Vilmos Zsigmond | |
|---|---|
 Vilmos Zsigmond at the43rd KVIFF in 2008 | |
| Born | (1930-06-16)June 16, 1930 |
| Died | January 1, 2016(2016-01-01) (aged 85) Big Sur, California, U.S. |
| Citizenship |
|
| Occupation | Cinematographer |
| Years active | 1955–2015 |
| Spouses | Elizabeth Fuzes (divorced) (2 children) Susan Roether (his death)[1] |
| Awards | See below |
Vilmos ZsigmondASC (Hungarian:[ˈvilmoʃˈʒiɡmond]; June 16, 1930 – January 1, 2016) was aHungarian-Americancinematographer. His work helped shape the look of American movies in the 1970s, making him one of the leading figures in theAmerican New Wave movement.[2][3][4][5][6] In 2003, he was voted as one of the ten most influential cinematographers in history by the members of theInternational Cinematographers Guild.[7][8]
Over his career he became associated with many leading American directors, such asRobert Altman,Steven Spielberg,Brian De Palma,Michael Cimino andWoody Allen.[9][7][10] He won theAcademy Award for Best Cinematography filmsClose Encounters of the Third Kind and theBAFTA Award for Best Cinematography forThe Deer Hunter.[6][9][7][10][11] He also won anEmmy Award for the HBO miniseriesStalin.[6]
His work on the filmsMcCabe and Mrs. Miller,Close Encounters of the Third Kind andThe Deer Hunter made theAmerican Society of Cinematographers (ASC) list of the top 50 best-shot films from 1950–97.[12][13] The ASC also awarded him with their Lifetime Achievement Award in 1998.[13][14]
Zsigmond was born inSzeged, Hungary, the son of Bozena (née Illichman), an administrator, and Vilmos Zsigmond, a soccer player and coach.[9][10][15] He became interested in photography at age 17 after an uncle had given himMűvészi fényképezés (The Art of Light), a book of black-and-white photographs taken by Hungarian photographerJenő Dulovits [hu],[16][17][18] but under theSoviet-imposed government of theHungarian People's Republic he was not allowed to study the subject because his family was consideredbourgeois.[9][16][17] Instead, Zsigmond worked in a factory, bought a camera and taught himself how to take pictures, going on to organize a camera club for the workers.[7][15][16] As a result he won the respect of localcommissars and was allowed to study cinema at theAcademy of Drama and Film in Budapest and received anMA in cinematography.[7][15][16] He worked for five years in a Budapest feature film studio becoming director of photography.[15]
Zsigmond, along with his friend and fellow studentLászló Kovács, borrowed a 35-millimeter camera from their school and chronicled the events of the1956 Hungarian Revolution in Budapest by hiding the camera in a shopping bag and shooting footage through a hole they had cut in the bag.[6][9][16] The two men shot thirty thousand feet of film and escaped to Austria shortly afterwards.[9][7][15] In 1958 Zsigmond and Kovács arrived in the United States as political refugees and sold the footage to CBS for a network documentary on the revolution narrated byWalter Cronkite.[6][9][7]
In 1962, Zsigmond became a naturalized citizen of the United States.[19] He settled in Los Angeles and worked in photo labs as a technician and photographer.[7]
The first film he worked on in the United States was the 1963 black-and-whiteexploitation filmThe Sadist, starringArch Hall Jr.[7][16] Throughout the 1960s, he worked on many low-budget independent and educational films as he attempted to break into the film industry.[10][15] \
Some of the films that he worked on during this period credited him as "William Zsigmond", includingThe Sadist, the classic horrorB movieThe Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living and Became Mixed-Up Zombies,[10][20] and theSecond City satirical science fiction movieThe Monitors.[21]
Kovács, who shot the 1969 filmEasy Rider forPeter Fonda andDennis Hopper, recommended Zsigmond to Fonda for his 1971 Western filmThe Hired Hand.[9][7] Later that same year Zsigmond was hired byRobert Altman for hisrevisionist western filmMcCabe & Mrs. Miller, which became Zsigmond's breakthrough film and marked his first time working on a major Hollywood production.[9][22]
Over the following decade, Zsigmond became one of the most in-demand cinematographers in Hollywood.[7][11] Some of the major films he shot in the 1970s includeJohn Boorman'sDeliverance, Altman'sThe Long Goodbye andBrian De Palma'sObsession, as well asSteven Spielberg'sThe Sugarland Express andClose Encounters of the Third Kind, the latter of which won him theAcademy Award for Best Cinematography at the50th Academy Awards.[10][16]
In 1978, Zsigmond worked onMichael Cimino's dramaThe Deer Hunter, starringRobert De Niro,Meryl Streep andChristopher Walken.[9][10][11] Zsigmond's visual work on the film earned him the 1980BAFTA Award for Best Cinematography and another Academy Award nomination.[9][7][10] Zsigmond again worked with Cimino on his 1980 epic WesternHeaven's Gate.[9][7]
