Vilmos Zsigmond

Zsigmond was born in Szeged, Hungary, the son of Bozena ({{née|Illichman}}), an administrator, and Vilmos Zsigmond, a soccer player and coach.{{cite book |title=Masters of Light: Conversations with Contemporary Cinematographers |url=https://archive.org/details/mastersoflightco0000scha |url-access=registration |last=Schaefer |first=Dennis |author2=Larry Salvato |year=1985 |publisher=University of California Press |isbn=978-0-520-05336-6 |page=[https://archive.org/details/mastersoflightco0000scha/page/311 311] |chapter=Vilmos Zsigmond}} He became interested in photography at age 17 after an uncle had given him The Art of Light, a book of black-and-white photographs taken by Hungarian photographer Eugene Dulovits,{{cite news |author= |date=January 4, 2016 |title=Vilmos Zsigmond, the lighting wizard behind 'Close Encounters,' dies at 85 |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/vilmos-zsigmond-the-lighting-wizard-behind-close-encounters-dies-at-85/2016/01/04/92d22d26-b2fd-11e5-a76a-0b5145e8679a_story.html |newspaper=The Washington Post |location=Washington, District of Columbia, United States |access-date=November 1, 2018}}{{cite news |last=Sragow |first=Michael |date=August 26, 2010 |title=Vilmos Zsigmond, the image-master |url=https://www.baltimoresun.com/2010/08/26/vilmos-zsigmond-the-image-master/ |work=The Baltimore Sun |location=Baltimore, Maryland, United States |access-date=November 1, 2018}}{{cite news |last=Lacher |first=Irene |date=June 16, 2013 |title=The Sunday Conversation: Vilmos Zsigmond's technique comes into focus |url=https://www.latimes.com/entertainment/movies/la-xpm-2013-jun-16-la-et-cm-ca-vilmos-zsigmond-conversation-20130616-story.html |newspaper=Los Angeles Times |location=Los Angeles |access-date=November 1, 2018}} but under the Soviet-imposed government of the Hungarian People's Republic he was not allowed to study the subject because his family was considered bourgeois. 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. As a result he won the respect of local commissars and was allowed to study cinema at the Academy of Drama and Film in Budapest and received an MA in cinematography. He worked for five years in a Budapest feature film studio becoming director of photography.

Zsigmond, along with his friend and fellow student László Kovács, borrowed a 35-millimeter camera from their school and chronicled the events of the 1956 Hungarian Revolution in Budapest by hiding the camera in a shopping bag and shooting footage through a hole they had cut in the bag. The two men shot thirty thousand feet of film and escaped to Austria shortly afterwards. 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 by Walter Cronkite.

In 1962, Zsigmond became a naturalized citizen of the United States.{{cite news |author= |date=January 3, 2016 |title=Vilmos Zsigmond, Oscar-winning cinematographer, dies aged 85 |url=https://www.theguardian.com/film/2016/jan/03/vilmos-zsigmond-oscar-cinematographer-dies-close-encounters |work=The Guardian |location=London |access-date=November 1, 2018}} He settled in Los Angeles and worked in photo labs as a technician and photographer. The first film he worked on in the United States was the 1963 black-and-white exploitation film The Sadist, starring Arch Hall Jr. Throughout the 1960s, he worked on many low-budget independent and educational films as he attempted to break into the film industry. Some of the films that he worked on during this period credited him as "William Zsigmond", including The Sadist, the classic horror B movie The Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living and Became Mixed-Up Zombies,{{cite news |last=Patterson |first=John |date=January 6, 2016 |title=Vilmos Zsigmond: the cinematographer who transformed how films look|url=https://www.theguardian.com/film/2016/jan/06/vilmos-zsigmond-cinematographer-film-hollywood-easy-rider |work=The Guardian |location=London |access-date=November 1, 2018}} and the Second City satirical science fiction movie The Monitors.{{cite web |url=http://www.tcm.turner.com/tcmdb/title/83858/The-Monitors/full-credits.html |title=The Monitors (1969): Full Credits |website=TCM Database |publisher=Turner Classic Movies |access-date=May 2, 2020}}

Kovács, who shot the 1969 film Easy Rider for Peter Fonda and Dennis Hopper, recommended Zsigmond to Fonda for his 1971 Western film The Hired Hand. Later that same year Zsigmond was hired by Robert Altman for his revisionist western film McCabe & Mrs. Miller, which became Zsigmond's breakthrough film and marked his first time working on a major Hollywood production.{{cite magazine |last=Gleiberman |first=Owen |date=May 18, 2016 |title=Cannes Film Review: 'Close Encounters with Vilmos Zsigmond' |url=https://variety.com/2016/film/festivals/cannes-film-review-close-encounters-vilmos-zsigmond-1201777948/ |magazine=Variety |location=Los Angeles |publisher=Michelle Sobrino-Stearns |access-date=November 1, 2018}}

Over the following decade, Zsigmond became one of the most in-demand cinematographers in Hollywood. Some of the major films he shot in the 1970s include John Boorman's Deliverance, Altman's The Long Goodbye and Brian De Palma's Obsession, as well as Steven Spielberg's The Sugarland Express and Close Encounters of the Third Kind, the latter of which won him the Academy Award for Best Cinematography at the 50th Academy Awards.

