Alik Sakharov

Sakharov pays attention to the room around the actors. He chooses locations to contribute to the drama and favours filming from several corners of a space, with natural lighting and precise colour grading helping him follow the characters' feelings. We welcome that concern with how a scene works before anyone asks it to look impressive. The value of such care is in giving the actors a setting that helps us understand what they are doing.

He worked with showrunner David Chase as cinematographer on 38 episodes of The Sopranos (1999). He began moving towards directing around 2006–2008. Rome (2005) and Game of Thrones (2011) employed him in both jobs. On Game of Thrones, he shot four episodes of the first season before going on to direct episodes in the second, third and fourth. The continuity is his preference for matching the image to the script's mood and the characters' emotions.

Dexter (2006), for which he directed two episodes, shows why we need to be careful about assigning credit. Michael C. Hall makes the series worth watching, finding uneasy humour in a killer who hunts the guilty. We enjoyed that humour and felt uncomfortable with how easily the writing made him likeable. The crime plotting grips, but the script explains its central character too often, leaving less for a glance, a pause or an image to suggest. That is a reservation about the programme, not evidence that Sakharov either caused the problem or solved it.

Ozark (2017), where he directed across multiple seasons, offers a clearer example of his cinematographic experience informing character scenes. His work in science fiction and fantasy likewise keeps attention on people's responses to what is happening around them. A well-chosen location or carefully judged light cannot rescue every over-explained scene. For more of his directing, we would turn to Ozark.