Film & Festivals » Vilmos Zsigmond: Painting with light

Vilmos Zsigmond: Painting with light

If you mention the name Vilmos Zsigmond, most people will look at you blankly. If you mention some of the films he has shot, then they will invariably nod sagely. Thus is the lot of the cinematographer in a world that is recognised as a visual medium, but is dominated by movie stars and directors, and the people who make the images get the least credit.

Vilmos trained at the State Academy of Theatre and Film Art, Budapest in his native Hungary, with his lifelong friend Laszlo Kovacs. During the Popular Uprising in 1956 the pair filmed the battle between the Russians and the people of Budapest, before fleeing the country, smuggling the film with them, at great risk to their lives. They arrived in the US, with the film, as political refugees in 1957, eventually ending up in Hollywood where they worked on low budget movies for the likes of Roger Corman, before meeting up with Peter Fonda and the rest of the new wave directors. Vilmos went on shoot classic films of the era such as: McCabe and Mrs Miller, Deliverance, Close Encounters of the Third Kind (for which he won an Oscar), Deer Hunter and the infamous Heaven’s Gate, as well as many more since. This is part of a long conversation with Vilmos that took place at the Thessaloniki Documentary Festival two years ago.

How is it that you and your close friend Laszlo Kovacs made so many great films and yet today we don’t seem to have this ability, as a culture, to make as many good films as often.

When you think about it, it is actually 50 years of work. I came from Hungary in 1957 and I ended up in Hollywood, and it took me ten years until did my first big movie with Peter Fonda. Those days were terrific, the American new wave started, which was basically American independent movies made by a younger generation of directors that represented more the European style, Italian neorealismo and the French new wave. We basically started to emulate that style, with Laszlo and myself, Haskell Wexler, Conrad Hall, Johnny Alonzo, Gordon Willis, we were the new generation of cinematographers. We just happened to be there at the right time. Those were the days when a young director with a good story could make a movie without any interference from the studios. The director was really the king on the set, and as the cinematographer I could do everything I wanted without any interference from studio people. All I had to do was listen to my director, and do my job the best I could.