In 1978, Zsigmond worked on Michael Cimino's drama The Deer Hunter, starring Robert De Niro, Meryl Streep and Christopher Walken. Zsigmond's visual work on the film earned him the 1980 BAFTA Award for Best Cinematography and another Academy Award nomination. Zsigmond again worked with Cimino on his 1980 epic Western Heaven's Gate.

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 films Blow Out, The Bonfire of the Vanities, and The Black Dahlia.{{cite magazine |last=Zacharek |first=Stephanie |date=January 4, 2016 |title=Cinematographer Extraordinaire Vilmos Zsigmond Could Light Up the Night, and the Daytime Too |url=https://time.com/4166105/vilmos-zsigmond-death-remembrance/ |magazine=Time |access-date=November 1, 2018}} He worked with Mark Rydell on Cinderella Liberty, The Rose, The River, and Intersection. He worked with George Miller on The Witches of Eastwick and with Kevin Smith on Jersey Girl.{{cite news |last=Kermode |first=Mark |date=June 20, 2004 |title=Oh, do grow up, Kevin... |url=https://www.theguardian.com/theobserver/2004/jun/20/features.review27 |work=The Observer |location=London |access-date=November 1, 2018}} He also worked with Woody Allen on Melinda and Melinda, Cassandra's Dream, and You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger.

Zsigmond's television work includes the HBO miniseries Stalin, for which he won the 1993 Emmy Award for Outstanding Individual Achievement in Cinematography for a Miniseries or a Special. He was nominated for an Emmy for his work on 2001 miniseries The Mists of Avalon. Zsigmond also shot 24 episodes of The Mindy Project between 2012 and 2014.{{cite magazine |last=Dagan |first=Carmel |date=January 3, 2016 |title=Vilmos Zsigmond, Oscar-Winning Cinematographer, Dies at 85 |url=https://variety.com/2016/film/news/vilmos-zsigmond-dead-dies-cinematographer-1201670799/ |magazine=Variety |location=Los Angeles |publisher=Michelle Sobrino-Stearns |access-date=November 1, 2018}}

Vilmos' life and career was featured in No Subtitles Necessary: Laszlo & Vilmos, a bio-documentary that aired on PBS's Independent Lens in 2009.{{cite web |url=http://www.pbs.org/independentlens/no-subtitles-necessary/film.html |title=No Subtitles Necessary: Laszlo & Vilmos |publisher=PBS |access-date=November 1, 2018}}

In 2011 Zsigmond co-founded the Global Cinematography Institute in Los Angeles, along with fellow cinematographer Yuri Neyman.{{cite magazine |last=Caranicas |first=Peter |date=November 29, 2011 |title=D.p.'s launch cinematography school |url=https://variety.com/2011/film/columns/d-p-s-launch-cinematography-school-1118046715/ |magazine=Variety |location=Los Angeles |publisher=Michelle Sobrino-Stearns |access-date=November 1, 2018}} The Institute provides an advanced cinematography educational program for postgraduate students and veteran filmmakers.

He was a longtime user and endorser of Tiffen filters, and is associated with the technique known as flashing or pre-fogging, which involves carefully exposing the film negative to a small, controlled amount of light in order to create a muted color palette.

On January 1, 2016, Zsigmond died at his home in Big Sur, California, at the age of 85.

Director

• The Long Shadow (1992)

Cinematographer

Academy Awards

BAFTA Awards

American Society of Cinematographers

Satellite Awards

National Society of Film Critics

Primetime Emmy Awards

Lifetime Achievement Awards

• 1997: Camerimage Festival[http://www.camerimage.pl/en/camerimage-1997-2.html "Camerimage 1997" Retrieved November 2, 2016.] {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161103235849/http://www.camerimage.pl/en/camerimage-1997-2.html |date=November 3, 2016}}
• 1999: American Society of Cinematographers
• 2010: Manaki Brothers Film Festival
• 2014: Cannes Film Festival

• No Subtitles Necessary: Laszlo & Vilmos (2008)

{{reflist}}

{{Commons category}}

• {{IMDb name|0005936|Vilmos Zsigmond}}
• [http://www.cinematographers.nl/PaginasDoPh/zsigmond.htm Internet Encyclopedia of Cinematographers profile]
• [https://web.archive.org/web/20050519052406/http://www.hscmot.hu/bcm/masters.html Budapest Cinematographers MasterClass's Master]

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Category:1930 births

Category:2016 deaths

Category:Best Cinematographer Academy Award winners

Category:Best Cinematography BAFTA Award winners

Category:Hungarian cinematographers

Category:Hungarian film producers

Category:Hungarian emigrants to the United States

Category:People from Szeged