Eric Gautier

After steadily working his way up through the French film system, from assistant cameraman in 1986 to cinematographer for ambitious French films a decade later, French cinematographer Eric Gautier began spreading his reach abroad throughout the 2000s, including in the United States Important early work in his home country includes the epic romantic comedy "My Sex Life... or How I Got Into an Argument" and the comedy "Irma Vep," his first of several collaborations with director Olivier Assayas. He earned his first accolades for the 1998 romance "Those Who Love Me Can Take the Train," for which he and director Patrice Chereau received César Award nominations. He made his international breakthrough with his first non-French film, the 2004 adventure biopic "The Motorcycle Diaries," a dramatic interpretation of Ernesto "Che" Guevara's ambitious South American road trip, before he became known as history's "Che." The film earned numerous honors for cinematography and otherwise, including awards from BAFTA, Cannes, and the César and Independent Spirit Awards; that same year, Gautier also won the Technical Grand Prize from Cannes for his work on Assayas' music drama, "Clean," which starred "Irma Vep"'s Maggie Cheung. Later in the 2000s, along with American successes -- Sean Penn's "Into the Wild" -- and failures -- the unpopular "Taking Woodstock" -- Gautier continued his strong work in France, including yet another collaboration with Assayas on his family drama "Summer Hours" (with Juliette Binoche) and another with director Alain Resnais on his César and Cannes-winning romance, "Wild Grass," from 2009.