Ben Kasulke has made a name for himself over the last 10 years as one of the premiere cinematographers working in the realm of independent cinema. Combining a unique, off-the-cuff shooting style that’s perfectly in tune to the intimate narratives and sometimes improvised dialogue that he finds himself working with, Kasulke has become filmmaker Lynn Shelton’s go-to-choice for camerawork, having lensed all six of her feature films. And in yet another uniquely personal relationship with a filmmaker, Kasulke has shot multiple films for the extremely precise yet still adventurous Canadian filmmaker Guy Maddin, who has always placed an emphasis upon formal control within his sometimes surrealistic aesthetic. In addition to the collaborations with Shelton and Maddin, Kasulke has also shot a variety of other projects ranging in genre and medium (he’s no stranger to shorts and docs), with close to 60 credits in total. And on the small screen, he took his love for seemingly improvised comedy and brought a warm edge to the priceless first season of the FX series Married, starring the lovable Judy Greer and the hysterical Nat Faxon. Even during the course of a 25 minute comedy, Kasulke was able to wrap up the viewer immediately in that frantic world, further demonstrating his broad range of talents. Never one to show off and get in their own way, he’s the sort of modern stylist who wants his artistic choices to feel at one with the material, never over-heightening anything to an artificial degree, and always allowing the truth and humanity to be born out of any visual possibility.
I can’t help but feel that the camerawork in the provocative and progressive 2009 indie film Humpday is some of the most inspired and often copied hand-held cinematography to be born of out the “mumblecore” genre, a term that I’ve grown to despise, but whatever, someone coined it, and it’s out there. This was Kasulke’s third film for Shelton, coming on the heels of their debut We Go Way Back in 2006 and My Effortless Brilliance in 2008, and it showcased their emerging style with nervous grittiness and a level of intimacy that bolstered the bromantic narrative. Kasulke also shot the beautifully colorful and more classically straightforward comedy Safety Not Guaranteed for director Colin Trevorrow, which blended elements of comedy, drama, and science fiction, and which allowed Kasulke to explore a smoother, more saturated color aesthetic, thus providing a sense of grace to all of the quirky bits and pieces to the clever story. And certainly one of his most formally daring and expressive challenges was shooting Keyhole for Guy Maddin, which is a totally bizarre (in an awesome way) black and white surrealist drama with Jason Patric and Udo Kier losing their minds in a haunted house. His work in Keyhole was singular, and it’s a testament to Kasulke’s abilities as a cinematographer that he can effortlessly move between various styles and choices, without ever allowing any one side of his skill set to feel overly stretched or taxed. He’s a talent worth paying attention too, and I’m super excited to see what he brings to the table on the new Steven Soderbergh produced Amazon series Red Oaks, which Kasulke shot for can’t-pin-him-down-filmmaker David Gordon Green.
Podcasting Them Softly 