Gordon Willis | |
|---|---|
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| Born | Gordon Hugh Willis Jr. (1931-05-28)May 28, 1931 Astoria, New York, U.S. |
| Died | May 18, 2014(2014-05-18) (aged 82) |
| Burial place | Massachusetts National Cemetery Bourne, Massachusetts |
| Occupation | Cinematographer |
| Years active | 1966–1997 |
| Known for | The Godfather (1972) The Godfather Part II (1974) Annie Hall (1977) Manhattan (1979) All the President's Men (1976) Interiors (1978) Stardust Memories (1982) Zelig (1983) Broadway Danny Rose (1984) The Godfather Part III (1990) |
| Awards | Academy Honorary Award (2009) |
Gordon Hugh Willis Jr.,ASC (May 28, 1931 – May 18, 2014) was an Americancinematographer andfilm director. He is best known for his photographic work on eightWoody Allen films (includingAnnie Hall andManhattan), sixAlan J. Pakula films (includingAll the President's Men), and all three films fromFrancis Ford Coppola'sThe Godfather series.
Fellow cinematographerWilliam A. Fraker called Willis's work a "milestone in visual storytelling",[1] while one critic suggested that Willis "defined the cinematic look of the 1970s: sophisticated compositions in which bolts of light and black put the decade's moral ambiguities into stark relief".[2] When theInternational Cinematographers Guild conducted a survey in 2003, they placed Willis among the ten most influential cinematographers in history.[3]
Willis was born inAstoria, Queens, New York.[4][5] His parents had been dancers inBroadway theatre before his father became a makeup man atWarner Bros. inBrooklyn. As a child, Willis fell in love with films. He wanted to be an actor and then became interested in lighting and stage design, later turning to photography. For a time he intended to be a fashion photographer, photographing models he knew from living inGreenwich Village. "I didn't know shit," Willis said, "[I was] dumber than dirt, as they say. No money, no jobs etc." Through contacts of his father's he worked as a "gofer" on various movies in New York.[6]
During theKorean War, Willis served in the Air Force, managing to join the Photographic and Charting Service in a motion picture unit. "I spent four years learning everything I could about making movies," Willis said.[7] After leaving the Air Force a friend helped him to join the East Coast union in New York and he started to work as an assistant cameraman, working his way up to become a first cameraman about thirteen years later.[6] He worked in advertising, shooting numerous commercials, and made a number of documentaries, a discipline that strongly influenced his later style. "You learn to eliminate, as opposed to adding," Willis said of his time making documentaries. "Not many people understand that."[7]
He was a camera operator on the feature documentaryWindjammer (1958) filmed in the widescreen formatCinemiracle.[8]
Willis once stated: "I'm a minimalist. I see things in simple ways ... It's human nature to define complexity as better. Well, it's not."[9] In 1969, directorAram Avakian hired Willis to work on his filmEnd of the Road.[6] This was Willis' first movie.
Willis went on to work for some of the most acclaimed directors of what is now seen as a golden age of American film-making. He captured America's urban paranoia in three films he shot withAlan J. Pakula:Klute (1971),The Parallax View (1974) andAll The President's Men (1976).[10] He collaborated withHal Ashby onThe Landlord (1970),James Bridges onThe Paper Chase (1973), andHerbert Ross onPennies From Heaven (1981); as well as shooting all three of Coppola'sGodfather films and working with Woody Allen on a succession of films that includedAnnie Hall (1977) andManhattan (1979).[10]
At a seminar on film-making he gave in 2003, Willis said, "It's hard to believe, but a lot of directors have no visual sense. They only have a storytelling sense. If a director is smart, he'll give me the elbow room to paint". He added: "It's the judgment they're paying for."[9] In a later interview he explained that when he started out in films he "did things in visual structure that nobody in the business was doing, especially in Hollywood", explaining: "I wasn't trying to be different; I just did what I liked". When asked by the interviewer how he applied his style to different genres and to working with different directors, Willis answered: "You're looking for a formula; there is none. The formula is me."[6]
Up to the making ofThe Godfather (1972), Willis mostly usedMitchell reflex cameras with Baltar or Cookelenses. After that he usedPanavision equipment, which he had first used onKlute. Willis went back to using Mitchells onThe Godfather Part II (1974), in order to retain the visual coherence of the two films. Asked in 2004 about shooting films digitally, he was skeptical: "The organics aren't the same," he said. "The interpretive levels suffer", adding: "Digital is another form of recording an image, but it won't replace thinking."[11]
Originally, Willis turned down the first twoGodfather films, until Coppola told him they would not look the same without him.[1] His work turned out to be groundbreaking in its use of low-light photography and underexposed film, as well as in his control of lighting and exposure to create the sepia tones that denoted period scenes inThe Godfather Part II.[12][7] His contributions carefully strengthened the themes of the story, as when shootingMarlon Brando with his eyes hooded in shadow, a piece of lighting design that followed from the fact that Brando's make-up had to be lit from above.[12][7]
Willis said that it was the color that stitched the Godfather films together.[7] The visual structure of the films was, he said, his, but he gave Coppola credit for hiring him, saying: "I'm not that easy to deal with". He praised the director for the "management hell" of his struggles withParamount,[7] adding that he was "grateful he could separate the visual structure of these movies from the mess that went on to fashion them".[11]
