The 30 Greatest Cinematographers in Movie History
This is alphabetical ordered list from the TASTEOFCINEMA.com made by Carolina Starzynski. I will point out the three most important movies per cinematographer.
PS I also made a few changes in the choices of cinemtographers
PS I also made a few changes in the choices of cinemtographers
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- Camera and Electrical Department
- Cinematographer
John Alcott, the Oscar-winning cinematographer best known for his collaboration with director Stanley Kubrick, was born in 1931, in Isleworth, England, the son of movie executive Arthur Alcott, who would become the production controller at Gainsborough Studios during the 1940s.
Alcott began his film career as a clapper boy, the lowest member of a camera crew. By the early 1960s he had worked his way up to focus puller, the #3 position on a camera crew after the lighting cameraman and camera operator. As a focus puller Alcott was responsible for measuring the distances between the camera and the subject being shot, which is critical during traveling shots, and more vitally, he was tasked with adjusting the lens when the camera is following a subject.
By the mid-'60s Alcott was a member of the camera team of master cinematographer Geoffrey Unsworth, working on Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968). When Unsworth had to leave the project during its two-year-long shoot to meet other commitments, Alcott was elevated to lighting cameraman by Kubrick. Thus began a collaboration that would reach its zenith a decade later with Barry Lyndon (1975). His association with Kubrick propelled him to the top of his craft, in terms of both style and in pushing the technical aspects of the discipline.
Alcott preferred lighting that appeared natural and did not draw attention to itself. His ideas meshed perfectly with those of Kubrick, and the two developed their ideas about "natural" lighting in two landmark films, A Clockwork Orange (1971) and "Barry Lyndon", which incorporated scenes shot entirely by candlelight. The idea of using candlelight solely for illumination was discussed by Alcott and Kubrick after the wrap of "2001" for Kubrick's planned film about the life of Napoleon, but there wasn't a fast-enough lens in existence then.
After a search, Kubrick located three unique 50mm f/0.7 still-camera camera lenses designed by the Zeiss Corporation for use by NASA in its Apollo moon-landing program in order to shoot still pictures in the low light levels of outer space. The lens was 2 f stops faster than the fastest movie camera lens made at the time.
Kubrick tasked Cinema Products Corp. to adapt a standard 35mm non-reflexed Mitchell BNC movie camera so that the camera could accept the lens. The camera was outfitted with a side viewfinder from one of the old Technicolor three-strip cameras that used mirrors rather than prisms (like a modern camera) to show what it "sees", the mirrors providing a much brighter image than did a prism-based single-lens reflex system, which could not obtain enough light to register an image. There was no real problem with parallax, as the viewfinder was mounted close to the lens.
Cinema Products also created two special lenses by mating a 70mm projection lens with the remaining 0.7 Zeiss 50mm lenses. This battery of three lenses allowed Kubrick and Alcott to shoot the indoor scenes using nothing but candlelight. It was a formidable task, as the lenses could not be focused by eye. Metal shields also had to be installed above the sets, which were filmed in actual castles and manor houses in Ireland and England, to keep the heat and smoke from the candles from damaging the ceilings. Fortitously, the shields also reflected the candlelight back into the scene (this approach was later used successfully by lighting cameraman Alwin H. Küchler on the western The Claim (2000), which shot its saloon interiors in very low light). The candles had to be constantly replaced to keep continuity during the scenes, and shooting was hampered by the fact that many of the manor houses were open to the public and the crew had to wait until the intervals between tours to film a scene.
Alcott told "American Cinematographer" in a December 1975 interview that the ultra-fast lens had no depth of field at all. This necessitated the scaling of the lens by doing hand tests. Alcott's focus puller, Douglas Milsome (who would succeed him as Kubrick's cinematographer), used a closed-circuit video camera at a 90-degree angle to the film camera to keep track of the distances to maintain focus. A grid was placed over the TV screen and, by taping the various actors' positions in the set, the distances could be transferred to the TV grid to allow the actors a limited scope of movement during the scene, while keeping in focus.
Alcott won an Academy Award for his work on "Barry Lyndon", which is considered one of the most visually beautiful movies ever made. (Three of Alcott's movies were ranked in the top 20 of "Best Shot" movies in the period after 1950-97 by the American Society of Cinematographers: "2001" at #3, "Barry Lyndon" at #16, and "A Clockwork Orange", for which he won the British Academy Award, at #19.) Alcott realized Kubrick's vision by evoking the paintings of Corot, Gainsborough, and Watteau, creating gorgeous tableaux. It was the aesthetic opposite of the cubism evoked by "A Clockwork Orange",
While shooting what would turn out to be his last film for Kubrick, The Shining (1980), Alcott lit the hotel sets with "practicals" (sources of lighting that are visible on screen as part of the set, such as lighting fixtures). As on "Barry Lyndon", Alcott supplemented the lighting with illumination coming into the set from outside the windows, though the "windows" on "The Shining" were part of a set. The high temperatures (110 degrees Fahrenheit) caused by the 700,000 watts of illumination outside the set's "windows" Alcott used to create the high white effect favored by Kubrick caused the set to burn down.
Alcott, who shot films and TV commercials for other directors in the UK, moved to the US in 1981 in order to obtain more steady work than was possible in the ailing British film industry. His non-Kubrick projects as a cinematographer included three films with director Stuart Cooper and two with Roger Spottiswoode. Alcott could not shoot Kubrick's Full Metal Jacket (1987), which commenced shooting in 1985 and -- like any Kubrick shoot -- would involved a substantial commitment of time, as Alcott was committed to other projects (Kubrick hired Douglas Milsome, who had been Alcott's focus puller on "Barry Lyndon" and "The Shining", to shoot "Jacket"). His non-Kubrick oeuvre was eccentric, and included the Canadian slasher film My Bloody Valentine (1981), but he was able to bring his outstanding visual quality to such movies as Fort Apache the Bronx (1981), The Beastmaster (1982), Under Fire (1983) and Hugh Hudson's Greystoke: The Legend of Tarzan, Lord of the Apes (1984).
