We value Mikael Salomon’s practical skill with difficult shoots, and the patience of the ensemble drama he helped make in Band of Brothers. His strongest claim on our attention is in television rather than his small body of directed features.
Fi1m perspective
In Band of Brothers (2001), the men of Easy Company hold our attention more firmly than the action. Damian Lewis anchors an ensemble drama that earns its ten episodes through patience, giving us time to care about the men. We were moved by that attention to them, especially when the performances were allowed to do the work without further insistence. Salomon directed two episodes, and deserves a share of the credit rather than ownership of everything the series gets right.
His earlier work behind the camera helps explain his suitability for demanding productions. Salomon photographed James Cameron’s The Abyss (1989) and Ron Howard’s Backdraft (1991), after years as a cinematographer in Danish cinema. Water, effects and large-scale action became specialities: work in which getting the image at all can be a substantial part of the achievement. We value that competence without assuming it guarantees a good drama; the actors still need time, and Band of Brothers gives them it.
The move to directing came with A Far Off Place (1993), a location shoot in Africa on which he replaced the original director. Hard Rain (1998) followed, but features remained a small part of the directing career. From the mid-1990s onwards, television became his main field, with Salem’s Lot (2004) and The Company (2007) among the later assignments. Action, adventure and science fiction recur in the work. There is no reason to treat that television career as a retreat: it includes the work we would recommend most readily.
Our reservation about Band of Brothers is its occasional need to overstate what the actors have already made clear. The action can become too emphatic, and the music presses for a response the drama has earned without it. That matters in a series whose appeal lies in taking time over its people, although it is not enough to undo their hold on us. Start there, with a little tolerance for the music.
Biography
Mikael Salomon is a Danish cinematographer and director. Born in Copenhagen in 1945, he began his career in Danish cinema in the 1960s and worked as a cinematographer on numerous Danish films before moving to Hollywood in the late 1980s.
His cinematography credits include The Abyss (1989), Always (1989), Arachnophobia (1990), Backdraft (1991) and Far and Away (1992). He has received two Academy Award nominations. From the mid-1990s he transitioned to directing, with credits including the feature films A Far Off Place (1993) and Hard Rain (1998), as well as television work such as episodes of Band of Brothers (2001), for which he won a Primetime Emmy Award.
