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  • Hey all, just changed over the backend after 15 years I figured time to give it a bit of an update, its probably gonna be a bit weird for most of you and i am sure there is a few bugs to work out but it should kinda work the same as before... hopefully :)

RIP Gordan Willis ASC.

Vithya Sharma

Vithya Sharma

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Best known for his work as Director of Photography on the 'Godfather I, II, and III,' and also such films as 'All the President's Men,' 'Manhattan,' 'Annie Hall,' 'Klute,' 'Presumed Innocent,' ' 'The Parallax View,' 'The Paper Chase,' 'Little Murders,' 'End of the Road,' 'The Landlord,' 'Interiors,' 'Stardust Memories,' 'Pennies from Heaven,' 'Zelig,' and many others.
 

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David Mullen ASC said:
One of my heroes.
Click to expand...
Mine too...

A great one.

Son of artists too, and on his sole experience and debut as director, he has a memorable quote by his own:

"I've had a good relationship with actors (...) but I can do what I do and back off. I don't want that much romancing. I don't want them to call me up at two in the morning saying, 'I don't know who I am' " on "Gerald Peary: Gordon Willis", Boston Phoenix, August 2003
 
Here's a nice tribute shot a few years ago about Willis' work on Godfather:


People forget that at the time, The Godfather was looked upon as a very dark film, to the point where Paramount's execs were on the verge of firing Willis off the production, calling him "The Prince of Darkness." Coppola demanded the DP remain on the job, and he wound up making one of the most iconic films in history. Willis could be a cantankerous, opinionated man who did not play Hollywood politics very well; as a result, he had no Oscar nominations until 1977, and never won an award until his honorary award in 2009.

I like what Richard Crudo, president of the ASC, just said today:

"This is a momentous loss. He was one of the giants who absolutely changed the way movies looked. Up until the time of The Godfather 1 and 2, nothing previously shot looked that way. He changed the way films looked and the way people looked at films."

http://www.deadline.com/2014/05/godfather-cinematographer-gordon-willis-dead/#more-732860
 
All this craziness on high ISOs comes from his legacy, among others, such as Kubrick or Storaro, of course. I guess all of them loved the 'film noir', actually, the German Expressionism to have moved to Hollywood. Also a minimal concept of light and shadow brought to the mainstream, never seen before except with the italians or french (or Cassavetes in America) three, two, one decades before. But not strictly for aesthetic reasons. To us, arrived as the 'light fimmaking' possible to conquer the world today in Sundance. Even if my mom complains the movies are too dark nowadays... : D Those were golden days when men like him changed forever the way the movies could be made.

We also owe this to him.

Emanuel
 
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