No Subtitles Necessary: Laszlo & Vilmos

"No Subtitles Necessary: Laszlo & Vilmos" is a film about two of Hollywood's most accomplished cinematographers, Laszlo Kovacs and Vilmos Zsigmond. The film is a nice tribute though it doesn't give a lot of information as to exactly WHY the two are so gifted and how they have brought new techniques to the movies. Because of this, it might not be a film that young cinematographers have to see, though it is nice to see a wide variety of Hollywood filmmakers, actors and camera people talking about what it was like to work with these men.

The film begins around the time of the Hungarian Revolution in 1956. Both Laszlo and Vilmos had attended film school in their country and they used their photographic skills to document the revolution and the counter-revolution led by the Russians. But, this also made their lives pretty worthless unless they could escape with their film. Fortunately, they were able to escape and soon landed in Hollywood. But, given that they were outsiders and not members of the union, their road was slow and filled with crap movies made on shoestring budgets (such as films they did with Ray Dennis Steckler). Slowly, they moved up to more prestige films and made a name for themselves with film like "Easy Rider", "Close Encounters", "Heaven's Gate" (where the film work was by far the best thing about this financial disaster), "Deliverance", "Targets" and "Paper Moon". Much of the film is spent discussing these films as well as giving just a bit of biographical information about the two. Mildly interesting and mostly the film is of interest to film students and the like.

By the way, although it thankfully did not continue as the film progressed, the movie had an annoying free-form jazz score that played during the early portion of the film. It was distracting and didn't fit the film.

'No Subtitles Necessary - Laszlo & Vilmos" opens with various television and movie stars talking about special effects and how those FX affected them. Sadly, they don't show us the names of the stars, for the first few minutes. I'm pretty well educated, and I didn't know who the ##$$ some of them are. I know the name of this thing is "No subtitles necessary".. but they actually WERE necessary, or at least captions telling us who those people were. Later on, they do show captions under the speakers, but they should have been there right from the beginning. Comments by Sharon Stone, Peter Bogdanovich, Peter Fonda, Dennis Hopper, Karen Black, so many more. All folks they had worked with in films.

The brothers tell the story of how they escaped the Hungarian invasion, bringing footage with them across the border. Ending up in Hollywood, we hear how they got started making their own films, being their own crew, and just making films. They went on to help make BIG, BIG films... Easy Rider, Close Encounters, Paper Moon, working with the biggies along the way. Pretty entertaining stuff. And we get to hear some fun stories about working on location, what worked and what did not. I was also introduced to some really cool films that I had not seen before; I will try to catch these on Turner Classics... Winter Kills, Scarecrow. Definitely worth watching, if you can catch it.

As I write this in February of 2014, Vilmos Zsigmond is still with us, but László Kovács died in July of 2007.

I'm afraid this left me unmoved and it was, at times, tedious. The trouble is that it's not one thing or another - or the thing that it is not interesting. It's a film made by an acolyte who was given his first chance by Vilmos and there's not much digging beneath the surface at any time. The thing it most reminded me of was one of those tributes to a person winning a lifetime award at BAFTA or the Oscars - but extended for a rather lengthy 1hour 45minutes.

The film is a rather bland mix of the outline story of their lives, extracts from the films they shot (a reminder of how many interesting American films were made in the 70's and 80's compared with today), some war stories and interviews with actors and directors who say what good cinematographers they were/are. Also, a little about their seminars in Budapest.

I didn't really come away any wiser about their personal relationship except that they used to get jobs for each other in the early days and they expressed great personal affection. Ultimately, they were good mates. This is a relationship which exists between many people in many jobs and is not necessarily inherently interesting unless you go beneath the superficial. I got no emotional charge from the film, unlike the other writer on this page, and I'm as ready as anyone to be moved by a film.

There must be some interesting stuff there. We were told that after they'd escaped from Hungary they got their girlfriends out and, I think, married them. That was that on that subject and different wives seemed to get interviewed for the film. Apparently, the existing Hungarians in Hollywood gave them no support when they arrived and the way they shot films was, no doubt, found rather threatening by the unions in those days. Nothing about all that.

I'm not saying don't see it if you get the chance - just don't expect too much.