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VILMOS ZSIGMOND A.S.C. • I learnt a great deal from the students
and many kinds of cultures they represent. The essence of my method
is to have the students themselves become aware of the professional
difficulties. The participant of the Masterclass were able to independently
work on the tasks at hend and see their mistakes when their film
were screened. ...... FILMOGRAPHY:.. Blue of the Sky
........
INTERVIEW:.. Just outside the peasant village where I grew up in Hungary, there was a railroad track which had an incredible effect on me as a boy. I'd watch trains pass through and dissapear off into the horizon, and I'd wonder, what's at the end of these rails? In the village itself, my mother's best friend ran film shows on the weekends. The cinema was a schoolroom, the screen a white sheer pinned on the wall, and the projection booth was a couple of chairs placed side-to-side, on which the 16mm projector was mounted. My first job was to distribute leaflets advertising the next programme through the village and hammer them on telephone poles. My salary was that I got to see the films for nothing. I'd sit in the front row, staring in awe at the images flickering on the sheet, which to me was like a window through which I could glimpse magical worlds that existed at the end of the railroad. My parents wanted me to take after my cousin and become a doctor, but as I got older my obsession whit films grew. In Budapest, where I was at boarding school, I learned by heart the programmes of each cinema in the city, and I'd skip classes, sometimes seeing four movies a day. One day I discovered to my astonishment and delight that there was a film school in Budapest. The following January I applied , and somehow was selected. Illes Gyorgy, head of the school, then became my spiritual father, as he continues to be for Hungarian cinematographers all over the world. His credo was that he couldn't teach you talent - but if you had talent, he could help you to discover it. Practical film-making was only one part of the course. Because film was regarded as a blend of many different arts, we had to study architecture, the history of art, world literature, music, theatre. The idea was that students should open their minds and build up a rich mental library which would serve us in our careers. I continue to supplement this library today; it contains all the visual memories of my life up to now - events I've witnessed, emotions I've felt. In particular, it contains all the feelings that different kinds of light provoke in me. Having this library means that whatever project I work on - whether it's comedy or drama, period or contemporary (as cinematographers, we should be able to do all kinds of stories) - I can always find a reference, a memory, a feeling from which to work. In the Hollywood of the 1960s, everyone started on the same level: ground zero. Didn't matter if you were a graduate from N.Y.U. or a refugee from Hungary. It was the end of the big studio era; fly-by-night independent producers were everywhere, eagerly supplying the drive-in cinemas' demand for cheap 'product'. A new generation of film-makers (including Coppola, Scorsese, Sayles and Bogdanovich) cut their teeth on exploitation films; and alongside them, a new generation of cinematographers. After shooting newsreel and medical films on 16mm (where Vilmos Zsigmond and I were often each other's only crew), we became part of the gang working for Roger Corman. His 'factory' was both sweatshop and film school. Corman exploited us, sure, but - and he knew this as well as any of us- we were getting the greater benefit. We usually had around eight days to complete a 70-90 minute picture. And although they were mostly formulaic schlock, the more talented directors and writers always tried to sneak something interesting into the story, or experiment visually. There was something of the pioneer spirit about that time in our lives. We were all in film-making heaven. We worked around the clock, grabbing a few hours' sleep in a sleeping bag on the set or the location. In time, I developed a reputation for photographing biker movies; at the point when I was crying out, "no more!", I got approached by Dennis Hopper to shoot Easy Rider. He entered our meeting dressed like Billy the Kid, said, "here's the script", and wildly threw it up in the air. As the pages floated down all over the office, he said,"but we don't need it, because I'm gonna tell you the story…" By the time he'd finished, I`d forgotten my objections to doing another biker picture. "When do we start?" I asked. One of the movies of which I'm most prod is Peter Bogdanovich's Paper Moon. We wanted to evoke the classic black-and-white Hollywood tradition pioneered by cinematographers like Arthur Miller, John Alton and Gregg Toland. Citizen Kane was our biggest influence; I had seen it for the first time in Budapest in 1948 and it had made an indelible impression. Orson Welles and Peter were very close friends, and I got to meet my 'god' while we were preparing our film. I'd been testing black-and-white film with various filters but still hadn't found the right look; Orson said,"Use red filters, my boy". And I did, because although the filters reduced the film speed and meant I had to use big arc-lights to achieve the deep-focus look Peter wanted, the red filters created incredibly beatiful, dramatic skies and gave us exactly the expressionistic look we were after. However much preparation you do, a film never truly comes alive until you show up on the first morning of the shoot, and all the elements combine for the very first time. As far as it's possible, you have to keep an open mind about how you're going to shoot something until you begin to see what the actors are doing. That's why I've never done floor plans, because a scene may not happen the way you anticipate. I always aim to support the actors' performances, down to the smallest detail. For example, if I notice an actor wearing a cap, I'll ask why. It may well be because he's trying to prevent another character seeing into his eyes; in which case I'll design the lighting so that if there comes a moment in the scene where he feels he does want to catch the other person's eye, all he has to do is incline his head slightly. This is why I only feel ready to light a scene appropriately after watching the rehearsal. When I'm lighting, I like to feel that every light has a dramatic logic and function in the composition. It really is like painting; each piece of light is a brush-stroke, giving different emotional values, defining and texturing each part of the shot from foreground to backround, highlighting what's important for the audience to see. This is the aestetic heart of my work and it gives me the most responsibility and pressure, because the tempo of the shoot, and the morale of the unit, depends on how quickly you work. The cinematographer has to be a strong leader. I have my own repertory company of lighting and camera crew who I've worked with over decades, which gives us a kind of mutual respect and trust. We have a shorthand after all this time and that enables us to work together like a well-oiled machine. The moment when the camera rolls is always intensely exceiting.
Not only are you capturing the electricity, the drama between the
actors as it happens, but it's also the moment where you cristallise
everyone's efforts over weeks, month, year- the screenwriter, the
director, the designer, wardrobe, hair, make-up- in the final composition.
This is what makes my job so exciting that I forget whether I'm
hungry, or sleepy - I just stand there and think how lucky I am
to be a humble soldier of this wonderful art of film-making. |
