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Vilmos, before we sit down,

I'd like to show you the frame and the light.

I put a 35 mm as a focal length.

Like this.

All right. All right, all right.

We use a Softbox

with a broadcast on it.

The place is inconvenient.

I've been thinking about that kind of contrast. Is it open?

With something like this, by placing the subject to one side.

Do you prefer that we take the projector out of the frame?

No, you can leave it in the plan.

Would you like to see how does that look on the screen?

That's a good idea.

Lower the camera, it will be better.

What do you think of the backlighting?

Sometimes the sun shines the back of a face.

I like the backlighting but you mustn't overdo it.

Let's turn it off for a second.

It's off.

Yes, but it's much worse.

You have to be able to draw the silhouette.

- Turn Nathan back on. - Except with a subject in the dark.

I should be a little higher.

Will two inches be enough?

I think it'll be good.

- But it's not very comfortable. - Is that enough?

It's all right. It's okay. It's okay.

That's good. That's good.

You can step back, it'll be safer.

It'll be safer for you.

Now move over like this.

I don't have to say my name?

No.

Vilmos is from another generation.

He's a master of light

that showcases the actors.

It masters the use of from direct sources,

like the classic spotlights in traditional cinema.

Its light draws its strength

for its remarkable simplicity,

powerful in the composition.

The quality of his photography

is always closely related to the story being told.

The Italian writer,

Umberto Eco, has written something very beautiful.

Art does not exist

if the means of communication between the artist and the public

are not renewed.

A step forward must be crossed in the elements of communication

of the thought that the artist wants to pass on

to the public seeing his artwork.

A step forward must be taken.

negotiable

for all mankind not only for the artist

Because we're not coming back backwards,

once you've taken the plunge.

Go back in time is imitation.

It's not art anymore.

And Vilmos has had a great impact

in that way

aesthetic or philosophical.

Because he allowed the cinema to take a step forward,

from which there is no turning back backwards.

Vilmos, what did you dream about as a child?

We didn't have much choice then.

Communism

was in power in my younger years.

I was 14 years old, at the end of the war.

The Russians have arrived and two years later,

the country became communist.

We didn't have a lot of dreams.

Life was so limited.

When I turned 17, an uncle offered me

a book of photographs.

The photographer was called Eugene Dülovitz.

Beautiful pictures in the backlight.

The most important thing, it was the light.

I fell in love of photography.

Vilmos imported with him the photographic vision

from Eastern Europe, which was very refined.

The whole story's in his house of Hungarian photography

but also Hungarian painting,

that was traditional

and very classy.

How do you feel in Hungary?

I'm feeling very good about it, in reality. I like to spend

a week, a month.

A little longer, if I'm making a movie.

I often think in Hungarian. I've even started to rediscover the language.

At one point,

I spoke both languages with an accent.

I've been back there a lot.

Then I'm probably talking about better Hungarian.

But I feel American, actually. America loves immigrants.

By the time we arrived, it was another country.

Yesterday, you were American and not Hungarian.

- What does that mean? - Well, what was the subject?

- It depends on the question. - The question was simple, Vilmos.

- Are you Hungarian or American? - I felt American.

And now, you feel Hungarian?

I feel Hungarian in front of this beautiful panorama

on Budapest.

We've learned a lot Italian movies.

Neo-Realist films of Vittorio De Sica.

They showed poor people,

real people. The party tolerated these films.

So, we were imitating them

in Hungary, even at school.

Upstairs, there's a projection room

where we were watching Western movies.

We have seen The Dictator of Chaplin,

up there in that movie theater.

Actors and students had heard about it.

They all wanted to see that movie,

because he wasn't projected nowhere else.

I remember,

there was seating for up to 100 people

and about 250 spectators

were crammed one on top of the other

to see this movie.

It was amazing. It was a revolution.

Chaplin makes a long speech at the end of The Dictator.

It's a very capitalist discourse

and we all thought that the police

was coming to take us in.

I was very familiar with this style. It looked a lot like

to what we were doing in Prague at that time.

Oddly enough, we were inspired

by Hungarian films from the fifties.

The Czech New Wave, dates back to the '60s.

Hungarian films of the 1950s

were interrupted by the Russian invasion.

And the Czech New Wave suffered the same fate as the Russians,

of the Soviets.

Vilmos left Hungary in 1956.

While he was studying film.

With László Kovács, they took a camera...

and when the Russian tanks have entered Budapest.

they went out into the streets to film this footage

of the Russian invasion.

Students throwing Molotov cocktails.

They kept the film and fled the country

under Russian fire.

They went through the Austrian border

and the film could have gotten to us.

And I thought, "Well,

a man capable of doing that,

so brave,

so inventive, he's the man I need.

for Deliverance."

Cinema was born for the image.

There was no sound or color.

A camera only allowed you to record

one action, one movement.

I have a special affection for black-and-white films.

