People

Frederick Elmes

Camera · follow into films and chains

Biography

Frederick Elmes, ASC (born November 4, 1946) is an American cinematographer, known for his association with the independent film movement. He is a long-time collaborator of directors David Lynch, Ang Lee, Charlie Kaufman, Jim Jarmusch, and Todd Solondz. He has won the Independent Spirit Award for Best Cinematography twice, for Wild at Heart (1990) and Night on Earth (1991), and a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Cinematography for a Limited Series for The Night Of (2016). Born in Mountain Lakes, New Jersey, Elmes studied photography at the Rochester Institute of Technology and then attended the American Film Institute in Los Angeles, graduating in 1972. He enrolled in the Graduate Film Program at New York University's Department of Film and Television and graduated in 1975. At the American Film Institute, Elmes met aspiring film director David Lynch, who hired him for Eraserhead (1977). Since then the two have collaborated on Blue Velvet (1986) and Wild at Heart (1990). Elmes is also a frequent collaborator with directors Ang Lee and Jim Jarmusch. Elmes has been a member of the American Society of Cinematographers since 1993. Description above from the Wikipedia article Frederick Elmes, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.

Notable films

Where to start

Highlights from credits and KinoChain journeys.

Synecdoche, New York

Appears in a KinoChain journey

Eraserhead

Appears in a KinoChain journey

Paterson

Appears in a KinoChain journey

Hulk

Director of Photography

Blue Velvet

Director of Photography

Brothers

Director of Photography

The Dead Don't Die

Director of Photography

Bride Wars

Director of Photography

Chains

KinoChain journeys

Public chains that pass through their films — or name them as a bridge.

Browse all chains

Off the Map

From desert highways to dead-end towns, these eight films reroute the road movie into strange, funny, and surreal territory.

7 films

The Body's Unmaking

From Cronenberg's flesh to Claire Denis's restless bodies, these eight films chart a cinema of transformation that questions where the self ends and the body be...

8 films

Metamorphosis: Bodies in Flux

From Kafka's insect to Cronenberg's flesh, a journey through cinema's most profound transformations, where identity itself is the shape-shifter.

7 films

The Art of Listening

From the whisper of a surveillance tape to the roar of a wartime beach, these eight films prove that sound is not just heard, it is felt. A chain of masterpiece...

7 films

Topics