January 4, 2016

Tribute to Vilmos Zsigmond ASC

Vilmos Zsigmond, ASC (June 16, 1930 – January 1, 2016)

Oscar-winning cinematographer, Vilmos Zsigmond ASC, who worked on “Close Encounters of the Third Kind” and “The Deer Hunter”, among others, died Jan. 1 at 85, his business partner Yuri Neyman confirmed. Born in 1930 in Szeged, Hungary, Vilmos studied cinema at the Academy of Drama and Film in Budapest, receiving an MA in cinematography. He worked for five years in a Budapest feature film studio becoming “director of photography.” Together with his friend and fellow student László Kovács, he chronicled the events of the 1956 Hungarian Revolution in Budapest on thirty thousand feet of film before escaping to Austria and eventually to the USA. In 1962, he became a naturalized citizen of the United States and settled in Los Angeles working in photo labs as a technician and photographer. During the 1960s, he worked on many low-budget independent films and educational films, as he attempted to break into the feature film industry.

He gained prominence during the 1970s after being hired by Robert Altman as cinematographer for “McCabe & Mrs. Miller” and for which he pre-flashed the stock for a period “look”. Subsequent major films include Altman’s “The Long Goodbye”, John Boorman’s “Deliverance” and Steven Spielberg’s “The Sugarland Express” on which Vilmos was one of the first to use the newly designed Panaflex camera in hand held format and followed that with “Close Encounters of the Third Kind”, which won him the Academy Award for Best Cinematography. Zsigmond has worked with Brian De Palma on “Obsession”, “Blow Out”, “The Bonfire of the Vanities”, and “The Black Dahlia” and with Michael Cimino on “The Deer Hunter” and “Heaven’s Gate”, with Richard Donner on “Maverick” and “Assassins”, with Kevin Smith on “Jersey Girl”, with George Miller on “The Witches Of Eastwick” and with Woody Allen on “Melinda and Melinda”, “Cassandra’s Dream” and “You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger.”

He had over 70 feature credits to his name and kept working almost until the end, His last feature credit was “Six Dance Lesson in Six Weeks” shot in 2014 when he would have been 84! According to IMDb he had five future projects attached to his name. In 2003, a survey conducted by the International Cinematographers Guild, Vilmos was placed among the ten most influential cinematographers in history a list that included: Billy Bitzer, Jordan Cronenweth, ASC, Conrad L. Hall, ASC, James Wong Howe, ASC, Sven Nykvist, ASC, Vittorio Storaro, ASC, AIC, Gregg Toland, ASC, Haskell Wexler, ASC, Gordon Willis, ASC, Freddie Young, BSC, and Vilmos Zsigmond, ASC . In recent times he was also co-founder with Yuri Neyman of the Global Cinematography Institute in Los Angeles and it will be greatly diminished by his loss.

Showing a humility that belied his long list of achievements, Zsigmond once told Rolling Stone that “a cinematographer can only be as good as the director.”

ACADEMY OF MOTION PICTURE ARTS & SCIENCES:

WIN – Close encounters of the Third Kind

Nominations – The Deer Hunter; The River; The Black Dahlia.

BRITISH ACADEMY OF FILM & TELEVISION ARTS

WIN – The Deer Hunter

Nominations: Close Encounters of the Third Kind; McCabe & Mrs Miller; Deliverance; Images

AMERICAN SOCIETY OF CINEMATOGRAPHERS

WINS – Stalin (TV Series); Lifetime Achievement Award

Nominations: The Ghost in the Darkness; The Black Dahlia

CAMERIMAGE

WIN – Bánk Bán (shared with director); Lifetime Achievement Award

Nominations: The Black Dahlia; Louis; God the Father

Phil Méheux BSC