I consider these films

as more graphic,

compared to color cinema.

The colors don't come disrupt history.

We remove the light source to create shadows

and the shadows tell the story... more than light.

László and I decided...

as we were asked to define our style,

we decided to call it "poetic realism".

Poetry,

in a nutshell,

is in the light and in the compositions.

We wanted to

careful composition like paintings.

I was mostly inspired

of the works of Rembrandt,

Georges de La Tour, especially for the light,

Caravaggio.

And mainly of the Dutch painters.

My photographic style is not so different

in the style of others cinematographers

whose work I love, like...

You mentioned László Kovács,

Haskell Wexler,

Owen Roizman...

And on the European side, Vittorio Storaro.

With Darius Khondji, it's that same style.

A lot of movies

are more beautiful than they should be.

That's really something.

I recognize a good cinematographer,

when the subject of the film is in agreement with the cosmetic treatment.

You can't just settle for to make the pictures too beautiful.

It can ruin a movie.

People aren't going to feel

what history expresses.

It happens a lot,

because it's easy to make pretty pictures.

Yes, it's true.

But it can ruin a movie.

With digital tools,

we can accentuate the colors, tampering, adjusting the image.

One can easily realize overly stylized movies.

Today, everyone's filming digitally.

Many new chief operators

don't know how to translate atmosphere.

They don't know.

Producers do not make them ask

to go fast, faster and faster.

It's easy to film quickly with a digital camera.

because all you have to do is turn on the unit... to get a picture.

Exactly. Exactly.

Maybe even a quality image.

You said something interesting,

about the time where we were lighting the movies

shot on film.

We were using natural light and artificial.

And this lighting work

represented the soul of the cinematographer,

or the director through the cinematographer.

His will, his approach

and his point of view.

Light up the scenes, the characters, the landscapes,

this lighting work, we're being robbed of more and more of it,

because he's no longer really necessary.

It's a big change.

It's interesting to point that out.

My arrival in New York made a big impression on me,

because I was in shock

in front of this great city full of people.

I didn't speak English.

I've been trying to find a job.

I wanted to meet people of the Hungarian community,

who had emigrated during World War II.

And it hasn't been a great success, to tell you the truth.

I've met a cinematographer

well known in advertising, who said to me:

"The best advice that I can give you,

is to forget your dream.

Become a director of photography in America.

Because you'll never make it. It's too hard."

And the interesting thing is,

is that I blamed him, at first.

But then I realized

than by telling me that I'd never make it,

he had pushed me to outdo myself to prove to him

that everyone could succeed in America.

I was given tasks more and more important.

At first, in low-budget movies.

And I was wondering

where I was going to end up working on these films

that no one from the movie business would never see,

only the drive-in crowd.

After five years in Los Angeles,

I was able to make an application for naturalization.

Immigration offices have let me know

that my name was too difficult to write, to pronounce.

They advised me to at least change your first name.

So, I was recorded like "William" Zsigmond.

In all my bad movies I was credited "William."

The people who saw them, when I became Vilmos again,

did not necessarily the link with me!

- My name is Mickey Terry. - And I'm Szimpa Linpad.

- Excuse me? - Szimpa Linpad.

- I'm Hungarian. - You are?

The term "director of photography"

was born out of the conflict that existed

between cinematography and directing.

The oldest association is American.

American Society of Cinematographers.

When the directors formed the Director's Guild of America,

conflict has broken out between those who made up the image.

Cinematographers were arrogant,

they said: "we are not secondary.

So are we, we want to be directors."

Although they belonged at the Society of Cinematographers.

By the way, cinematographer is the perfect term.

Photography, photographer.

Cinematographer, cinematographer.

Photography, photographer. Cinematography, cinematographer.

He's the one who expresses himself through the moving light.

The CSA has always been an association

very elitist.

It was created by cameramen under contract with the major studios.

They used to come here to relax, they were well paid.

It was difficult to integrate the association.

When I met you,

your wife was with you, she spoke better English than you.

I'm still having trouble understanding your accent, after all these years.

But I can't hear well.

It was at the festival from San Francisco,

...I used to host this crazy movie called Futz.

I knew the movie was bad, no one had loved him.

At the end of the screening, Haskell came to see me.

He said to me: "I know how you feel about the movie.

But I gotta tell you,

I'm very fond of photography.

And if you need any help in Hollywood,

come and see me."

That's what he told me. He was my first mentor,

in America.

This film is still available. The photography is very successful.

It didn't look like to what we were doing in America.

You were a good immigrant!

I have you to thank for that.

because it launched my career

in Hollywood.

Our first meeting went well.

With Lázsló already on the set, he recommended Vilmos to me:

"His name is Bill Zsigmond, but call him Zigi."

"Is your name really Bill Zigi?

Bill or Zigi, what's your real name?"

"Vilmos! - Change the claps!

"Note this on the camera reports.

