Atsushi Nishijima Is Three
Feet From Stardom

Lanthimos’s work is a deadpan exploration of humanity’s basest desires and fears. In his movies, siblings copulate, parents harm their children (sometimes fatally), eyes are gouged out, curses are dispatched, lonely corpses reanimated, and animals fused to create grotesque new forms. And those are sometimes the funnier moments.

But there’s the work that appears on screen, and then there’s the human labor behind those images—this is what Jima captures with remarkable tenderness. For instance: Lanthimos seated on the deck of an ocean liner, listening to his star Emma Stone, who though glimpsed only in profile, wears a hint of a smile as she towers above her director. She’s in a gown, he’s in his work clothes (sneakers again), and an electrical cord snakes across the wooden boards of the deck. It is an image of the magic trick explained, but rather than undercutting the fantastical world that makes Poor Things work, it reveals the genuine collaboration that powers it.

Born in Shizuoka, a coastal city in south-east Japan, Jima became fascinated by the scale of America during his first visit as a teenager. He enrolled at Brooklyn College, where he majored in photography, and upon graduating began working at SilverWorks, a photo lab founded by a former assistant of Richard Avedon. The clients included Irving Penn, Steven Meisel, Steven Klein, and Annie Leibovitz. “In that environment, my fascination with photography grew,” Jima says.

His first professional gigs involved shooting still photographs for corporate-made documentaries, including a basketball-focused film for Nike. “While sports photography often relies on telephoto lenses, I, being young and eager, decided to shoot with a film camera that required getting quite close,” he says. Eventually he collaborated with Derek Cianfrance on The Place Beyond the Pines, snapping photos of Ryan Gosling and Eva Mendes. This was the start of Jima’s Hollywood career. Alejandro González Iñárritu, Barry Jenkins, and Ava DuVernay have all brought him to their sets—but his relationship with Lanthimos is the deepest.

It began serendipitously. While on a flight, Jima happened to watch The Lobster without knowing anything else about Lanthimos, and the next day, he received a call from the director’s producer asking if he’d like to work on the set of The Killing of a Sacred Deer, the director’s cruel and darkly comic fairy tale of revenge.

Many films later, their friendship has evolved to the point that when Lanthimos visits New York, where Jima lives, he’ll reach out with a message like, “Want to go for lunch?”

“Even though he’s getting busier, he still makes time,” Jima says. “We don’t always talk about photography or work; sometimes, he’ll ask things like, ‘I’m thinking of buying this outfit, what do you think?’ or ‘Have you been in touch with your family in Japan lately?’ He cares about those things.” Everyone needs that sharp-eyed friend to vet an outfit, even an Oscar-nominated director.

Despite telling stories of horrible violence and ruthless manipulation, Lanthimos cultivates a good vibe on set. There’s camaraderie, and increasingly he’s working with the same actors, like Stone and Willem Dafoe. Both actors figure prominently in Jima’s favorite Lanthimos anecdotes.

“During the filming of The Favourite, there was a moment when Emma Stone was lying on the couch with her eyes closed, taking a break between shots. I quietly approached, and when she suddenly opened her eyes, I captured that moment with my shutter. It’s one of my favorite photos because it shows Emma’s true self,” he says. The moments between takes, when the actors retreat into their own thoughts reveal the hidden faces of the people who make the movies.

“I prefer taking photos within one to two meters of the subject rather than shooting from afar,” Jima says. “It’s challenging when the director and actors are having hushed conversations between shoots, as you can’t interrupt. It’s a test of whether you can enter that space. Maybe Japanese culture has helped me in this regard. Being raised in an apartment in Japan, my parents told me to walk quietly so as not to disturb the people below.” The primacy of the one-to-two meter relationship is something Jima cherishes.

While making Kinds of Kindness in New Orleans, he and Lanthimos discovered a Vietnamese restaurant they soon became fond of. “Yorgos and I bought some bánh mì and ate together. Perhaps that’s what I’d call a one-to-two meter relationship for me.”