Brooklyn Cinematographer Arrested for Drunk Driving With Son in Car, Police Say

The Gowanus intersection where Stuart Dryburgh allegedly crashed. Image via Google Maps

BOERUM HILL, BROOKLYN — Local cinematographer and Boerum Hill resident Stuart Dryburgh, the eye behind classics like The Piano and Bridget Jones' Diary — and, more recently, the surreal Michael Mann film Blackhat — was arrested Monday around 6:15 p.m. for allegedly driving drunk with his 10-year-old son in the backseat.

Dryburgh, 63, who lives on Dean Street near Nevins, was arrested about half a mile from home, at the southwest corner of Degraw Street and Third Avenue in Gowanus, according to the NYPD.

Police said Dryburgh crashed his gray BMW into two cars parked near that intersection.

"He smelled of alcohol, had watery eyes, was swaying," an NYPD spokesman told Patch.

Because there was a child in the back of his BMW, the spokesman said, Dryburgh was charged with "aggravated DWI," a Class E felony. At most, the charge could put Dryburgh behind bars for four years.

According to the New York Daily News' police sources, the Oscar-nominated cinematographer blew a 0.213 on his Breathalyzer test — more than twice the legal limit.

Dryburgh was driving his son to soccer practice at the time, the Daily News reported, and admitted to police that he had downed whiskey, beer and bourbon before getting behind the wheel.

No one was injured in the crash at Degraw and Third, according to the NYPD.

As noted by the Daily News, the "aggravated DWI" charge against Dryburgh is possible under a seven-year-old law called Leandra's Law.

The law went into effect in 2009 and is named for Leandra Rosado, an 11-year-old Chelsea girl killed when her friend's drunken mother crashed on the Henry Hudson Parkway with a car full of girls headed to a slumber party.

Dryburgh was widely praised for his recent work in Blackhat. Brooklyn Magazine put the film on its list of 2015's best, and wrote: "A somewhat disconnected-seeming movie about our vulnerable grid, Michael Mann’s film is, naturally, a digital vision itself, the night skies of DP Stuart Dryburgh glowing like screensavers, the shootouts like isolated on-the-ground thunderstorms. If I had to watch one movie on this list on loop for 24 hours, it’d be Blackhat."