The director of photography is called Vilmos... Zsigmond.

Zsigmond Vilmos? - No, Zsigmond Vilmos."

That's how Bill-Zigi... got his name back.

He must have learned everything.

What directors learn at school,

he learned it on the set.

He was an actor

and never thought become a director.

He was a quick learner.

Within a week, he knew everything what a director needs to know.

I wanted to be enlightened by candlelight

and oil lamps.

It had to be realistic.

The lighting couldn't have come from of a projector that flattens everything.

That would have ruined the story.

To explain to Vilmos

problems that I was going to meet,

I asked him to come with me at the Fox studio.

We've been watching a black and white copy

from the John Ford movie, The Infernal Pursuit.

that my father had played in.

Zsigmond says to me: "I want to see this movie."

I tell him I'm not going explain to him what I want.

"Okay, you'll tell me in the end."

"No, you'll figure it out."

He seemed to be wondering why I was doing this to him.

Then we went back to the movie.

"Peter, why do we have to see him again? Why don't you tell me what you want?"

I said: "This time you're going to see him, Vilmos."

"I don't know..."

And the movie started.

Fortunately, the problem appears in the first reel.

From the first game. We didn't have to see the whole thing again.

The long-awaited moment is coming when my father walks into a hotel.

He's wearing filthy clothes, like a cowboy on the loose

and there are oil on the walls.

But what strikes me,

is that they're illuminated in the spotlight

and their light on the walls

casts a shadow that highlights the source of the light.

"Ah!... You can see the shadows of the lamps, It's not okay."

You got it. "That's what you have to remember:

Our lamps won't make of cast shadow."

"That's great, Peter. Thank you for showing me this film.

We'll avoid that."

And so we did.

There's a scene,

in which with the camera, we go around the house.

You saw the movie, you know the rest.

The sun's going to set soon.

We know we have to succeed this plan on the first try.

This is the final scene.

I wanted to finish the reel.

I wanted to do one take until the end.

Zsigmond thought it was a great idea.

We start on Verna Bloom,

looking to his left,

and then to his right, the camera's still moving.

She has no text.

I wanted the look in his eyes.

The camera's watching him and sees her transform.

Warren Oates is going back to the farm.

He's riding my horse.

I wanted a black and white horse

so that everyone understands it was Harry's horse.

Arch, played by Warren Oates, advance on horseback.

It's coming.

The frame tightens on him.

I said to Warren: "Keep moving while you can feel the sun.

Stay in the shadows, leave the horse in the sun.

We'll see you, don't worry."

He had to put the horses in the barn,

before lighting a lantern with the matches.

And at some point, after an accurate count,

he was supposed to come by in front of the barn window.

Then he had to backtrack

with a lantern.

I wanted to make it clear

that even if the credits started, the film was going on.

The camera's still rolling.

And the genius of Zsigmond has made it possible to time the light.

He has succeeded in this challenge

without artificial light.

All the lighting is natural.

He's filming Warren's arrival

that forgets to turn on that damn lantern.

But Zsigmond is holding on, he's not moving the camera.

We keep it running.

The light goes down slowly, very slowly.

And if you look closely, you see the trees

moving slightly into the wind.

That should be enough to show that the film was still rolling.

We didn't freeze the image. We kept shooting.

And nature took care of the rest,

when the image went black,

it was natural.

We filmed until the day's disappearance.

And we didn't need of a fade to black.

The sun took care of it.

The director and the cinematographer

have to go hand in hand.

Just like the director, with his actors.

And when it does,

it's up to the cinematographer to immortalize this complicity.

We were on a shoot in San Francisco,

about to finish the movie Taken at face value,

of Jerry Schatzberg.

And I wanted to show Susan

my favorite place in California, Big Sur.

We came here.

We walked around.

We went to see beautiful beaches.

And we liked it.

Later, we decided to get married here.

We arrived by road that we borrowed yesterday.

We hadn't seen the ocean yet, or just this side.

We discovered this house, on this little hill.

Our car was climbing, climbed, climbed, climbed...

It was flat here then. There were no trees.

It didn't look like that.

And we bought the house.

That was the beginning.

Seeing John McCabe,

This is the first time I was discovering the work of Vilmos...

I thought to myself: "It's not

an American movie."

I still remember the picture. I forgot the story

but I remember the picture.

And that was clearly the expression

eye-to-eye of a director of photography,

which was very consistent.

To understand this experience,

and what Vilmos has endured, you have to know Bob.

Bob was very playful, he liked to take risks.

He was always on the edge.

He was a good loser, too.

If it didn't work, he was on his way back.

He was ready to start all over again, with another movie.

Bob wasn't going to make this movie without Vilmos.

He had to fight before we get started,

for union matters

that he had to fix.

It was a big production.

Back in Hollywood, the movies all ended "in the bath."

At night, the lab would parade them around,

all films were developed together.

