Careful with this framing, this is edging close to Gordon Willis (and Carlo Di Palma, and Sven Nykvist, hell even the wasted talents of Zhao Fei*) erasure. But I would also say his background is closer to Broadway and Television and is mostly talky, and those performances can’t come from nowhere.
(*one of his very few post Miramax films I’d put up with, like, Radio Days or something, is Sweet and Lowdown, a mockumentary with Sean Penn as “the second greatest Jazz guitarist ever” backed with a lot of talking heads and an excellent score played by Howard Alden)
I mean I can’t claim he didn’t get great performances out of people. Which is unfortunate to have to say because by all accounts he treated his actors like shit. But a lot of actors are very insecure and maybe that motivated them to try to win his praise (which never worked)