by Karl Quinn
National Film Editor
The Oscar-winning Australian cinematographer Andrew Lesnie has died, reportedly after suffering a heart attack on Monday.
The lensman, best known for his work on Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings and Hobbit films, was 59.
Russell Crowe, on whose feature directing debut The Water Diviner Lesnie worked, was among the first to mark his passing on social media as news broke on Tuesday afternoon.
“Devastating news from home,” Crowe tweeted. “The master of the light, genius Andrew Lesnie has passed on.”
Lesnie had a long and storied career in filmmaking, mostly in Australia and New Zealand despite the fact his reputation was such that he could have worked anywhere he chose.
He began his career as a camera assistant on the low-budget horror film Patrick in 1978, while still a student at the Australian Film Television and Radio School, where his tutors included Donald McAlpine, whose work on My Brilliant Career and Breaker Morant had helped set the tone for the romantically glowing look of the first wave of Australia’s national cinema in the 1970s and early ’80s.
After graduating, Lesnie worked at the ABC and as a freelance cameraman before joining the staff of Simon Townsend’s WonderWorld, the children’s magazine show on Ten that also launched the careers of reporters Jonathan Coleman, Angela Catterns amd Edith Bliss, among others.
In 1980, he shot The Comeback, a documentary about Arnold Schwarzenegger’s return to bodybuilding in Australia, and music videos for INXS, The Angels, Rose Tattoo, UB40 and Mental As Anything.
His first really big break came when he shot a behind-the-scenes documentary for Mad Max 2, which marked the beginning of his long professional relationship with Dr George Miller. He worked alongside fellow cinematographer Dean Semler (an Oscar winner in 1991 for Dances With Wolves) on Kennedy-Miller’s 1984 miniseries Bodyline, and with director Chris Noonan on Babe (1995), a groundbreaking project in its use of CGI to make real-world animals appear to talk. He also shot Miller’s sequel, Babe: Pig in the City, in 1998.
It was the partnership with Jackson, though, that brought him his greatest recognition and, in 2002, an Oscar for his work on The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring.
All in all, Lesnie shot eight features with Jackson – the six Tolkien movies plus King Kong (2005) and The Lovely Bones (2009). His most recent foray into Hollywood was 2011’s Rise of the Planet of the Apes.
David Parker, the writer, producer and cinematographer of Malcolm, The Big Steal and Amy, hailed Lesnie’s work as something special.
“Andrew showed how to stretch the boundaries of cinematography with a uniqueness and artistry seldom seen before,” he said.
Antony Ginnane, the producer who hired Lesnie on Patrick and again in 1987 for his crocodile horror film Dark Age, described the cinematographer as “energetic, enthusiastic, agile and very comfortable jumping in with the camera as we were belting along with a crocodile on the low loader [flatbed truck]. He had no fear and he had a wonderful eye.”
Though shocked at his death at such a young age, Ginnane observed that The Water Diviner would serve as a “nice farewell”.
“If he’d been a producer, though, he’d have gone out on ANZAC Day to make sure he got top billing,” he added wryly. “But he was a cinematographer, and they’re a much more self-effacing lot than that.”