Alcott suffered a massive heart attack and died on July 28, 1986, in Cannes, France. At the time of his death he was considered one of the film industry's great artist-technicians, someone who through his ability to push back the boundaries of what was technically possible, linked technology to aesthetic needs and contributed to the development of cinema as an art form. His last film, No Way Out (1987), was dedicated to his memory. The British Society of Cinematographers named one of its awards the "BSC John Alcott ARRI Award" in his honor to commemorate his role as a lighting cameraman in the development of film as an art form.A Clockwork Orange - 1971
Barry Lyndon - 1975
The Shining - 1980- Cinematographer
- Director
- Camera and Electrical Department
One of the highest appraised contemporary cinematographers. He was born in Spain but moved to Cuba by age 18 to join his exiled anti-Franco father. In Havana, he founded a cineclub and wrote film reviews. Then, he went on to study in Rome at the Centro Sperimentale. He directed six shorts in Cuba and two in New York. After the 1959 Cuban revolution, he returned and made several documentaries for the Castro-regime. But after two of his shorts (Gente en la playa (1960) and La Tumba Francesca) had been banned, he moved to Paris. There he became the favourite cameraman of Éric Rohmer and François Truffaut. In 1978, he started his impressive Hollywood-career. In his later years, he co-directed two documentaries about the human rights situation in Cuba: Improper Conduct (1984) (about the persecution of gay people) and Nadie escuchaba (1987). He shot several prestigious commercials for Giorgio Armani and Calvin Klein. Nestor Almendros died of cancer.Days of Heaven - 1978
Kramer vs. Kramer - 1979
Sophie's Choice - 1982- Cinematographer
- Special Effects
- Editorial Department
The favorite cinematographer of legendary director Alfred Hitchcock began working at Warner Bros. when he was 19 years old. He climbed his way up from camera operator to assistant camera man and eventually took over the Special Photographic Effects unit at Warners on Stage 5 in 1944. He became an expert in forced perspective techniques which were widely in use at the time as cost-saving measures, or on B-pictures. Burks did special effects work on major productions like Arsenic and Old Lace (1944), The Unsuspected (1947) and Key Largo (1948).
In 1949, Burks graduated to becoming a fully-fledged director of photography. His striking black & white work on The Fountainhead (1949) was particularly evocative in showcasing the stark, austere architectural lines of the film's chief protagonist, Howard Roark (Gary Cooper). On the strength of this, and his next film, The Glass Menagerie (1950), Hitchcock hired him to shoot his thriller Strangers on a Train (1951). From this developed one of Hollywood's most inspired collaborations, as well as a close personal friendship.
When his contract at Warner Brothers expired in 1953, Burks followed Hitchcock to Paramount and went on to play an integral part in creating the brooding, tension-laden atmosphere of the director's best work between 1954 and 1964. His range varied from the neo-realist, almost semi-documentary black & white look of The Wrong Man (1956) to the intensely warm and beautiful deep focus VistaVision colour photography of Vertigo (1958). His muted tones matching the claustrophobic setting of Rear Window (1954) stood in sharp contrast to the vibrant, full-hued colours used in the expansive outdoor footage of To Catch a Thief (1955) and North by Northwest (1959).
The experience Burks had gained in forced perspective miniatures in his early days at Warner Brothers, also stood him in good stead on 'Vertigo' (the mission tower), 'North by Northwest' (the Mount Rushmore scenes) and, later, 'The Birds'. Because of his expertise, Burks was often able to contribute ideas to shooting scenes more effectively. He was also an innovator in the application of both telephoto and wide angle lenses as a means to creating a specific mood. The Hitchcock-Burks partnership ended after Marnie (1964), and, under less-inspired directors (except for A Patch of Blue (1965)), his later work inevitably declined in quality. Robert Burks and his wife, Elysabeth, were tragically killed in a fire at their house in May 1968.
Robert Burks won the 1955 Academy Award for Best Colour Photography for 'To Catch a Thief'. He was also nominated for 'Strangers on a Train', 'Rear Window' and 'A Patch of Blue'.Strangers on a Train - 1951
Rear Window - 1954
Vertigo - 1958- Cinematographer
- Camera and Electrical Department
- Director
Almost universally considered one of the greatest cinematographers of all time, Jack Cardiff was also a notable director. He described his childhood as very happy and his parents as quite loving. They performed in music hall as comedians, so he grew up with the fun that came with their theatrical life in pantomime and vaudeville. His father once worked with Charles Chaplin. His parents did occasional film appearances, and young Jack appeared in some of their films, such as My Son, My Son (1918), at the age of four. He had the lead in Billy's Rose (1922) with his parents playing his character's parents in the film. Jack was a production runner, or what he would call a "general gopher", for The Informer (1929) in which his father appeared. For one scene he was asked by the first assistant cameraman to "follow focus", which he said was his first real brush with photography of any kind, but he claimed that it was the lure of travel that led to him joining a camera department making films in a studio. He had, however, become impressed with the use of light and color in paintings by the age of seven or eight, and described how he watched art directors in theaters painting backdrops setting lights. His friend Ted Moore was also a camera assistant in this period when both worked in a camera department run by Freddie Young, who would also become a legendary cinematographer. He worked for Alfred Hitchcock during the filming of The Skin Game (1931).
By 1936 Cardiff had risen to being a camera operator at Denham Studios when the Technicolor Company hired him on the basis of what he told them in interview about the use of light by master painters. This led to his operating camera for the first Technicolor film shot in Britain, Wings of the Morning (1937). He finally was offered the full position of director of photography by Michael Powell for A Matter of Life and Death (1946), ironically working in B&W for the first time in some sequences. His next assignment was on Black Narcissus (1947), where he acknowledged the influence of painters Vermeer and Caravaggio and their use of shadow. He won the Academy Award for best color cinematography for this film. Jack certainly got to travel when it was decided to shoot The African Queen (1951) on location in the Congo. Errol Flynn offered Jack the chance to direct The Story of William Tell (1953) that would star Flynn. It would have been the second film made in CinemaScope had it been completed, but the production ran out of money part way through filming in Switzerland.
It has been said that Marilyn Monroe requested that Jack photograph The Prince and the Showgirl (1957). Although he had already directed some small productions, he had a critical breakthrough with Sons and Lovers (1960). He continued directing other films through the 1960s, including the commercial hit Dark of the Sun (1968), but for the most part returned to working for other directors as a very sought-after cinematographer in the 1970s and beyond. He continued to work into the new century, almost until his death. He was made an OBE in 2000 and received a lifetime achievement award at the 73rd Academy Awards.Black Narcissus - 1947
The Red Shoes - 1948
War and Peace - 1956- Cinematographer
- Actor
- Camera and Electrical Department
Michael Chapman is an American cinematographer. He is best known for Taxi Driver (1976), Raging Bull (1980), The Fugitive (1993), and Primal Fear (1996).
Chapman began his film career as a camera operator before making the leap to cinematographer. As a cinematographer, he became famous for his two collaborations with Martin Scorsese.
He was also cinematographer for the hit remake of Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1978).
In 1987, Chapman collaborated again with Martin Scorsese on the 18-minute short film that served as the music video for Michael Jackson: Bad (1987).Taxi Driver - 1976
Raging Bull - 1980
The Fugitive - 1993- Cinematographer
- Director
- Actor
Raoul Coutard was born on 16 September 1924 in Paris, France. He was a cinematographer and director, known for Hoa Binh (1970), Alphaville (1965) and Z (1969). He died on 8 November 2016 in Labenne, Nouvelle-Aquitaine, France.Breathless - 1960
A Woman Is a Woman - 1961
Alphaville - 1965- Cinematographer
- Camera and Electrical Department
- Additional Crew
Roger Deakins is an English cinematographer best known for his work on the films of the Coen brothers, Sam Mendes, and Denis Villeneuve.
