Last night on PBS, I caught the reverent and fascinating documentary No Subtitles Necessary: László & Vilmos, a look at the art, influence, and longtime brotherly friendship of the two most fabled Hollywood cinematographers of the 1970s, László Kovács and Vilmos Zsigmond. Like anyone else immersed in the classic American movies of that time (and, really, who isn’t?), I knew who these two men were, understood a few things about their art, and had a dim awareness of the fact (coincidence — or something more?) that they were both Hungarian émigrés.
I was amazed, though, at how much I didn’t know, starting with the nearly poetic fact that their baptism in cinematography occurred when the Soviet tanks came rolling through Budapest in 1956. The two, who were then film students, grabbed their cameras, shot the protests and the violent crackdown, and then smuggled the footage out of the country under the noses of Soviet guards. What I love about this story is that it captures how, for Kovács and Zsigmond, photographing movies was, from the start, something raw and essential and existential and real. It was those qualities that they imprinted upon the visual atmosphere of American movies, changing the face of an art form in the process.
The two started out on the grimy indie-exploitation fringes of Hollywood, shooting schlock horror and nudie-cutie films, where they were often billed as “Leslie Kovacs” and “William Zsigmond.” Easy Rider, which really kicked off the revolution in cinematography, was conceived, at least by its backers, as just one more outlaw biker flick. But the people who created it had different ideas, and László Kovács’ cinematography — those rangy and swirling documentary-like shots, the camera just about plummeting down the highway — all but defined the film. He shot the two hippie cyclists by planting his camera in a car with the back seat removed, and also by letting the glare of the sun bead into the shots, innovations that amounted to a kind of genius primitivism. Yet they’re still so vivid that, watching Easy Rider today, you feel like you’re right there in those landscapes.
If Kovács, a startlingly handsome ladies’ man, was cinematography’s first great dynamic wide-angle naturalist, the more obsessive (and volcanically tempered) Zsigmond was the smoky poetic realist. He set the benchmark for what authenticity in a movie could mean — what it could look like, and how it could make an audience feel — with the saturated fine-grain rustic dream images of McCabe & Mrs. Miller, still the most realistic portrait of the West ever created. The two men went on to shoot dozens of classics between them, from Paper Moon and Shampoo and New York, New York (Kovács) to Deliverance and The Long Goodbye and Close Encounters of the Third Kind (Zsigmond). What they invented was imitated all over the world, and still is.
I wish today’s filmmakers imitated it more, though. One of the most fascinating comments in No Subtitles Necessary comes from director Bob Rafelson, who used Kovács on Five Easy Pieces. He says: “I’ve seen a thousand pictures shot in Los Angeles and a thousand pictures shot in Chicago, and they all look the same to me. When László shoots, they look like Los Angeles and Chicago.”
That, more than anything, is what these two artists of the camera brought to movies in the ’70s: not just abstract grit or beauty or grandeur, but a sense of the individuality of things. They made every person, every place, every interior, every landscape look like itself. And that was, in hindsight, a blessed act of art.
If you had to choose, what are your all-time favorite examples of cinematography? And what movies can you think of in which the look of the film really is the film?
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I’m not hugely knowledgeable of cinematography, but Janusz Kamiński is probably my favorite. Saving Private Ryan blistered my eyeballs.
Whoever did the cinematography for “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind”-especially the dream sequences. I don’t know how they did it, but those sequences are actual dreams. Literally.
Chris Doyle’s work for Wong Kar-wai: particularly “Ashes of Time,” “Happy Together,” “In the Mood for Love” and “2046.”
of this decade of movies the most beautiful photography of a city in relation to the story was michael mann’s collateral. L.A. never looked more alive, sinister, and existential
Gordon Willis, most famous for the “Godfather” films, but made many classics with Woody Allen, including the stunning “Manhattan” and the at-the-time complex “Zelig.” Sven Nykvist, who did amazing work with Bergman, and also shot Woody Allen’s “Crimes and Misdemeanors.” Michael Chapman, who shot “Taxi Driver” and “Raging Bull.” I think Jack Green is underrated — he worked with Eastwood forever, and I love the work he did in “Unforgiven” and especially “A Perfect World.” And obviously Roger Deakins and Robert Richardson have to be mentioned. Richardson worked with Oliver Stone for a long time and had a showcase of a movie in “Natural Born Killers.”
Nice calls all, particularly Gordon Willis…I love the stories about how Paramount wanted him fired from Godfather because the picture was so dark, which was unheard of for big-budget filmmaking. (Cut to 30 years later, where the re-mastered DVD’s trumpet that the films are as dark as they were originally. Willis also designed one of the greatest slow zooms in film history for All the President’s Men; as Redford makes a series of phone calls, a medium shot eventually becomes a close-up. I didn’t even notice it the first time I saw it.
Besides the brillaint work done by Mssrs. L. Kovacs and V. Zsigmond, I would like to add the brilliant Conrad Hall and the work John Alcott did with Kubrick. There are too many to list because each has their own individual way of lighting and composing for the film(s) they work on.
After seeing this film, I can’t believe I didn’t already know who Kovacs and Zsigmond were. As a huge fan of a number of the films they worked on, I think it’s a tragedy that more people don’t know who they are and I hope this documentary changes things.
Even for people who aren’t cinemaphiles, there’s lots of good stuff in this documentary – just the story of their friendship and escape from Hungary was interesting enough. PBS definitely has a real winner here.
I also loved the musical selections. JJ Johnson’s “Seven Days in Tahiti” was a perfect mood setter to conjure up 1960s Hollywood, and I’ve always been a big fan of Jolie Holland was happpy to hear “Sascha” in the end credits. Kudos all around.
Lots of great picks here (way, to go, folks!). If I may add a few more for discussion:
John Lindley–I know special effects were extensive in Pleasantville, but Lindley did an astonishing job of combining black-and-white and color imagery.
John Bailey–Lawrence Kasdan’s frequent DP in the 80’s (The Big Chill, Silverado) could work wonders with images big and small.
John Seale– I remember several reviews of 1986’s “The Hitcher” pointing out that the DP was the same man who had shot “Witness” the previous year. I started paying attention to cinematography credits from then on.
Gregg Toland–Orson Welles wasn’t the only genius on the “Citizen Kane” set; there’s a reason Welles shares his directing credit with Toland’s camerawork.
John Alonzo–Chinatown. What more can I say?
The comment about “letting the glare of the sun bead into the shots” reminded me of J.J. Abrams’ commentary for “Star Trek” where he tried to use in-camera “flares” whenever possible, even with digital effects. Years earlier, as “The West Wing” used a lot of handheld shots to depict the presidential campaign, the DP often used fishing line on the camera lens to create the same effect. I hadn’t realized Kovacs was one of the innovators to creating a new cinema shorthand. One more reason to admire the man.