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When we came to America, the movies here needed a new wave. European films looked totally different than American movies, which were these lush, glossy pictures with this elaborate production design.

Vilmos Zsigmond

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Vilmos Zsigmond
Age: 85 †
Born: 1930
Born: June 16
Died: 2016
Died: January 1
Cinematographer
Film Producer
Segedo
Different
Films
Elaborate
Design
European
Needed
Production
Movies
Productions
Came
Pictures
American
Wave
Film
Totally
Glossy
America
Looked
Lush

More quotes by Vilmos Zsigmond

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I love to make movies about young people - young scientists that are inventing things and all the writing they did was very funny and very true.
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I was really fortunate from the time I arrived in Hollywood to work with some of the greatest directors from the beginning. I worked with Robert Altman, John Boorman, and of course Steven Spielberg, Michael Cimino, Brian De Palma ... I couldn't pick one of them they were all different, but they are all so talented.
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Each story has a different approach for me and I try to work with lighting that will tell you visually the story better than if it was shot in available light.
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I am actually retired - yes, I am retired. But I like to work. So I'm retired until someone calls me up to work.
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Mexican cinematographers Gabriel Figueroa and Emilio Fernandez were students of both Sergei Eisenstein and Toland. Their exteriors and lighting were gorgeous. And the films Ingmar Bergman did with Sven Nykvist were exceptional.
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I think that the audience should not be able to tell if it is real or not real - it should be an enhanced version of reality, or an artistic view of reality, that captures not only what is physically there, but what is not visible - the mood.
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As the cinematographer is usually more visual than the director is and full cooperation is really the answer and to make a great film, you need a good director and you need a good cinematographer.
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Spielberg was very young and starting up when we did Sugarland Express and I loved that, but the main thing was that I really loved his talent.
Vilmos Zsigmond
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I hope that film is going to stay as an artform and that people won't forget that there are good movies also to be made.
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I had never met Woody Allen before Melinda and Melinda. My agent knew the producer of the movie and he suggested that we would work well together and then we did. We had a great time on that film.
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As an actor, Sean [Penn] is brilliant. And he's really an excellent director, as well. We got along really well.
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If you use hand-held techniques just to make the film stylish I think it's wrong.
Vilmos Zsigmond
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I shot a lot of commercials and sometimes I enjoy the commercial shooting and sometimes I really hate it, but in thirty seconds or one minute, you can make some remarkable work shooting in one or two or three days.
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You make a film for a million dollars and then it costs $10 million to sell it. That's the problem at the moment with independent filmmaking: You can make it cheap and then there's no money to market it.
Vilmos Zsigmond
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I look at a picture like Scarecrow and think, 'Jesus, how could they have let us make that?' I mean, if you used technology that old nowadays, it would look like old Hollywood.
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Telling the story with only a few shots, I love that style. It makes you feel like you're part of the action, part of the story. It reminds me of the theater, where one act is basically like one long shot. It almost makes you forget that you're seeing a movie.
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There is a difference between creating something and just capturing something. And when we were using film, it was not that fast, and it was expensive, so there was incentive to make sure the shot was exactly right before we rolled. With digital, it's fast and its cheap, and it's easy to bypass the rest.
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I love the Dutch impressionists - Vermeer, Rembrandt. What they were able to do with light was astonishing. As for photographers, I think mostly of the Hungarians: Robert Capa, Laszlo Moholy-Nagy, Jozsef Pesci. In fact, I have one of his photographs hanging in my house.
Vilmos Zsigmond
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If you do not bother to take the time to compose and to light properly, then you end up with something almost less than reality. You end up without the soul, the heart, the art of the moment.
Vilmos Zsigmond
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You used to feed a piece of celluloid into an editor. [Digital] is not expensive and that is an advantage, but I must say that I don't love it.
Vilmos Zsigmond