He is a member of both the American and British Society of Cinematographers.
Deakins' first feature film in America as cinematographer was Mountains of the Moon (1990). He began his collaboration with the Coen brothers in 1991 on the film Barton Fink. He received his first major award from the American Society of Cinematographers for his outstanding achievement in cinematography for the internationally praised major motion picture The Shawshank Redemption (1994).
He is also known for his work in The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford (2007), No Country for Old Men (2007), True Grit (2010), Skyfall (2012), Sicario (2015), and Blade Runner 2049 (2017).
Deakins also worked as one of the visual consultants for Pixar's animated feature WALL-E.
In 2018 he won an Oscar for best cinematographer for his work in Blade Runner 2049.The Shawshank Redemption - 1994
O Brother, Where Art Thou? - 2000
The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford - 2007- Cinematographer
- Camera and Electrical Department
- Actor
Tonino Delli Colli was born on 20 November 1922 in Rome, Lazio, Italy. He was a cinematographer and actor, known for The Name of the Rose (1986), Life Is Beautiful (1997) and Once Upon a Time in America (1984). He was married to Alexandra Delli Colli. He died on 16 August 2005 in Rome, Lazio, Italy.The Good, the Bad and the Ugly - 1966
Once Upon a Time in the West - 1968
Once Upon a Time in America - 1984- Cinematographer
- Actor
- Director
Christopher Doyle was born on 2 May 1952 in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. He is a cinematographer and actor, known for Paranoid Park (2007), Hero (2002) and 2046 (2004).In the Mood for Love - 2000
Hero - 2002
2046 - 2004- Cinematographer
- Camera and Electrical Department
- Director
Gunnar Fischer was born on 18 November 1910 in Ljungby, Sweden. He was a cinematographer and director, known for Wild Strawberries (1957), The Seventh Seal (1957) and Smiles of a Summer Night (1955). He was married to Gull Söderblom. He died on 11 June 2011 in Stockholm, Stockholms län, Sweden.Smiles of a Summer Night - 1955
The Seventh Seal - 1957
Wild Strawberries - 1957- Cinematographer
- Camera and Electrical Department
- Writer
Born in Tahiti, the son of writer James Norman Hall, author of "Mutiny on the Bounty," Conrad Hall studied filmmaking at USC. He and two classmates formed a production company and sold a project to a local television station. Hall's company branched out into making industrial films and TV commercials. They were hired to shoot location footage for several feature films, including's Disney's The Living Desert (1953). In the early 1960s, Hall was hired as a camera assistant on several features and worked his way up to camera operator. He received his first cinematographer credit in 1965. Hall won acclaim for his rich and complex compositions, especially for In Cold Blood (1967) and won an Academy Award for Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969). He won two more Oscars, for American Beauty (1999), in 2000, and Road to Perdition (2002).Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid - 1969
American Beauty - 1999
Road to Perdition - 2002- Cinematographer
- Camera and Electrical Department
- Director
Master cinematographer James Wong Howe, whose career stretched from silent pictures through the mid-'70s, was born Wong Tung Jim in Canton (now Guangzhou), China, on August 28, 1899, the son of Wong How. His father emigrated to America the year James was born, settling in Pasco, Washington, where he worked for the Northern Pacific Railroad. Wong How eventually went into business for himself in Pasco, opening a general store, which he made a success, despite the bigotry of the locals.
When he was five years old, Wong Tung Jim joined his father in the US. His childhood was unhappy due to the discrimination he faced, which manifested itself in racist taunting by the neighborhood children. To get the kids to play with him, Jimmie often resorted to bribing them with candy from his father's store. When Jimmie, as he was known to his friends and later to his co-workers in the movie industry, was about 12 years old he bought a Kodak Brownie camera from a drugstore. Though his father was an old-fashioned Chinese, suspicious about having his picture taken and opposed to his new hobby, Jimmie went ahead and photographed his brothers and sisters. Unfortunately, when the photos were developed, the heads of his siblings had been cut off, as the Brownie lacked a viewfinder.
His childhood dream was to be a prizefighter, and as a teenager he moved to Oregon to fight. However, his interest soon waned, and he moved to Los Angeles, where he got a job as an assistant to a commercial photographer. His duties included making deliveries, but he was fired when he developed some passport photos for a friend in the firm's darkroom. Reduced to making a living as a busboy at the Beverly Hills Hotel, he journeyed down to Chinatown on Sundays to watch movies being shot there.
Jimmie Howe made the acquaintance of a cameraman on one of the location shoots, who suggested he give the movies a try. He got hired by the Jesse Lasky Studios' photography department at the princely sum of $10 per week, but the man in charge thought he was too little to lug equipment around, so he assigned Jimmie custodial work. Thus the future Academy Award-wining cinematographer James Wong Howe's first job in Hollywood was picking up scraps of nitrate stock from the cutting-room floor (more important than it sounds, as nitrate fires in editing rooms were not uncommon). The job allowed him to familiarize himself with movie cameras, lighting equipment and the movie film-development process.
His was a genuine Horatio Alger "Up From His Bootstraps" narrative, as by 1917 he had graduated from editing room assistant to working as a slate boy on Cecil B. DeMille's pictures. The promotion came when DeMille needed all his camera assistants to man multiple cameras on a film. This left no one to hold the chalkboard identifying each scene as a header as the take is shot on film, so Jimmie was drafted and given the title "fourth assistant cameraman. He endeared himself to DeMille when the director and his production crew were unable to get a canary to sing for a close-up. The fourth assistant cameraman lodged a piece of chewing gum in the bird's beak, and as it moved its beak to try to dislodge the gum, it looked like the canary was singing. DeMille promptly gave Jimmie a 50% raise.
In 1919 he was being prepared for his future profession of cameraman. "I held the slate on Male and Female (1919)", he told George C. Pratt in an interview published 60 years later, "and when Mr. DeMille rehearsed a scene, I had to crank a little counter . . . and I would have to grind 16 frames per second. And when he stopped, I would have to give him the footage. He wanted to know how long the scene ran. So besides writing the slate numbers down and keeping a report, I had to turn this crank. That was the beginning of learning how to turn 16 frames".
Because of the problem with early orthochromatic film registering blue eyes on screen, Howe was soon promoted to operating cameraman at Paramount (the new name for the Lasky Studio), where his talents were noted. A long-time photography buff, Jimmie Howe enjoyed taking still pictures and made extra money photographing the stars. One of his clients was professional "sweet young thing" Mary Miles Minter, of the William Desmond Taylor shooting scandal, who praised Jimmie's photographs because they made her pale blue eyes, which did not register well on film, look dark. When she asked him if he could replicate the effect on motion picture film, he told her he could, and she offered him a job as her cameraman.
