‘Visions of Light: The Art of Cinematography’ (NR)

"Visions of Light: The Art of Cinematography" is an aesthetic banquet. It's rare that cinematographers get the glory for their art. Thanks to "Visions," featuring interviews with Sven Nykvist, Vittorio Storaro, Haskell Wexler, Ernest Dickerson and many others, that oversight is wonderfully redressed.

Not only will you see excerpts from 125 of the best-looking films of all time, you'll hear amusing, enlightening commentary from many of the artists responsible. As a visual bonus, directors Arnold Glassman, Todd McCarthy and Stuart Samuels filmed the interviews in high-definition TV and asked the cinematographers to design their own sets.

"Visions" flits pleasurably from classic to modern, and from one genre to another. You leave this with an appreciation for Billy Bitzer's extraordinary work in the 1915 epic, "Birth of a Nation," and Jordan Cronenweth's modishly ornate "Blade Runner" in 1982. The anecdotes keep coming and you can't get enough, from Gordon Willis's reasons for keeping "Godfather" Marlon Brando in the dark, to Storaro's color scheme in "The Last Emperor." In the best tale of all, William Fraker recalls director Roman Polanski (during "Rosemary's Baby") telling him to make Ruth Gordon only partly visible through a bedroom door. The shot caused entire audiences thereafter, Fraker relates, to collectively crane their necks to see around the corner.