Over twelve features, Pope was tasked with illuminating Leigh’s occasionally lugubrious view of human relations, a process that began with contemporary dramas Life is Sweet (1990), Naked (1993) and Secrets & Lies (1996) and continued through the acclaimed period dramas Topsy-Turvy (1999), Vera Drake (2004), Mr. Turner (2015) and Peterloo (2018).
Trained in documentary before pivoting to fiction, the bearded, affable, widely liked Pope became a trusted lieutenant, working efficiently within the idiosyncratic methodology – involving months of rehearsals – by which Leigh affords his actors unusual leeway to find the truth of his characters.
“[It’s] the same with two people just sitting there talking or with 60,000 people in the square [as in Peterloo],” Pope reflected in 2019. “[Mike]’ll go in there, and he’ll work out how to do the scene without anybody around him — just him and the actors — and then we go from there. I’ve always described it as a bit of a magical mystery tour, because you don’t really know what you’re getting into.”
Yet this round-the-houses approach invariably revealed a vision of Britain in which audiences were able to recognise themselves and their neighbours. Pope’s films with Leigh had identifiable microclimates, ranging from the breezier Life is Sweet and sunny Happy-Go-Lucky (2008) to the petrifyingly wintry Naked and the overcast All or Nothing (2002). In Another Year (2010), which tracked key Leigh performers over the course of twelve months, all four seasons were visible and felt.
That film was one of several that announced mounting ambition on Leigh’s part. Topsy-Turvy, on Gilbert and Sullivan and the creation of The Mikado, surprised even long-term Leigh admirers with its period detail and jollying musical numbers; Vera Drake dug deeper into history, uncovering the sorry saga of a backstreet abortionist; Peterloo, revisiting the 1819 massacre that bloodied Manchester’s cobbles, featured swelling crowd scenes.
Arguably the pair’s finest achievement – and the first Leigh feature to be shot digitally rather than on film – Mr. Turner necessarily recalled the work of its subject, the painter J.M.W. Turner (played by Timothy Spall). Logistically, this entailed such sleights-of-hand as passing off Lowestoft as the flatlands of Holland; there was also much scrambling to complete shots as the sun set behind boats and trains.
Pope’s perseverance and diligence was rewarded with an Oscar nod, though with it came a measure of social-media infamy after Academy president Cheryl Boone Isaacs, in the live nominations broadcast, mispronounced the cinematographer’s name as “Dick Poop”. Pope met this regrettable flub with characteristic good humour: “You know what, I have been called a lot worse in my time.”
Born in Bromley, Kent in August 1947, Richard Campbell Pope developed an interest in photography as a child, selling photos to local newspapers as a teenager. An uncle suggested Pope combine his interests of photography and film by seeking an apprenticeship in the Pathé laboratories; thereafter, he worked his way through the industry’s ranks.
Pope’s first credit was as a clapper loader on the X-rated softcore drama Loving Feeling (1968), which Pope later described as “the dregs of British cinema”. He was promoted to camera operator, initially billed as Richard Pope, on the portmanteau A Promise of Bed (1969) and the David Hockney study A Bigger Splash (1973), and began to travel widely as a cinematographer, shooting episodes of Granada’s Disappearing World and World in Action.
Operating a camera on the Clash-scored Rude Boy (1980) steered Pope towards the music business, and he subsequently provided cinematography for a clutch of pop videos, including The Specials’ memorably nocturnal “Ghost Town” promo – a dry run for Naked, stalking the backstreets of Wapping – and the domestic melodrama of Queen’s “I Want to Break Free”, featuring Freddie Mercury in drag.
On television, Pope shot Channel 4’s Whoops Apocalypse (1982) and Porterhouse Blue (1987), for which he was BAFTA nominated. By then, however, he was working regularly in film, working unnerving wonders with the cornfields of Philip Ridley’s The Reflecting Skin (1990) in the same year as the suburban Life is Sweet.
Naked’s sepulchral photography drew admirers in the US, where Pope’s credits spanned beyond mainstream fare – Disney basketball comedy The Air Up There (1994), actioner The Way of the Gun (2000), lavish magician saga The Illusionist (2006), for which he won his first Oscar nomination – to more independent endeavours, including John Sayles’ immersive, Alabama-set musical drama Honeydripper (2007) and Richard Linklater’s Bernie (2011).
But he always returned home, underlining his adaptability via the peppy, Eastbourne-shot teen comedy Angus, Thongs and Perfect Snogging (2008), Leigh’s Cultural Olympiad short A Running Jump (2012), Krays biopic Legend (2015) and the delicately spun Supernova (2020), shot around the Lake District.
Pope’s final collaboration with Leigh, Hard Truths (2024), opens on UK screens in January, having been praised on the festival circuit: the Telegraph’s Tim Robey reported the director’s return to latter-day Britain is “both a solace and, in the best possible way, a slap in the face”, praising the film’s “biting humour”.
Asked why he kept returning to Pope, Leigh offered rare praise indeed: “A violinist who owns a Stradivarius is not going to arbitrarily use another fiddle. That is the tool and you can play anything with it.”
Pope is survived by his wife Pat.
Dick Pope, born August 1947, died October 22, 2024.
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