Howe did not know how he'd made Minter's eyes look dark, but he soon realized that the reflection of a piece of black velvet at the studio that had been tacked up near his still camera had cast a shadow in her eyes, causing them to register darkly. Promoted to Minter's cameraman, he fashioned a frame of black velvet through which the camera's lens could protrude; filming Minter's close-ups with the device darkened her eyes, just as she desired. The studio was abuzz with the news that Minter had acquired a mysterious Chinese cameraman who made her blue eyes register on film. Since other blue-eyed actors had the same problem, they began to demand that Jimmie shoot them, and a cinematography star was born.
Jimmie Howe was soon advanced beyond operating cameraman to lighting cameraman (called "director of photography" in Hollywood) on Minter's Drums of Fate (1923), and he served as director of photography on The Trail of the Lonesome Pine (1923) the next year. As a lighting cameraman he was much in demand, and started to freelance. Notable silent pictures on which he served as the director of photography include Paramount's Mantrap (1926), starring "It Girl" Clara Bow, and MGM's Laugh, Clown, Laugh (1928), starring silent superstar John Gilbert opposite Joan Crawford.
The cinematography on "Mantrap" was his breakthrough as a star lighting cameraman, in which his lighting added enormously to bringing out Clara Bow's sex appeal. He bathed Bow in a soft glow, surrounding the flapper with shimmering natural light, transforming her into a seemingly three-dimensional sex goddess. Even at this early a stage in his career, Howe had developed a solid aesthetic approach to film, based on inventive, expressive lighting. The film solidified his reputation as a master in the careful handling of female subjects, a rep that would get him his last job a half-century later, on Barbra Streisand's Funny Lady (1975).
Jimmie Howe journeyed back to China at the end of the decade to shoot location backgrounds for a movie about China he planned to make as a director. Though the movie was never made, the footage was later used in Josef von Sternberg's Shanghai Express (1932). When he returned to the US, Hollywood was in the midst of a technological upheaval as sound pictures were finishing off the silent movie, which had matured into a medium of expression now being hailed as "The Seventh Art." The silent film, in a generation, had matured into a set art form with its own techniques of craftsmanship, and pictures like 7th Heaven (1927) and The Bridge of San Luis Rey (1929) generally were thought to be examples of the "photoplay" reaching perfection as a medium. This mature medium now was violently overthrown by the revolutionary upstart, Sound. The talkies had arrived.
The Hollywood Howe returned to was in a panic. All the wisdom about making motion pictures had been jettisoned by nervous studio heads, and the new Hollywood dogma held that only cameramen with experience in sound cinematography could shoot the new talking pictures, thus freezing out many cameramen who had recently been seen as master craftsmen in the silent cinema. Director William K. Howard, who was in pre-production with his film Transatlantic (1931), wanted Jimmie Howe's expertise. Having just acquired some new lenses with $700 of his own money, Howe shot some tests for the film, which impressed the studio enough to gave Howard permission to hire Jimmie to shoot it.
Once again, his career thrived and he was much in demand. He earned the sobriquet "Low-Key Howe" for his low-contrast lighting of interiors, exerting aesthetic control over the dark spots of a frame in the way that a great musician "played" the silences between notes. In 1933 he gave up freelancing and started working in-house at MGM, where he won a reputation for efficiency. He shot The Thin Man (1934) in 18 days and Manhattan Melodrama (1934) in 28 days. It was at MGM that he became credited as "James Wong Howe". Howe's original screen credit was "James Howe" or "Jimmie Howe", but during his early years at MGM "Wong" was added to his name by the front office, "for exotic flair", and his salary reached $500 a week. After shooting 15 pictures for MGM, he moved over to Warner Bros. for Algiers (1938), garnering him his first Academy Award nomination. Studio boss Jack L. Warner was so thrilled by Howe's work with Hedy Lamarr that he signed Jimmie to a seven-year contract. James Wong Howe shot 26 movies at Warners through 1947, and four others on loanout to other studios.
A master at the use of shadow, Howe was one of the first DPs to use deep-focus cinematography, photography in which both foreground and distant planes remain in focus. His camerawork typically was unobtrusive, but could be quite spectacular when the narrative called for it. In the context of the studio-bound production of the time, Wong Howe's lighting sense is impressive given his use of location shooting. Citic James Agee called him one of "the few men who use this country for background as it ought to be used in films." Wong Howe used backgrounds to elucidate the psychology of the film's characters and their psychology, such as in Pursued (1947), where the austere desert landscape serves to highlight the tortured psyche of Robert Mitchum's character.
Wong Howe was famed for his innovations, including putting a cameraman with a hand-held camera on roller skates inside a boxing ring for Body and Soul (1947) to draw the audience into the ring. He strapped cameras to the actors' waists in The Brave Bulls (1951) to give a closer and tighter perspective on bullfighting, a sport in which fractions of an inch can mean the difference between life and death. He was hailed for his revolutionary work with tracking and distortion in Seconds (1966), in which he used a 9mm "fish-eye" lens to suggest mental instability.
James Wong Howe became the most famous cameraman in the world in the 1930s, and he bought a Duesenberg, one of the most prestigious and expensive automobiles in the world. His driving his "Doozy" around Hollywood made for an incongruous sight, as Chinese typically were gardeners and houseboys in prewar America, a deeply racist time. During World War II anti-Asian bigotry intensified, despite the fact that China was an ally of the United States in its war with Japan. Mistaken for a Japanese (despite their having been relocated to concentration camps away from the Pacific Coast), he wore a button that declared "I am Chinese." His close friend James Cagney also wore the same button, out of solidarity with his friend.
Wong Howe was involved in a long-term relationship with the writer Sanora Babb, who was a Caucasian. Anti-miscegenation laws on the books in California until 1948 forbade Caucasians from marrying Chinese, and the couple could not legally marry until 1949, after the laws had been repealed. In September of 1949 they finally tied the knot, and Sanora Babb Wong Howe later told a family member that they had to hunt for three days for a sympathetic judge who would marry them.
Wong Howe eventually bought a Chinese restaurant located near the Ventura Freeway, which he managed with Sanora. When a photographer from a San Fernando Valley newspaper came to take a picture of the eatery, Howe counseled that he should put a wide-angle lens on his camera so he wouldn't have to stand so close to the freeway to get the shot. "I'll take the picture," the photographer unknowingly snapped at one of the master cinematographers of the world, "you just mind your goddamned noodles!"
Perhaps due to the sting of racism, the hypocrisy of a country fighting the Nazis and their eugenics policies that itself allowed the proscription of racial intermarriage, which kept him from legally marrying the woman he loved, or perhaps because of the Red-baiting that consumed Hollywood after the War, James Wong Howe's professional reputation began to decline in the late 1940s. Losing his reputation for efficiency, he was branded "difficult to work with," and producers began to fear his on-set temper tantrums. Though Wong Howe was never blacklisted, he came under the scrutiny of the House Un-American Activities Committee for his propensity for working with "Reds", "Pinks" and "fellow-travelers" such as John Garfield. Though he was never hauled in front of HUAC, Wong Howe's good friend Cagney had been a noted liberal in the 1930s. James Wong Howe felt the chill cast over the industry by McCarthyism.
