Roger Deakins on 'Sicario'

When thinking about Cinematographers, the first that come to my mind is the great Roger Deakins. He has shot such films as No Country for Old Men, Shawshank Redemption and a films I love Sicario.
I found this interview with Deakins back in Nov. 2015, discussing Sicario. Sicario was one of those films that when I first left the theatre, I left with a sense of disappointment. However, the film leaves you thinking and they are some of the best films, I felt the more I thought over what I had seen, the more I fell in love with the storytelling in play in the film. Some of the scenes are breathtaking, I am a big fan of the director, Denis Velleneuve. His film Prisoners was similar in the sense that it left you feeling slightly unsatisfied and the film on a whole was very thought provoking. So the marriage of this Director with this Cinematographer is a beautiful one, the suspense that the create together in Sicario is astonishing. I would highly recommend the picture for those who have not seen it.
Anyways, I found the interview incredibly interesting, I found it incredibly refreshing to see a 67 year old man who didn't spend the entire time bashing Digital filmmaking. He saw the medium very much as I see it, as a tool. He described Digital and Film as tools, the same as which make of camera you use, to him it depends on the film and the senses you are trying to provoke. One thing Deakins touched on as well, is how with digital he enjoys the benefit of seeing what you have captured and knowing you are able to move on. He made it very aware that even at his calibre of Cinematographer the nights he spends awake worrying about how the film stock will turn out are nights he can do without. I felt we as students who have worked with film can relate to this as we have spent many weeks with the back of our mind always thinking about what the film will look like once it is developed.
Another interesting aspect of the interview was when Deakins was asked about the Night raid scene in Sicario. If you haven't seen the film, its the scene at the climax of the movie where our protagonists perform a raid in the middle of the night against the Mexican cartel. Within the scene the special operatives all wear night vision googles. Deakins explains that he spent a lot of time trying to think how to light the scene, as he felt it would be cheating if he lit the scene well enough that the audience could see the characters, then what is the characters motivations for wearing night vision. I found this to be enlightening, because Deakins lays it out that everything he does as a cinematographer is always underlaid with the thought of how does this effect the characters. I think this shows the next level of cinematographer that Roger Deakins is, because he isn't just prioritising a pretty image, He wants to know how it effects the story.
I am looking forward to Deakins work in the future and very much the pairing of Deakins and Velleneuve of the highly anticipated sequel to Blade Runner.

Heres the Link to the Interview: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tfYeS_20dXo