Bob has had the opportunity

to develop his film separately, in a Canadian bath at night.

So, he and Vilmos have decided together

to do something called a "flashbulb",

which means exposing it to the light.

After this step, there was no turning back.

That was final.

It was like opening the body of your camera,

with film and put it in the light a little bit.

It changed the quality of the print.

I get it. that a page had been turned

in the aesthetics of cinema.

We were shooting in Vancouver,

Altman had contacted

the only local lab, at the time.

He offered to pay the whole development,

from beginning to end.

And it became a western,

or what used to be called a "northwestern".

When producers have seen the dailies,

they didn't panic?

- Yeah, they totally freaked out. - I'll bet they did.

They didn't understand. They wondered who had filmed it.

I wasn't famous then. It was my first big movie,

with big stars.

And Altman said to them:

"the negative of this film is perfect."

That was not true, we did that on the negative.

They were in shock.

They wanted to get rid of it.

They wouldn't even take it out.

The movie wasn't "watchable."

We were criminals, so to speak.

A bunch of criminals.

Warren Beatty, you and Altman.

It's an interesting picture, I'd never seen her before.

It's funny, I seem to have 20 years older than my age.

That's because the filming of the movie was very hard.

Choice of operator is also important

than the actors in a movie.

I'd seen his work on John McCabe.

Which impressed me,

is that there was a lot of catches

shot with long lenses.

The camera was following the movement

and the focus was superb.

It was tremendously fluid.

And I wanted to,

I needed this guy of shots in Deliverance.

Because it was necessary follow the actors on canoes,

along the river,

with long lenses, while maintaining focus.

When you meet the men of the woods,

the camera is static.

Actors shoot the all around

they go in and out through another side of the camera

it was very disturbing.

The camera was following the movement in the previous scenes.

The fixed plane was creating enormous tension.

Filming required a lot of preparation.

First of all, the actors have had to go through training

for canoeing, archery, archery

and get back in shape!

It was a very physical exercise.

Today, all the movies

are controlled

to assess the dangers

inherent in each of the scenes.

We wouldn't have been able to shoot Issuance

under these conditions.

Or if we did it today,

these safety measures would prevent us

to make the same movie.

I wanted to make sure that the actors

would do nothing that I hadn't tried before.

If they were worried seeing the rapids,

I'd tell them, "I've already done it.

Vilmos and I went there.

It's doable."

Vilmos était habile comme un chamois.

Il pouvait adopter toutes les positions avec sa caméra,

avec de l'eau jusqu'au cou

ou accroupi sous un rocher. Il improvisait toujours.

C'était si difficile d'installer le matériel.

Ce qui caractérisait Vilmos, c'est qu'il était acharné.

"Pourquoi on ne filme pas ?"

Qu'est-ce qu'on attend ? Allons-y ! Allons-y !"

Et des fois, ça agaçait l'équipe du tournage

parce que tout le monde faisait au mieux.

Et je lui disais :

"Vilmos, respire un bon coup.

Nous allons réussir cette prise, ça prendra un peu de temps."

Quand je suis arrivé sur le tournage de Délivrance,

j'étais plutôt sûr de moi.

J'avais fait mes preuves,

je pouvais dire au réalisateur que je ferais les choses comme ceci

ou comme cela. Et John Boorman

écoutait toujours mes suggestions.

Mais certains jours,

je devenais plus agressif quand j'avais une idée.

J'ai dépassé les limites.

Il m'a arrêté une seconde.

Il est venu me dire :

"Vilmos, si tu continues à te comporter comme ça,

je vais te retirer la caméra des mains."

- je tenais ma caméra Arriflex.

Il l'a attrapée et m'a dit :

"Je vais te la jeter à la figure

et tu seras obligé d'arrêter."

J'ai compris que j'avais fait une erreur.

Je lui ai présenté mes excuses.

Et après ça, je me suis rappelé ses paroles.

Pas seulement sur ce tournage, mais toute ma vie.

J'aime travailler avec des réalisateurs qui improvisent

parce que des fois, ils ne peuvent pas prévoir

ce qu'ils voudront filmer le lendemain.

Et je dois les aider à prendre ces décisions,

en quelques minutes seulement.

Si vous arrivez sur un lieu et que la lumière est mauvaise,

il faut changer d'idée pour que ça fonctionne.

La veille du premier jour de tournage,

Vilmos et moi sommes retournés sur les lieux,

pour réfléchir à quelques angles, quelques plans.

C'était formidable.

Le ciel était gris foncé,

les champs étaient jaunes

comme si nous les avions peints.

Le vent soufflait, les herbes de sauge virevoltaient.

Le lendemain, c'était pareil.

En Amérique,

l'horizon s'étend à perte de vue.

On peut voir une tempête par ici et le soleil briller par là.

C'est formidable de traverser ce pays en voiture.