In 1953 Wong Howe was given the opportunity to direct a feature film for the first time, being hired to helm a biography of Harlem Globetrotters founder Abe Saperstein, Go Man Go (1954). The film, which was brought in at 21 days on a $130,000 budget, did nothing to enhance his reputation. Howe managed to pull out of his career doldrums, and after McCarthyism crested in 1954 he won his first Oscar for the B+W cinematography of The Rose Tattoo (1955), in which the shadows created by Howe's cinematography reveal the protagonist Serafina's emotional turmoil as much as the words of Tennessee Williams. He directed one more picture, the undistinguished Invisible Avenger (1958), a B-movie in which The Shadow, Lamont Cranston, investigated the murder of a New Orleans bandleader, before returning to his true vocation, the motion picture camera.
By the mid-'50s Howe had made it back to the top of the profession. In 1957 he did some of his most brilliant work on Sweet Smell of Success (1957), a textbook primer on the richness of B+W cinematography. Ironically, he was not Oscar-nominated for his work on the film, but was nominated the following year for his color work on The Old Man and the Sea (1958) and won his second Oscar for the B+W photography of Hud (1963). Once again Wong Howe used a landscape, the barren and lonely West Texas plains, to highlight the psychological state of the film's protagonist, the amoral and go-it-alone title character played by Paul Newman.
One of Wong Howe's favorite assignments in his career was the five-month shoot under the once-blacklisted Martin Ritt on The Molly Maguires (1970), a tale of labor strife, which was shot on location in the Pennsylvania coal fields. His health started to fail after the shoot, and he was forced into retirement, requiring frequent hospitalization in the final years of his life. Reportedly he had to turn down the offer to shoot The Godfather (1972), as he was not healthy enough to undertake the assignment. Gordon Willis got the job instead.
When Funny Lady (1975) producer Ray Stark fired Vilmos Zsigmond as the director of photography of his Funny Girl (1968) sequel, he hired Howe due to his faith that the great lighting cameraman who had done wonders with Mary Miles Minter, Clara Bow, and Hedy Lamarr could glamorize his star, Barbra Streisand. Howe took over the shoot, but his health gave out after a short time and he collapsed on the set. Oscar-winner Ernest Laszlo, then-president of the American Society of Cinematographers, filled in until Howe returned from the hospital and finished the shoot. He received his last Oscar nomination for his work on the film. It marked the end of a remarkable career in motion pictures that spanned almost 60 years.
By the time of his retirement, he had long been acknowledged as a master of his art, one of the greatest lighting cameramen of all time, credited with shooting over 130 pictures in Hollywood and England. He worked with many of the greatest and most important directors in cinema history, from Allan Dwan in the silent era to Sidney Lumet in the 1960s. He created three production companies during his professional career, an untopped career in which he racked up ten Academy Award nominations in both B+W white and color (including notoriously difficult Technicolor), in formats ranging from the Academy ratio to CinemaScope, all of which he mastered. An even greater honor than his two Oscar wins came his way. In 1949, when he was chosen to shoot test footage for the proposed comeback of the great Greta Garbo in the proposed movie "La Duchesse de Langeais," such was his reputation.
Sanora Babb Wong Howe wrote after his death, "My husband loved his work. He spent all his adult life from age 17 to 75, a year before his death, in the motion picture industry. When he died at 77, courageous in illness as in health, he was still thinking of new ways to make pictures. He was critical of poor quality in any area of film, but quick to see and appreciate the good. His mature style was realistic, never naturalistic. If the story demanded, his work could be harsh and have a documentary quality, but that quality was strictly Wong Howe. If the story allowed, his style was poetic realism, for he was a poet of the camera. This was a part of his nature, his impulse toward the beautiful, but it did not prevent his flexibility in dealing with all aspects of reality."
His greatest asset to film may have been his adaptability, the many ways in which he could vary his aesthetic in service of a story. Howe initially fought the notoriously gimmicky John Frankenheimer over his desire to use a fish-eye lens for "Seconds." Subsequently, Howe used the lens masterfully to convey the psychological torment of the protagonist, locked in a beyond-Kafkaesque nightmare that simply relying on sets and lighting couldn't bring across. He had made it work by adapting his aesthetic to the needs of the story and its characters, in service to his director.
Howe's work was given retrospectives at the 2002 Seattle International Film Festival, and in San Francisco in 2004, a rare honor for a cinematographer. It was testimony to his continuing reputation, more than a quarter century after his death, as one of the greatest and most innovative lighting cameramen the world of cinema has ever known.
Perhaps the greatest honor that can be bestowed on James Wong Howe is that this master craftsman, a genius of lighting, refutes the auteur theory, which holds that the director solely is "author" of a film. No one could reasonably make that claim on any picture on which Howe was the director of photography.The Rose Tattoo - 1955
Sweet Smell of Success - 1957
Hud - 1963- Cinematographer
- Writer
- Camera and Electrical Department
Slawomir Idziak was born on 25 January 1945 in Katowice, Slaskie, Poland. He is a cinematographer and writer, known for Three Colors: Blue (1993), Black Hawk Down (2001) and Gattaca (1997). He was previously married to Maria Gladkowska.The Double Life of Veronique - 1991
Three Colors: Blue - 1993
Black Hawk Down - 2001- Cinematographer
- Camera and Electrical Department
- Director
Janusz Kaminski is a Polish cinematographer and film director. He has established a partnership with Steven Spielberg, working as a cinematographer on his movies since 1993. He won the Academy Award for Best Cinematography for his work on Schindler's List (1993) and Saving Private Ryan (1998).
His other film's as an cinematographer includes Amistad (1997), A.I. Artificial Intelligence (2001), Catch Me If You Can (2002), The Diving Bell and the Butterfly (2007), War Horse (2011), Lincoln (2012), Bridge of Spies (2015), The BFG (2016), and Ready Player One (2018).Schindler's List - 1993
Saving Private Ryan - 1998
The Diving Bell and the Butterfly - 2007- Cinematographer
- Camera and Electrical Department
- Actor
Darius Khondji was born on 21 October 1955 in Tehran, Iran. He is a cinematographer and actor, known for Amour (2012), Se7en (1995) and Delicatessen (1991). He is married to Marianne Khondji. They have three children.Delicatessen - 1991
The City of Lost Children - 1995
Se7en - 1995- Cinematographer
- Director
- Producer
Lubezki began his career in Mexican film and television productions in the late 1980s. His first international production was the 1993 independent film Twenty Bucks (1993), which followed the journey of a single twenty-dollar bill.
