An Academy Award-winning cinematographer who won the New York Film Critics Award for his first debut as a director ("A World Apart" 1988), Chris Menges began his career as an assistant editor and camera operator and even worked as a sound recordist several times before working his way up to director of photography. Menges had his first real break as a documentary cameraperson and editor in the 1960s and 70s traveling wherever there was war and insurrection--Burma, Angola, Vietnam and Tibet--working with documentary filmmaker Adrian Cowell. Back in his native England, Menges early feature work was for socially conscious director Kenneth Loach, first as a camera man on "Poor Cow" (1967), then as cinematographer on "Kes" (1969, his feature debut), Loach's examination of the narrow options open to people without money. Menges' work was commended for its naturalistic yet evocative qualities. Menges had also worked as a camera operator on Lindsay Anderson's surrealistic study of students at an English boarding school "if..." (1968) and later as director of photography for Stephen Frears on his first feature, the whimsical crime comedy "Gumshoe" (1972).

Still working as a cinematographer, Menges concentrated on sedate, charming independents (i.e., "Local Hero" 1983). He won Oscars for his work on two Roland Joffe films, "The Killing Fields" (1984), which captured the war-torn world of Cambodia, and "The Mission" (1986), a lush epic set in the jungles of South America. His films as director of photography were always assured and never dazzled with bright color; he understood the oft-accepted theory that color could be less realistic than black and white when it focused the audience away from the emotion to an object. Menges' work has been defined by an unshowy naturalism, plain composition, and a mix of lenses to tug at the audience at the appropriate moments. His understanding of the psychological affect of mise-en-scene on the audience contributed to his being able to make the transition to director. Even his work shooting the otherwise dreary "Shy People" (1987) brought the audience right next to the characters, in their milieu, feeling their sweat, rather than using palettes which would create a fantasy or larger-than-life aura.

Menges re-affirmed his social and political concerns with his sensitive directorial debut, "A World Apart" (1988), made for $2.5 million and based on the life of imprisoned South African anti-apartheid activist Diana Roth. As director, he managed to elicit an exceptionally strong performance from star Barbara Hershey who picked up a Best Actress Award at the Cannes Film Festival. His American feature debut with "Crisscross" (1992) found him working with stars Goldie Hawn and Keith Carradine, however, his sharp eye for detail did little to strengthen a weak script about a 12-year-old boy coming to terms with his Vietnam vet father's abandonment. In the similarly themed British feature "Second Best" (1994), shot in Wales, Menges directed William Hurt in a sentimental story about the bond between father and son.

In 1982, Menges had been sent a script about Irish freedom hero Michael Collins. When he learned Neil Jordan would finally be making the film, Menges telephoned Jordan and offered his services as cinematographer, his first time in that capacity in nearly a decade. Proving he had not lost his touch, he re-created the blue-green light of Dublin from 1916 through the 1920s stemming from the near-authentic carbon arc street lamps he employed to the industrial pollution that seemed to hang over the exteriors on the film. Menges worked with primary color wheel shades, such as cyan, on the camera itself. The result was an effect which truly felt as if, as film theorist Siegfried Kracauer wrote, the film was "the photograph come alive." Menges received a third Oscar nomination for his exquisite work on the film. Remaining in an Irish setting, he served as director of photography on Jim Sheridan's political drama "The Boxer" (1997), starring Daniel Day-Lewis and Emily Watson.

Menges also has worked extensively on the small screen. As early as 1959, during his days assisting Alan Forbes, he was assistant camera and co-wrote the screenplay for the documentary "The House of Street Urchins". Menges also earned much attention for his lensing of the documentaries "The Opium Warlords" in 1974 and two in 1978. He also shot narratives, such as Stephen Frears' "Last Summer" (1977). While he did not direct for the big screen until the late 80s, Menges was directing TV documentary and narrative programs as early as 1969 with the "Wild and Free" series. He also helmed programs which focused on crusaders and "do-ers": "Radical Lawyer" (1973) and "A Family Doctor" (1975). Menges did double duty as director and cinematographer on "East 103rd Street", a study of East Harlem made for British TV in 1981.