J'avais comme idée de suivre ces deux personnages

comme deux poissons hors de l'eau, qui allaient parcourir le pays.

Et je pensais peut-être faire des travellings,

pour rester en mouvement.

Les caméras pouvaient suivre les déplacements.

Et j'avais préparé une liste d'arguments

pour expliquer ce que je pensais chercher.

Et Vilmos l'a écoutée.

Au bout d'un moment, il m'a dit :

"Je ne vois pas les choses comme ça."

J'ai répondu : "Ah bon ?" Nous étions tous les deux très polis.

"Explique-moi."

Il m'a répondu : "Pour moi, ces personnages,

même s'ils ne s'entendent pas bien,

après une journée seulement, ils décident de travailler ensemble.

C'est un conte de fées."

J'ai dit : "Oui." Et il a continué :

"Je crois qu'on pourrait faire de belles images de l'Amérique

avec ces personnages."

Et j'ai commencé à y réfléchir.

Bien sûr, je savais ce que je voulais faire.

Je n'étais sûrement pas très enthousiaste.

Mais je repensais au conte de fées.

Et à 4h du matin,

j'avais réussi à me convaincre qu'il fallait suivre cette idée.

Le lendemain, j'ai attendu une heure respectable

pour l'appeler et lui dire : "j'aime beaucoup ton idée.

Plus j'y réfléchis, plus elle me plaît.

Je suis convaincu qu'il faut la suivre.

Elle me plaît tellement que je dirai qu'elle vient de moi."

Vilmos n'est pas que chef opérateur, c'est aussi un penseur.

Comme il m'avait tout de suite suggéré une idée,

je savais qu'il avait lu le scénario, que l'histoire l'intéressait.

Il s'intéressait au scénario, aux comédiens

et il s'inquiétait toujours de la réaction du public.

Tout le monde n'est pas aussi consciencieux.

On a moins besoin de coupes au montage,

avec un film tourné en Scope.

Un plan en Scope permet de suivre deux valeurs de plans

pendant très longtemps.

Les acteurs sont en gros plan

tout en montrant le paysage derrière eux.

Un montage trop saccadé

détourne l'attention des spectateurs du fil de l'histoire,

avec trop de coupes.

De nos jours, c'est un style très répandu.

Beaucoup de gens aiment les montages frénétiques.

Découper chaque seconde.

Et on ne peut pas s'empêcher de réfléchir.

D'accord, on voit un film

mais sans être immergé dans l'histoire.

Quand une scène dure plus d'une minute,

on peut presque oublier qu'on est dans une salle de cinéma.

On observe la vie

se dérouler en une seule séquence.

Beaucoup de réalisateurs apprécient ce style.

It allows to tell a story better.

Sugarland Express has been my first movie with Steven.

Steven was so young!

We had a great time on this set.

We were able to make almost everything we wanted,

against the will of the studio.

They thought some of the plans were infeasible.

We started talking about movies

and style.

Steven had some good ideas and he was also very open.

I've been looking for solutions.

I suggested a small model of the Panavision camera.

We could place her

in the middle of the car to film through the windows.

The old models were unsuitable, especially for sound.

He didn't want to film in the studio.

He wanted that the film is realistic.

He had thought of many angles.

He added a touch of comedy.

The public made Spielberg

a very sought-after director, after this movie.

He went on and on with the famous Jaws.

I wasn't involved.

I was busy on other shoots.

From you to me,

I didn't like the story.

It's funny to think that I turned down this movie.

I didn't think it was as good as Sugarland Express.

And not so good too. than Dating the Third Kind.

He promised me that we'd shoot it together,

when he's done Jaws.

It was a small project, on a very small budget.

It was a student film.

And he managed to implicate other writers.

They developed the idea

to make

a 35 mm film.

The budget several thousand dollars

started to swell, little by little.

About $8 million. Richard Dreyfuss

joined the film crew

and the budget went up. In the beginning, the film was supposed to cost...

about 15 or 16 million of dollars.

At the time,

we talked a lot of UFO sightings in America.

That's why that people were interested in the film.

"Yeah, let's make a movie.

Let's do something good."

The film became bigger and bigger.

Steven had some new ideas every day, every night.

He was watching old movies.

"Well, I'd have to stop..."

The budget had increased a lot.

In the end, it cost $20 million.

Maybe even 25 million.

And Columbia Pictures

was on the verge of bankruptcy, at that time.

They didn't make good movies.

It had been a bad year.

They were afraid of losing everything

and close the door.

And I kept telling them:

"Don't worry, ...this movie is gonna save Columbia."

The last sequence of the film

was like a dream.

We have realized that we're running out of light.

The last 40 minutes were a light show.

It was all about the light.

The ship's door opens and an incredible light

spreads out over the set.

We must have overexposed the characters

to accentuate the bright light.

With two or three degrees of overexposure.

But the public understood that it wasn't a mistake.

It was on purpose.