Lubezki is a frequent collaborator with fellow Mexican filmmaker Alfonso Cuarón. The two have been friends since they were teenagers and attended the same film school at the National Autonomous University of Mexico. Together they have worked on six motion pictures: Love in the Time of Hysteria (1991), A Little Princess (1995), Great Expectations (1998), And Your Mother Too (2001), Children of Men (2006), and Gravity (2013). His work with Cuarón on Children of Men (2006), has received universal acclaim. The film utilized a number of new technologies and distinctive techniques. The "roadside ambush" scene was shot in one extended take utilizing a special camera rig invented by Doggicam systems, developed from the company's Power Slide system. For the scene, a vehicle was modified to enable seats to tilt and lower actors out of the way of the camera. The windshield of the car was designed to tilt out of the way to allow camera movement in and out through the front windscreen. A crew of four, including Lubezki, rode on the roof. Children of Men (2006) also features a seven-and-a-half-minute battle sequence composed of roughly five seamless edits.
Lubezki has been nominated for eight Academy Awards for Best Cinematography, winning three, for Gravity (2013), Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance) (2014), and The Revenant (2015). He is the first cinematographer in history to win three consecutive Academy Awards.The New World - 2005
The Tree of Life - 2011
The Revenant - 2015- Cinematographer
- Animation Department
- Camera and Electrical Department
Kazuo Miyagawa was born on 25 February 1908 in Kyoto, Japan. He was a cinematographer, known for Yojimbo (1961), Rashomon (1950) and Brother (1960). He was married to Kazuko ?. He died on 7 August 1999 in Tokyo, Japan.Rashomon - 1950
Ugetsu - 1953
Yojimbo - 1961- Cinematographer
- Camera and Electrical Department
- Actor
Robby Müller was born on 4 April 1940 in Willemstad, Curaçao, Netherlands Antilles. He was a cinematographer and actor, known for Breaking the Waves (1996), Paris, Texas (1984) and Repo Man (1984). He died on 3 July 2018 in Amsterdam, Noord-Holland, Netherlands.Paris, Texas - 1984
Breaking the Waves - 1996
Dancer in the Dark - 2000- Cinematographer
- Director
- Actor
Sven Nykvist was considered by many in the industry to be one of the world's greatest cinematographers. During his long career that spanned almost half a century, Nyvist perfected the art of cinematography to its most simple attributes, and he helped give the films he had worked on the simplest and most natural look imaginable. Indeed, Mr. Nykvist prided himself on the simplicity and naturalness of his lighting schemes. Nykvist used light to create mood and, more significantly, to bring out the natural flesh tones in the human face so that the emotion of the scene could be played out on the face without the light becoming intrusive.
Nykvist entered the Swedish film industry when he was 19 and worked his way up to becoming a director of photography. He first worked with the legendary Swedish director Ingmar Bergman on the film Sawdust and Tinsel (1953), but his collaboration with Bergman began in earnest with The Virgin Spring (1960). From that point on, Nykvist replaced the great Gunnar Fischer as Bergman's cameraman, and the two men started a collaboration that would last for a quarter of a century. The switch from Fischer to Nykvist created a marked difference in the look of Bergman's films. In many respects, it was like the difference between Caravaggio and Rembrandt. Fischer's lighting was a study in light and darkness, while Nykvist preferred a more naturalistic, more subtle approach that in many ways relied on the northern light compositions of the many great Scandinavian painters.
Nykvist's work with Bergman is one of the most glorious collaborations in movie history. Nykvist created a markedly different look for each installment of Bergman's Faith Trilogy. Through a Glass Darkly (1961) had an almost suffocating quality to it, and The Silence (1963) hearkened back to the days of German Expressionism. Winter Light (1963), the middle part of the trilogy, may very well be the most perfect work of Nykvist's repertoire. Having studied the light in a real provincial church carefully, he then recreated the subtle changes in the light as the day went on on a Stockholm sound stage. Indeed, it's hard to believe that the film was shot on a stage and not in a real church in Northern Sweden. For Persona (1966), Nykvist relied heavily on Sweden's famous Midnight Sun. In The Passion of Anna (1969), Nykvist was able to capture the chilly, soggy, and melancholy look of Faro, one of Nykvist's first color films. Both Nykvist and Bergman were both very reluctant to film in color. He created a fascinating study of white and red in Cries & Whispers (1972), for which Nykvist won an Oscar. He won an Oscar again for the last feature-length theatrical film that Bergman made, Fanny and Alexander (1982).
During the late 1970s, Nykvist began making films elsewhere in Europe and in the United States, working for directors such as Louis Malle (Pretty Baby (1978)), Philip Kaufman (The Unbearable Lightness of Being (1988)), Bob Fosse (Star 80 (1983)), Nora Ephron (Sleepless in Seattle (1993)), Woody Allen (Another Woman (1988), Crimes and Misdemeanors (1989)), Richard Attenborough (Chaplin (1992)), and fellow Swede Lasse Hallström (What's Eating Gilbert Grape (1993)). The documentary Ljuset håller mig sällskap (2000) paid homage to Nykvist, although it does not grant us any real secrets about his working methods. Nykvist died in 2006.Persona - 1966
Cries & Whispers - 1972
Fanny and Alexander - 1982- Cinematographer
- Camera and Electrical Department
- Additional Crew
Robert Richardson has won three Academy Awards and earned seven Academy Award nominations for his cinematography. His work on director Oliver Stone's JFK earned him his first Oscar. His second and third came with The Aviator and Hugo directed by Martin Scorsese. These two films also garnered him BAFTA nominations for Best Cinematographer.
Prior to regularly collaborating with well-known directors like Oliver Stone and Quentin Tarantino, Richardson served an apprenticeship shooting second unit on Repo Man while filming television documentaries for PBS and the BBC. His work in television led Stone to hire Richardson to shoot both Salvador and Platoon. From there, he worked almost exclusively with Stone, filming Wall Street, Born on the Fourth of July and The Doors, while occasionally branching out to shoot films like John Sayles' Eight Men Out and City of Hope.
Richardson also shot Stone's Natural Born Killers, Nixon and U-Turn. He then began collaborating with Martin Scorsese and Quentin Tarantino. Scorsese chose him as DP on 1999's Bringing Out the Dead, while Tarantino snapped him up for Kill Bill, Vol. 1 and Kill Bill, Vol. 2.
Richardson continued to make his mark as Tarantino's DP on 2012's Django Unchained and 2015's The Hateful Eight, as well as on Ben Affleck's 2016 film Live By Night. He shot Director Andy Serkis's 2017 Breathe starring Andrew Garfield and Claire Foy; 2018's Adrift for Director Balthasar Kormakur starring Shailene Woodley and Sam Claflin for STX, and 2018's A Private War for Director Matthew Heineman starring Rosamund Pike. Richardson then shot Tarantino's 2020 hit Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, which starred Leonardo DiCaprio and Brad Pitt, and 2021's Venom 2 for Sony/Director Andy Serkis.
