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Dick Pope, the veteran British cinematographer who worked on 11 movies with director Mike Leigh, died Tuesday, the British Society of Cinematographers announced. He was 77.
No other details were given, but Leigh told Indiewire that Pope had undergone “major heart surgery” before work began on Hard Truths, their film that premiered last month at the Toronto Film Festival.
Pope received Oscar nominations for his work on the mystery The Illusionist (2006), directed by Neil Burger, and Leigh’s Mr. Turner (2014).
He and Leigh also worked together on Life Is Sweet (1990), Naked (1993), Secrets & Lies (1996), Career Girl (1997), Topsy-Turvey (1999), All of Nothing (2000), Vera Drake (2004), Happy-Go-Lucky (2008), Another Year (2010) and Peterloo (2018).
In a 2019 interview with Film Comment, Pope talked about his decades of collaboration with Leigh around the release of Peterloo.
“It’s very difficult to take Peterloo out of all the other work we’ve done together, because for me it all adds up to each other, and we have shorthands as to how we look at situations,” he said. “This film took three and a half years to make, but all of Mike’s films do, really. I’ve always said you wouldn’t get rich in waiting to work with Mike, so I often go out and do plenty of other stuff. Otherwise I’d be sitting at home for a long time.”
Georgina Lowe, Leigh’s longtime film producer, paid tribute to Pope in a statement. “On behalf of Mike, the team at Thin Man Films and the cast and crew who worked regularly with Dick on our films for over 30 years, I wanted to say what a privilege it has been to have collaborated with him. His work, both with us and on the eclectic collection of films he shot over his impressive career, was extraordinary. We have lost a friend and will miss him so much.”
Born in Bromley, Kent in 1947, Pope began his career with documentaries, among them the World in Action series. That lent Pope’s camerawork a realism that he brought to early TV dramas starting in the 1980s like Porterhouse Blue, the 1987 comedy miniseries for Channel Four that starred David Jason and Ian Richardson. He received a BAFTA nomination for his work.
Pope also partnered with such other prominent directors as Beeban Kidron, Mike Newell, Christopher McQuarrie, Barry Levinson, Richard Linklater, Gurinder Chadha, Chiwetel Ejiofor and Edward Norton. He earned the Camerimage Golden Frog a record three times.
“Dick had a reputation for being a wonderful collaborator and someone who was passionate about the art form of cinematography,” the British Society of Cinematographers said. “He was keen to embrace new technologies and ideas while also ensuring the skills and crafts of those that came before him weren’t lost.”