When I got my Oscar,

I should have thought to thank Steven Spielberg.

I forgot.

It's the worst thing I've ever done. I owe him an apology.

because he's the one who deserved the award I received.

It was his movie.

I made that mistake,

because the conditions of filming were terrible.

Everybody wanted to fire me.

It haunted me for years. It was a mistake.

But in my defense, Close Encounters... has been nominated eleven times...

and I was the only one who won.

It was the first prize awarded that night.

If I had known that it was going to be the last one,

if I had been told that it would be the only one,

I would have said:

"Sorry, this award goes to Steven Spielberg."

Today, when I speak

to someone,

the question always comes up.

To know what the movie is that I'd rather do?

Then I'll ask the question again.

"What's the movie that you liked better,

of my entire career?"

95 percent of the time,

I get the answer: Journey to the end of hell.

For my sake,

it's 100 percent cinema.

I don't find any fault with it.

Even the less successful parts. Some scenes are underexposed

not by accident, but out of necessity.

We didn't have a lot of equipment

in Thailand, to film the night scene.

The generator blew up, we had to dim the lights.

But the image was consistent.

The film was more realistic, more touching,

thanks to this lack of lighting.

It couldn't have been better.

We were limited under these conditions.

And we did our best.

But that's where the sound plays an important role.

In a dark movie, with an underexposed image.

Sometimes, sound can save a movie.

People listen more carefully and don't see everything.

I was discovering Pittsburgh in an American movie.

But that wasn't the idea that I had America.

I used to live in London.

The beginning of the film has marked me more than anything else.

There was something of profoundly honest

in this story of workers

who were sent to war like cannon fodder.

It was very unusual.

If they wouldn't die at the factory...

Yeah, they had nothing to lose.

I remember the fire scenes in the steel mills,

Early in the morning, when they go out from work.

It didn't look like a war movie... with John Wayne.

The aesthetics of the film contributes a lot to that.

That's interesting,

we've been fortunate to live in these times.

Everything that has been produced in the '60s and '70s,

it's been a miracle in the history of American cinema,

because everything's changed.

Everybody wanted to reinvent cinema.

And it's true, this influence came from Europe,

for most of us.

Even those who didn't come of European countries,

so do the Americans.

Haskell, you made this movie... what was it called?

America, America.

That's pretty representative. It was a film shot abroad...

but made in America.

When you look at the pictures

great photographers like Diane Arbus,

Cartier-Bresson, or others like them,

they are impregnated of their personalities

which allows the photographed subject to feel free

and be himself.

To a certain extent, the chief operator

brings the same thing.

One way or another, when you get older,

you wish you could say:

"My existence on Earth has served a purpose

and will not disappear after my last breath."

We had built a tent

for the roller-skating scene.

The ceiling was made of canvas

painted in sepia tones.

We didn't need of filtering on the cameras,

we could film faster.

The only problem,

is when the clouds were moving outside.

Everything was getting dark

and then became clearer again.

We had posted someone out there,

a camera assistant

with a walkie-talkie

that said: "In five seconds,

a cloud will cover the sun."

At that moment, my camera assistant

had his hand on the shutter

and waited for the light to change on the ceiling,

to change the settings one or two stops.

Christopher Walken.

Isabelle Huppert!

Michael Cimino made this movie

years ago

and no one understood what he was talking about.

America was booming economical at the time.

People understand this movie

much better today.

Michael Cimino had ordered

a delicious lunch. As I recall,

it's still ingrained as the happiest day

of the whole shoot.

To have this lunch with Cimino

and also Isabelle.

What's the hardest part,

once you live with a cinematographer?

Well, well, well, well,

the hardest part, it's probably

that the film always comes first.

It doesn't matter. if it's an important birthday,

the death of a relative, a funeral.

The film always comes first.

And the easiest part?

We've traveled everywhere in the world,

in fascinating places.

The film I found the most extraordinary,

It was a TV movie. whose name was Stalin.

A whole team has been on the move in Moscow,

in 1991, right after the coup.

We were able to see Russia

in the middle of a turmoil.

Vilmos and Ivan Passer, the director, for the shooting,

had access to the Kremlin,

to parts that had never been open to the public,

but also to Stalin's dacha.

His old cleaning lady was still there.

The American team came in under the snow,

in this dacha.

We all went to see where Stalin had lived.

A prima ballerina from the Bolshoi Ballet

came into these rooms, to dance Swan Lake.

When I was getting ready filming Stalin in Russia,

I knew I needed from Vilmos.

He said to me, "You know,

I only make movies."

And it was a TV movie for HBO.

I said, "Vilmos, listen.

Since you've managed to ruin United Artists

with The Gateway to Paradise from Cimino

everyone is afraid of hire you because of it.

If you team up with me,

you'll always find a job after Stalin."

I was just joking when I said that.

We liked to tease each other.

