It sounds like a clichéd Hollywood script of the underdog becoming a success. An aspiring movie cameraman emigrates from behind the Iron Curtain to America in the early 1960s, gets his start working for such low-budget filmmakers as Arch Hall, Sr. (The Nasty Rabbit) and Ray Dennis Steckler (The Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living and Became Mixed-Up Zombies), and by the late 1970s has not only moved on to big-budget features but earns an Academy Award. He then goes on to work with some of the industry’s biggest stars and directors, from Robert Altman and Steven Spielberg to Michael Cimino and Woody Allen. But that’s precisely what happened to Hungarian-born cinematographer Vilmos Zsigmond, who would pick up four Oscar nominations and one win in total, along with an Emmy, a BAFTA award, and worldwide honors and acclaim.
Rather than give a full biography of Zsigmond (you can read his Wikipedia bio here), we thought it would be more fitting to remember him through a gallery of stills from throughout his memorable career behind the camera:
The Sadist (1963)
The Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living and Became Mixed-Up Zombies (1965)
McCabe and Mrs. Miller (1971)
Deliverance (1972)
Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1978)
The Deer Hunter (1978)
Heaven’s Gate (1980)
The River (1984)
The Witches of Eastwick (1987)
The Two Jakes (1990)
The Black Dahlia (2006)
You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger (2010)
If you have a favorite film featuring camerawork by Vilmos Zsigmond, especially one which we overlooked, please share your thoughts in the comments section below.