I just watched American Beauty with the commentary by Alan Ball and Sam Mendes and basically the whole thing was a tribute to Conrad Hall's incredible lighting throughout the whole film. If you have the DVD I would highly recommend watching it. It's no secret that its a beautifully shot movie, but I was just blown away by some of the detail. The scene where Lester Burnham (Kevin Spacey) is being interviewed for the job at Mr.Smileys was shot night for day and its unbelievable.
Speaking of amazing lighting, let me just unload about Kaminski's work on Catch Me If You Can. If I can give you a fair estimate as to how many times I've watched it, I'd probably say 18-20. It's a good, fun movie, good story, good performances, blah blah blah. But one of my favorite things about it is the scene where Frank comes home and finds his mother having an affair and sits down on the couch. He's in the foreground, she's in the background in the kitchen, and the daylight is blasting through a kitchen window being beautifully highlighted by a fogged room. LOVE IT. It's just a static wide shot for the whole last half of the scene, and its amazing. I tried to find a still from this scene online with no luck, but just watch the movie. Really.