Imagine if we succeeded making 34 shots,

on the last day.

34 camera positions.

For Heaven's Gate, he only did one a day.

He had made

a lighting system.

He had covered with a sheet

a frame on wheels,

that we're moving everywhere.

It took us three minutes

to light up a socket.

That's why our film was the only one to meet the deadline

in Russia.

In every movie I direct,

for my own pleasure,

I like to pay tribute to another director.

For Stalin, in the Kremlin,

I wanted to pay tribute to Sergei Eisenstein.

There are these big shadows

in his movie Ivan the Terrible,

...that are outlined on the walls.

I told Vilmos:

"We'll make a take

when Robert Duvall-Stalin, go up the stairs.

We'll see his shadow grow up, grow up, grow up."

Vilmos answered me: "We lack lighting.

We don't have the time."

I said to him: "You'll figure it out."

And of course he found her.

Even if you forgot this movie, you remember that scene.

Did I look like this?

A mustache and tousled hair?

And me, explaining to Vilmos what take I wanted.

It's one of the first plans that we shot.

Vilmos helped a lot for this take.

When the nose of the plane falls within the scope,

it was perfect.

With "The Rose" written on the plane.

I owe this plan to Vilmos.

I met him

thanks to Robert Altman.

One night, we were having dinner. We were friends.

He said, "You should ...to play the role of Marty Augustine."

Bob had rented a house in Malibu

to shoot The Private

and he lived in this house during the filming.

Bob didn't do anything like everybody else.

Vilmos loved making this movie on location outside the studios.

Even though he was very talented

in the studio.

I was amazed

by the fact that he was

plus a collaborator, than a simple chief operator.

That movie, The Rose shot with Vilmos,

it's the most important work of my career.

Vilmos is a very sensitive man.

He's emotionally fragile

and very receptive to the intimist atmosphere.

Bette had to do all the live concert stages.

and we only had one shot, every time.

So, I decided to call all my friends chief operators

so they'll help me,

each one behind a camera.

"Choose an angle and do whatever you want.

Improvise, follow your desires."

All I said to them was:

"You'll do close-ups.

You, you'll take care wide shots.

You can change the focal length, change the angle,

during the concert."

And that's why that in the credits there's

the best chief operators from Hollywood.

Lázsló Kovács, Haskell Wexler,

Owen Roizman,

Johnny Alonzo.

It was great. The pictures are beautiful.

They had too many choices when they were editing.

Really, it wasn't difficult.

With an artist like Bette,

and with the songs

she was singing,

and with the musicians that were with him.

We didn't have

the feeling of doing an ordinary musical.

It was more like a raw show of improvisation.

It wasn't difficult.

All we had to do, was to encourage

the team to improvise.

Live in the moment.

"If you see something good, move over."

There were a lot of cameramen.

"Do not follow what you were planning to do.

Be creative

and move around whenever you feel like it.

Don't hesitate, Lázsló. Go for it,

and goes as close as possible to his performance."

Blow out is my favorite movie, as an actress.

For several reasons.

I loved the script.

Like I said, I didn't think I'd do it.

I didn't like the character.

So I had to find a way to fall in love with her.

I believe...

that working with John has helped me,

we were able to find what was going to work

for us.

Next,

the experience of shooting was the best I've ever had in my entire career.

It was all there, the sound, the makeup,

the hairstyles, the costumes,

the beautiful images.

Most important in a movie,

is when this whole machine is well oiled.

I didn't know you hated your character.

We loved him, anyway.

And that's why that the end was tragic.

We didn't want to lose her.

And in another end, she survived.

The scream was recorded,

but they said that you'd been hurt.

Unlike the other one.

We chose the version Shakespearean.

- That was Brian. - Yeah, it was Brian.

That was an interesting choice.

The first would have been more commercial.

The other one wasn't.

I remember arriving on this beautiful location.

It was like a painting, there was a bridge and a river.

"What are they filming down there? Owls and frogs?"

This sequence made us laugh a lot.

Brian asked me for a plan over the frog's shoulder.

But the frog

was tiny!

We've settled in.

The frog was there.

We placed the camera, we put in a dioptric corrector.

It was hard to take stock

and even madness.

There was the dioptric corrector... and the frog...

and the bridge in the background.

If you want make a realistic movie,

you have to use this technique.

If there's not much light,

the dioptric corrector allows you to extend the focus.

Brian was known for his 360-degree shots.

I don't like to admit it,

but only time where I left a set,

it was there.

- Really? - Yes

Why?

I don't know if you knew that.

- In the editing room? - Yes, in the editing room.

That was take 57, I remember very well.

57.

And I told Brian... He was exhausted and so was I.

We were all exhausted.

We were already at the end of the third month of shooting.

I said to Brian:

"Tell me what more you want

that we haven't already filmed on the 10th take and I'll do it.

But I don't have the energy to start over."

He said, "Do it again."

