camera around my neck” and Marchese mimed shooting a photo, prompting his subject to nod his agreement. “It was one of those things,” Marchese says. “The right light, the right guy.”
The photographer also enjoys capturing children with his camera because “they’re so open and honest,” he notes, without “the inhibition of adults.”
Overall, faces fascinate Marchese. “Beautiful or ugly, if there’s something about it that’s intriguing,” he asks to shoot a photo, and “95 percent of the time, people say yes.”
The portraits on display at
Sahara West are 16 by 20 inches, almost life-size images — images that reflect not only differences but shared emotions and experiences, Marchese says.
As his journeys prove, he says, “the global village — it’s here.”
Contact Carol Cling at ccling@ reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0272. Follow @Carolscling on Twitter.