Willis' collaboration with Woody Allen began withAnnie Hall (1977). Willis described making films with Allen as being so comfortable that it was like "working with your hands in your pockets".[13] OnAnnie Hall he contrasted the warmth of Annie and Alvy Singer's romance in New York with the overexposure of the film's California scenes, while in Allen'sManhattan he was responsible for what has been called a "richly textured black-and-white paean to the beauty and diversity of the city itself".[14] Willis, whose idea it was to use anamorphic widescreen for the filming,[15] said: "We both felt that New York was a black-and-white city".[2]
Willis also worked on the Allen filmsInteriors (1978),Stardust Memories (1980),A Midsummer Night's Sex Comedy (1982),Zelig (1983),Broadway Danny Rose (1984), andThe Purple Rose of Cairo (1985). Allen said that working with Willis had helped to improve his technical skills,[16] saying of him: "He's an artist. He's got a great sense of humor--he taught me a lot."[17]
In the seven-year period up to 1977, Willis was the director of photography on six films that received among them 39Academy Award nominations, winning 19 times, including three awards forBest Picture. The fact that Willis did not receive a single nomination was a subject of some controversy. His frequent absence from this period's nominees has been ascribed both to his unhidden "antipathy for Hollywood" and his work being ahead of its time.[13][14][17] He was once quoted as saying of Hollywood, "I don't think it suffers from an overabundance of good taste".[17] Willis was later nominated twice, once for his recreation of 1920s photography in Woody Allen'sZelig (1983),[18] and then forThe Godfather Part III (1990).[19] In 2009, at the inauguralGovernors Awards, the Academy chose Willis as the recipient of theAcademy Honorary Award for his life's work.[13]
Willis directed one film of his own,Windows, in 1980.[17][20] He admitted the film had been a mistake,[1] and later said that he didn't really like directing. "I've had a good relationship with actors," he reflected, "but I can do what I do and back off. I don't want that much romancing. I don't want them to call me up at two in the morning saying, 'I don't know who I am'".[9] He was nominated for theGolden Raspberry Award for Worst Director one year after the film's release.[21]
His last film wasThe Devil's Own (1997), directed by Pakula. Of his decision to retire, Willis said: "I got tired of trying to get actors out of trailers, and standing in the rain".[6]
Willis died of cancer on May 18, 2014, ten days before his 83rd birthday, inNorth Falmouth, Massachusetts.[10][22] ASC presidentRichard Crudo said: "He was one of the giants who absolutely changed the way movies looked. Up until the time ofThe Godfather andThe Godfather Part II, nothing previously shot looked that way. He changed the way films looked and the way people looked at films."[23][24]
Willis's work became celebrated for his ability to use shadow and underexposed film with a "subtlety and expressivity previously unknown on color film stock", with one critic citing as examples Don Corleone's study inThe Godfather and a parking garage inAll the President's Men.[1] Willis's friend, cinematographerConrad Hall, named him "The Prince of Darkness"[12] but Willis himself preferred to talk in terms of "visual relativity", saying: "I like going from light to dark, dark to light, big to small, small to big". DiscussingThe Godfather he said:
"You can decide this movie has got a dark palette. But you can't spend two hours on a dark palette. . . So you've got this high-key, Kodachrome wedding going on. Now you go back inside and it's dark again. You can't, in my mind, put both feet into a bucket of cement and leave them there for the whole movie. It doesn't work. You must have this relativity."[1]
DirectorFrancis Ford Coppola said of Willis, "He has a natural sense of structure and beauty, not unlike a Renaissance artist," while Willis was praised for his capacity to use "painterliness" to define "not just the look but the very meaning and feel of a film".[1] Speaking of contemporary film-making in 2004, Willis said:
"I'm delighted that people can fly, dogs can talk, and anything destructive can be fashioned on the screen, but much of what's being done lacks structure or taste. As I've asked in the past: can anyone give me the definition of a camera? It's a tool, a means to an end. So is a light, and everything else you can pile on your back. They're all meant to transpose the written word into moving pictures that tell a story."[11]
TV movie
| Year | Title | Director |
|---|---|---|
| 1984 | The Lost Honor of Kathryn Beck | Simon Langton |
Academy Awards
| Year | Category | Title | Result | Ref. |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1983 | Best Cinematography | Zelig | Nominated | [25] |
| 1990 | The Godfather Part III | Nominated | ||
| 2009 | Honorary Academy Award | Won | ||
American Society of Cinematographers
| Year | Category | Title | Result |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1983 | Outstanding Cinematography | Zelig | Nominated |
| 1990 | The Godfather Part III | Nominated | |
| 1995 | Life Achievement Awards | Won | |
British Academy Film Awards
| Year | Category | Title | Result |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1976 | Best Cinematography | All the Presidents Men | Nominated |
| 1979 | Manhattan | Nominated | |
| 1983 | Zelig | Nominated | |
| Best Visual Effects | Nominated |
National Society of Film Critics
| Year | Category | Title | Result |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1972 | Best Cinematography | The Godfather | Nominated |
| 1974 | The Godfather Part II | Won | |
| The Parallax View | |||
| 1979 | Manhattan | Nominated | |
| 1981 | Pennies from Heaven | Won | |
| 1983 | Zelig | Nominated |
New York Film Critics Circle
| Year | Category | Title | Result |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1981 | Best Cinematography | Pennies from Heaven | Nominated |
| 1983 | Zelig | Won |
Boston Society of Film Critics
| Year | Category | Title | Result |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1981 | Best Cinematography | Pennies from Heaven | Won |
Chicago Film Critics Association
| Year | Category | Title | Result |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1991 | Best Cinematography | The Godfather Part III | Nominated |
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