I said to him: "I can't. I can't anymore."

And I left.

I knew that out of those 57 takes,

there was one that was gonna work.

I remember a scene

in the train station, in the restaurant.

Brian wanted to move on and I said, "No, no, no.

We have to do another one."

This time, I'm the one asked to do another take.

One or two takes later,

you did it.

I had seen in rehearsals

that you could play this scene

to perfection. All the shots were good,

but less than in rehearsals. And I was thinking:

"Nancy's got to make it."

It's a tricky thing to pull off,

it can be very repetitive.

We'll have to wait, before you get back to the magic.

And I've always loved working with John,

cause if we had to make a scene again,

he added something different.

You had to bounce back.

In this scene,

he did it to me twice.

And it was really...

- It looks more alive. - It's fresh.

You have to trust the director.

We loved Brian, the look in his eyes.

But we must also be able to trust to the director of photography,

or else an actor dies inside.

It all depends the way we're being filmed.

If the angle's wrong, the emotion isn't transmitted.

We're as good as dead.

You have to know how to communicate.

And it expresses itself in the frame, the angle and the light.

Jodie Foster, guys!

And here I am, asking: "Why are we shooting here, Vilmos?

We could have stayed there."

Every time we took a shot, we were moving around. Everything had to be perfect.

Every decor.

If we had to make a counter-field a mile away,

so we were going back a mile away.

He was a perfectionist. I'm sorry, he's a perfectionist.

For a scene, you needed someone to play an old German artist.

Who better than Vilmos?

He played the role of the painter.

And there he is, about to be filmed.

In costume

to adjust the camera and make sure everything was perfect.

It's Vilmos.

I loved the way he worked.

I loved his style.

I had a lot of fun working with him.

In The Witches of Eastwick. Jack Nicholson plays the devil

that appeals to all three Witches of Eastwick.

Sarandon, Cher and Pfeiffer.

I was an intern. I was doing everything the camera crew was asking me:

carrying the crates, cleaning the optics, even bring the coffee.

We were turning in an elevator with Michelle Pfeiffer.

and during a take, an assistant has cast a shadow over Michelle.

No one noticed her. except for me.

We had to move on, the team was in a hurry.

I ran to tell Vilmos: "There's a problem.

I saw Kenny's shadow. on Michelle in the elevator."

Vilmos, of a calm nature, said, "What?"

I rehearsed: "I saw a shadow on Michelle."

He looked at me and said:

"George, we have to do it again!"

The whole team's been bitching.

And someone threw me: "Here's your plane ticket."

As if I was on my way home.

Vilmos said, "Pull this plug, I want to see her tomorrow."

The whole crew was watching the dailies, in 35 mm at our hotel.

I started to get worried. Did I see a shadow?

I was terrified to go home.

We watched the dailies.

The first take was bad.

And indeed, there was a shadow on Michelle.

We watched the other take and it was good.

Vilmos had an interesting reaction.

He stood up, front row, I was in the back of the room,

we were having a glass of wine.

He said, "Jimmy, thank you very much."

And I noticed that with Vilmos,

that was quite a way to be.

He was very imposing, he had great power,

he had a point of view,

and he was also very humble and generous,

and open to suggestions.

All the teams loved him.

He was firm and flexible and he was implicating you.

We felt like we were doing really part of the movie.

I knew Woody Allen,

just like everybody else.

A famous director.

An outstanding screenwriter.

Leading operators had already worked with him

like Gordon Willis

They had turned a dozen times together.

They worked well together,

like Ingmar Bergman with Sven Nykvist.

And one day, he wanted to work with someone else.

And that "someone else", it was me.

When we were preparing our second movie together.

Even if he didn't like the steadycam.

I thought we had to convince him to try the steadycam.

Because it was faster

than setting up dolly shows.

I convinced him and he liked it.

And for our third movie together,

I was very surprised

because he wrote the script, thinking about steadycam.

He could make a plan last indefinitely.

On a page or two of dialogue.

His staging was incredible.

He knows to show the setting of its history

So, sometimes he starts with a wide shot.

Then the camera tightens up about two people

and maybe finishes with a close-up.

He's letting the story unfold. It's good for the actors.

They can play their part like in the theater.

One day Woody says to me: "You don't need a crane for this scene."

"But Woody, it won't take than ten seconds

and you'll see what happens. in the story."

"I don't know,

I don't like turning with a crane."

We're still shooting with it.

The next day, we went to see the dailies.

He said to me:

"I'm not going to be able use this plan."

I asked him, "Why?"

He said to me: "This is too Hollywood."

We installed a backlight, I'll turn it off.

It's all right. It's okay. It's okay. It's not a fiction film.

- All right. All right, all right. - It's all right. It's okay.

Do what you like.

Somebody's calling me.

I'm in front of the camera, in the usual place.

Adaptation: Anna Le Clézio Pierre Filmon and Marc Olry