Recent credits include 2022's Emancipation again with Fuqua for Apple Studios, 2023's Air directed by Ben Affleck for Amazon Studios, and The Equalizer 3 for Director Antoine Fuqua and for Columbia Pictures.The Aviator - 2004
Shutter Island - 2010
Hugo - 2011- Cinematographer
- Additional Crew
- Camera and Electrical Department
Witold Sobocinski is a Polish cinematographer, academic teacher as well as former jazz musician.
As a cinematographer he is best known for The Promised Land (1975) and Frantic (1988).
Sobocinski cooperated with several notable directors, including Andrzej Wajda, Krzysztof Zanussi and Roman Polanski.
His son Piotr Sobocinski (1958-2001) was also a cinematographer.The Third Part of the Night - 1971
The Hourglass Sanatorium - 1973
The Promised Land - 1975- Cinematographer
- Camera and Electrical Department
- Actor
Vittorio Storaro, the award-winning cinematographer who won Oscars for "Apocalypse Now (1979)", "Reds (1981)" and "The Last Emperor (1987)". He was born on June 24, 1940 in Rome, where his father was a projectionist at the Lux Film Studio. At the age of 11, he began studying photography at a technical school. He enrolled at C.I.A.C (Italian Cinemagraphic Training Centre) and subsequently continued his education at the state cinematography school Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia. When he enrolled at the school at the age of 18, he was one of its youngest students ever.
At the age of 20, he was employed as an assistant cameraman and was promoted to camera operator within a year. Storaro spent several years visiting galleries and studying the works of great painters, writers, musicians and other artists. In 1966, he went back to work as an assistant cameraman on Before the Revolution (1964), one of the first films directed by Bernardo Bertolucci. Storaro earned his first credit as a cinematographer in 1968 for "Giovinezza, giovinezza". His third film was "The Spider's Stratagem (1970)" which began his long collaboration with Bertolucci. He also shot "The Conformist (1970)", "Last Tango in Paris (1972)", "Luna (1979)", "The Sheltering Sky (1990)_", "Little Buddha (1993)," for Bertolucci.
He won his first Oscar for the cinematography of "Apocalypse Now (1979)", for which director Francis Ford Coppola gave him free rein to design the visual look of the picture. Storaro originally had been reluctant to take the assignment as he considered Gordon Willis to be Coppola's cinematographer, but Coppola wanted him, possibly because of his having shot "Last Tango in Paris (1972), which had starred Marlon Brando. Brando's performance in the film had been semi-improvised, and Coppola has planned on a similar tack for his scenes in the jungle with Brando's character Colonel Kurtz.
The results of their collaboration were masterful, and he later shot the 3-D short "Captain EO (1986)", the feature films "One from the Heart (1981)" and "Tucker: The Man and His Dream (1988)," and the "Life without Zoe" segment of "New York Stories (1989)" for Coppola. He won his second Oscar as the director of photography on Warren Beatty's "Reds (1981)" and subsequently shot "Dick Tracy (1990)" and "Bulworth (1998)" for Beatty He won his third Oscar as the director of photography on Bertolucci's Best Picture Academy Award-winner "The Last Emperor (1987)".
"All great films are a resolution of a conflict between darkness and light," Storaro says. "There is no single right way to express yourself. There are infinite possibilities for the use of light with shadows and colors. The decisions you make about composition, movement and the countless combinations of these and other variables is what makes it an art."
According to Storaro, "Some people will tell you that technology will make it easier for one person to make a movie alone but cinema is not an individual art." Storaro disagrees. "It takes many people to make a movie. You can call them collaborators or co-authors. There is a common intelligence. The cinema never has the reality of a painting or a photograph because you make decisions about what the audience should see, hear and how it is presented to them. You make choices which super-impose your own interpretations of reality."
Storaro believes that, "It is our obligation to defend the audiences' rights to see the images and to hear the sounds the way we have expressed ourselves as artists,".
During the 1970s, the metaphor of cinematography as 'painting with light' took hold. Storaro, however, adds motion to the mix. Cinematography, to the great D.P., is writing with light and motion, the literal translation of the word cinematography, which derives from Greek
"It describes the real meaning of what we are attempting to accomplish," Storaro says. "We are writing stories with light and darkness, motion and colors. It is a language with its own vocabulary and unlimited possibilities for expressing our inner thoughts and feelings."
As a cinematographer, he is highly innovative. He had Rosco International fabricate a series of custom color gels for his lighting, which he used to implement his theories about emotional response to color. The "Storaro Selection" of color gels is available for other cinematographers from Rosco.
He created the "Univision" film system, which is a 35mm format based on film stock with three perforation that provides an aspect ratio of 2:1, which Storaro feels is a good compromise between the 2.35:1 and 1.85:1 wide-screen ratios favored by most filmmakers. Storaro developed the new technology with the intention of 2:1 becoming the universal aspect ratio for both movies and television in the digital age. He first shot the television mini-series "Dune" with the Univision system.
Storaro is the youngest person to receive the American Society of Cinematographer's Lifetime Achievement Award, and only the second recipient after Sven Nykvist not to be a U.S. citizen.The Conformist - 1970
Apocalypse Now - 1979
The Last Emperor - 1987- Cinematographer
- Camera and Electrical Department
- Director
Born in Illinois in 1904, the only child of Jennie and Frank Toland, Gregg and his mother moved to California several years after his parents divorced in 1910. Through Jennie's work as a housekeeper for several people in the movie business, Gregg may had gotten a $12-a-week job at age 15 as an office boy at William Fox Studios. Soon he was making $18 a week as an assistant cameraman. When sound came to movies in 1927, the audible whir of movie cameras became a problem, requiring the cumbersome use of soundproof booths. Toland helped devise a tool which silenced the camera's noise and which allowed the camera to move about more freely. In 1931, Toland received his first solo credit for the Eddie Cantor comedy, "Palmy Days." In 1939 he earned his first Oscar for his work on William Wyler's "Wuthering Heights." In the following year he sought out Orson Welles who then hired him to photograph "Citizen Kane." (Toland was said to have protected the inexperienced Welles from potential embarrassment by conferring with him in private about technical matters rather than bringing these up in front of the assembled cast and crew.) For "Kane" Toland used a method which became known as "deep focus" because it showed background objects as clearly as foreground objects. (Film theorist Andre Bazin said that Toland brought democracy to film-making by allowing viewers to discover what was interesting to them in a scene rather than having this choice dictated by the director.) Toland quickly became the highest paid cinematographer in the business, earning as much as $200,000 over a three year period. He also became perhaps the first cinematographer to receive prominent billing in the opening credits, rather than being relegated to a card containing seven or more other names. Tragically, Toland's career was cut short in 1948 by his untimely death at age 44. Toland had a daughter, Lothian, by his second wife and two sons, Gregg jr. and Timothy, by his third. Lothian became the wife of comic Red Skelton.Wuthering Heights - 1939
The Grapes of Wrath - 1940
Citizen Kane - 1941- Cinematographer
- Camera and Electrical Department
- Actor
Goeffrey Unsworth was one of the great cinematographers of the 20th Century, the winner of two Oscars, five BAFTA awards, and three awards from the British Society of Cinematographers for his work as a director of photography. Born in 1914 in Lancashire, England, Unsworth started in the industry in 1932 at Gaumont-British before joining Technicolor in 1937. He worked as a camera assistant and operator on a many of the most important color movies made in England.