Zsigmond continued to be in demand in the years that followed, working multiple times with several directors. He again worked with De Palma on his filmsBlow Out,The Bonfire of the Vanities, andThe Black Dahlia.[23] He worked withMark Rydell onCinderella Liberty,The Rose,The River, andIntersection.[10][16] He worked withGeorge Miller onThe Witches of Eastwick[7] and withKevin Smith onJersey Girl.[24] He also worked withWoody Allen onMelinda and Melinda,Cassandra's Dream, andYou Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger.[7]
Zsigmond's television work includes theHBOminiseriesStalin, for which he won the 1993Emmy Award for Outstanding Individual Achievement in Cinematography for a Miniseries or a Special.[6][13] He was nominated for an Emmy for his work on 2001 miniseriesThe Mists of Avalon.[6] Zsigmond also shot 24 episodes ofThe Mindy Project between 2012 and 2014.[13][20][25]
Vilmos' life and career was featured inNo Subtitles Necessary: Laszlo & Vilmos, a bio-documentary that aired on PBS'sIndependent Lens in 2009.[10][26]
In 2011 Zsigmond co-founded theGlobal Cinematography Institute in Los Angeles, along with fellow cinematographerYuri Neyman.[6][10][27] The Institute provided an advanced cinematography educational program for postgraduate students and veteran filmmakers.[27]\
He was a longtime user and endorser ofTiffen filters, and is associated with the technique known asflashing orpre-fogging, which involves carefully exposing the film negative to a small, controlled amount of light in order to create a muted color palette.[10][20]
On January 1, 2016, Zsigmond died at his home in Big Sur, California, at the age of 85.[6][10]
| Year | Title | Director | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1969 | The Bold Ones: The Protectors | Robert Day | Episode "A Case of Good Whiskey at Christmas Time" |
| 2001 | The Mists of Avalon | Uli Edel | Miniseries |
| 2012–14 | The Mindy Project | Charles McDougall Michael Weaver Michael Spiller | Episodes "Pilot", "Girl Next Door" and "Danny and Mindy" |
| Year | Title | Category | Result |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1977 | Close Encounters of the Third Kind | Best Cinematography | Won |
| 1978 | The Deer Hunter | Nominated | |
| 1984 | The River | Nominated | |
| 2006 | The Black Dahlia | Nominated |
| Year | Title | Category | Result |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1971 | McCabe & Mrs. Miller | Best Cinematography | Nominated |
| 1972 | Images | Nominated | |
| Deliverance | Nominated | ||
| 1977 | Close Encounters of the Third Kind | Nominated | |
| 1978 | The Deer Hunter | Won |
American Society of Cinematographers Awards
| Year | Title | Category | Result |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1993 | Stalin | Outstanding Achievement in Cinematography in Motion Picture Made for Television | Won |
| 1996 | The Ghost and the Darkness | Outstanding Achievement in Cinematography in Theatrical Releases | Nominated |
| 2006 | The Black Dahlia | Nominated |
| Year | Title | Category | Result |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2006 | The Black Dahlia | Best Cinematography | Nominated |
| Year | Title | Category | Result |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1992 | Stalin | Outstanding Cinematography | Won |
| 2001 | The Mists of Avalon | Nominated |
| Institution | Year | Title | Category | Result |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| CableACE Awards | 1994 | Stalin | Photography in a Movie or Miniseries | Won |
| Camerimage Festival | 2002 | Bánk bán | Best Film Adaptation of an Opera | Won |
| 2006 | The Black Dahlia | Golden Frog | Nominated | |
| 2010 | Louis | Nominated | ||
| 2014 | God the Father | Nominated | ||
| Hollywood Film Awards | 2006 | The Black Dahlia | Cinematographer of the Year | Won |
| National Society of Film Critics Awards | 1972 | McCabe & Mrs. Miller | Best Cinematography | 3rd place[a] |
| 1973 | Images | 2nd place | ||
| 1974 | The Long Goodbye | Won | ||
| 1982 | Blow Out | Nominated |
Lifetime Achievement Honors
Zsigmond, who won an Oscar for his work on Spielberg's Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977), was responsible for the distinctive look of many of the best Hollywood movies of the 1970s, starting with Altman's McCabe & Mrs Miller (1971).
Vilmos Zsigmond, who has died aged 85, was a Hungarian cinematographer celebrated for his work during the 1970s and 1980s with directors such as Steven Spielberg, Robert Altman, and Woody Allen...His camera skills were used to great effect in seminal 1970s works such as Michael Cimino's The Deer Hunter (1978) and John Boorman's Deliverance (1972).
[Zsigmond] was also revered as an architect of the American New Wave in the 1970s.
We think of Zsigmond, who died on New Year's Day aged 85, as one of the leading photographic lights of the Hollywood New Wave.
Oscar-winning cinematographer Vilmos Zsigmond, revered as one of the most influential cinematographers in film history for his work on several classic films, including "Close Encounters of the Third Kind" and "The Deer Hunter," died Friday.
