Emmanuel Lubezki won the Oscar for Best Cinematography for the film The Revenant. Lubezki, a Jewish-Mexican with family roots in Bolshevik Russia, has now won this award three years in a row (having previously won for Gravity and Birdman). When Leo DiCaprio won the Best Actor award for The Revenant, he specifically thanked Lubezki, calling him by his nickname. What is that nickname?
Image courtesy of Davidlohr Bueso is licensed under CC BY 2.0.
A. Lubezki’s nickname is “El Chivo,” meaning “the goat.” He was given this nickname by a friend when he was five years old. Explained Lubezki, “I guess it was my face that looked like a goat.”
B. Lubezki’s nickname is “El Canon.” Explained Lubezki, “I got my first camera when I was thirteen years old. It was a bar mitzvah present from an uncle of mine, and it was a Canon brand camera. Until then I didn’t have any hobbies, but I loved taking pictures, and I never put that camera down. My father started calling me ‘El Canon,’ and the nickname stuck. I still have that camera to this day.”
C. Lubezki’s nickname is “El Chapo,” meaning “the short one.” He was given this nickname by a friend when he was in high school. Explained Lubezki, “I had already become known for my photography skills, and I was the official photographer for my school newspaper. Because I was so short, I regularly used a stepladder when shooting school events. That’s why my friend started calling me ‘El Chapo’.”
D. Lubezki’s nickname was “La Vaca,” meaning “the cow.” Explained Lubezki, “When I was growing up, my family kept kosher. That was strange to my friends, who ate traditional Mexican foods–camarón, shrimp, and puerco, which was pork. I only ate beef and chicken. One of my friends noticed that I always brought roast beef sandwiches to school and he started calling me ‘la vaca.’ Before you know it, the nickname stuck.”
E. Lubezki’s nickname is “Ubeki-beki-beki-beki-stan-stan.” Explained Lubezki, “My good friend Herman Cain could never pronounce my name correctly. He tried to say it, but it just never came out right.”