In contrast to the Technicolor aesthetic, when Unsworth became a director of photography (starting in 1946 with the musical The Laughing Lady (1946), he used a somber palette. Moving to Rank at Pinewood Studios, he shot adventure films, comedies, and thrillers in black and white.
His breakthrough into the top ranks of cinematographers was Becket (1964) in 1964, for which he received his first Academy Award nomination. He did not get Oscar-nominated for his spectacular work on 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) because Stanley Kubrick generally was given credit for the visual style of the film, but his ability to integrate cinematography and special effects was put to great effect with Superman (1978) (1978). He was in demand for period pieces, winning his first Oscar for Bob Fosse's Cabaret (1972) and his second Oscar posthumously for shooting Roman Polanski's Tess (1979).
Geoffrey Unsworth died in Brittany on the set of "Tess" after suffering a heart attack. He was 64 years old.2001: A Space Odyssey - 1968
Cabaret - 1972
Tess - 1979- Cinematographer
- Director
- Writer
Sergei Urusevsky is an Soviet cinematographer best known for his work on the films of the Mikhail Kalatozov.
He started as a painter and photographer studying under the great graphic artist Vladimir Favorsky at the Institute of Fine Art in Moscow. Bringing a pictorial tradition to cinema, Urusevsky started his career with Mark Donskoy on The Village Teacher (1947), Vsevolod Pudovkin on Vasili's Return (1953), and Grigoriy Chukhray on The Forty-First (1956). Urusevsky also served during World War II as a cameraman on the front lines.
With The First Echelon he combined his marvelous visual sense with Kalatozov's breathtaking technical skills - a partnership that made The Cranes Are Flying (1957), Letter Never Sent (1960) and I Am Cuba (1964) landmarks in the history of cinematography. It was with The Cranes Are Flying (1957) where their use of the hand held camera really started, especially with the scene of Veronica running through the streets where the camera finally and miraculously leaps into the air with an overhead shot. It was Urusevsky and Yuri Ilyenko who had profound influence throughout the Soviet film industry - not since the 1920s had Soviet film style been acclaimed throughout the world. Urusevsky's poetic camerawork, no matter how daring, was always an organic search into the emotional possibilities of the script. In 1969 Urusevsky directed Beg inokhodtsa (1969), adapted from the Kirghiz writer Chingiz Aitmatov's short novel. Urusevsky followed this up with Poj pesnyu, poet (1973) based on the poems of Sergei Esenin.The Forty-First - 1956
The Cranes Are Flying - 1957
I Am Cuba - 1964- Cinematographer
- Camera and Electrical Department
- Director
Two-time Academy Award-winning cinematographer Haskell Wexler was adjudged one of the ten most influential cinematographers in movie history, according to an International Cinematographers Guild survey of its membership. He won his Oscars in both black & white and color, for Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966) (1966) and Bound for Glory (1976) (1976). He also shot part of Days of Heaven (1978) (1978), for which credited director of photography Nestor Almendros -- won a Best Cinematography Oscar that Wexler initially felt should have been jointly shared by both. Later he admitted he was just finishing the work of Almendros and when Bert Schneider offer him more credit in the Criterion Dvd release of the film, he turned down the offer. In 1993, Wexler was awarded a Lifetime Achivement award by the cinematographer's guild, the American Society of Cinematographers. He received five Oscar nominations for his cinematography, in total, plus one Emmy Award in a career that has spanned six decades.
In addition to his masterful cinematography, Wexler directed the seminal late Sixties film Medium Cool (1969) and has directed and/or shot many documentaries that display his progressive political views. He was the subject of a 2004 documentary shot by his son Mark Wexler, Tell Them Who You Are (2004).Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? - 1966
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest - 1975
Bound for Glory - 1976- Cinematographer
- Director
- Camera and Electrical Department
Gordon Willis was an American cinematographer. He's best known for his work on Francis Ford Coppola's Godfather films, as well asWoody Allen's Annie Hall (1977) and Manhattan (1979).
His work on the first two Godfather films turned out to be groundbreaking in its use of low-light photography and underexposed film, as well as in his control of lighting and exposure to create the sepia tones that denoted period scenes in The Godfather Part II (1974).
In the seven-year period up to 1977, Willis was the director of photography on six films that received among them 39 Academy Award nominations, winning 19 times, including three awards for Best Picture. During this time he did not receive a single nomination for Best Cinematography.
He directed one film of his own, Windows (1980). His last film as a cinematographer was The Devil's Own (1997), directed by Alan J. Pakula.
Willis died of cancer on May 18, 2014, ten days before his 83rd birthday, at the age of 82.The Godfather: Part II - 1974
Manhattan - 1979
The Godfather: Part III - 1990- Cinematographer
- Camera and Electrical Department
- Director
Freddie Young was a British cinematographer. He is best known for his work on David Lean's films Lawrence of Arabia (1962), Doctor Zhivago (1965) and Ryan's Daughter (1970), all three of which won him Academy Awards for Best Cinematography.
Young was an cinematographer on 130 films, including Goodbye, Mr Chips (1939), 49th Parallel (1941), Ivanhoe (1952), Lust for Life (1956), The Inn of the Sixth Happiness (1958), Lord Jim (1965), You Only Live Twice (1967) and Nicholas and Alexandra (1971).
He was also the first British cinematographer to film in CinemaScope.
Young died from natural causes in 1998 at the age of 96.
In 2003, a survey conducted by the International Cinematographers Guild placed Young among the ten most influential cinematographers in history.Lawrence of Arabia - 1962
Doctor Zhivago - 1965
Ryan's Daughter - 1970- Cinematographer
- Camera and Electrical Department
- Writer
Vadim Yusov was born on 20 April 1929 in Klavdino, Leningrad Oblast, Russian SFSR, USSR [now Russia]. He was a cinematographer and writer, known for Solaris (1972), The Black Monk (1988) and Pasport (1990). He was married to Inna Zelentsova. He died on 23 August 2013 in Moscow, Russia.Ivan's Childhood - 1962
Andrey Rublev - 1966
Solaris - 1972- Cinematographer
- Camera and Electrical Department
- Actor
Along with László Kovács, a fellow student who fled Hungary in 1956, Zsigmond rose to prominence in the 1970s. He is known for his use of natural light and vivid use of color on features such as The Long Goodbye (1973) and Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977).McCabe & Mrs. Miller - 1971
Close Encounters of the Third Kind - 1977
The Deer Hunter - 1978