Gordon Willis

Gordon Hugh Willis Jr., (May 28, 1931 – May 18, 2014) was an American cinematographer and film director, known for his influential work during the American New Wave of the 1970s, collaborating with directors like Woody Allen and Alan J. Pakula, as well as working with Francis Ford Coppola on the Godfather trilogy.

Fellow cinematographer William A. Fraker called Willis's work a "milestone in visual storytelling", while one critic suggested that Willis "defined the cinematic look of the 1970s: sophisticated compositions in which bolts of light and black put the decade's moral ambiguities into stark relief". When the International Cinematographers Guild conducted a survey in 2003, they placed Willis among the ten most influential cinematographers in history.

Career Early life and beginnings Willis was born in Astoria, Queens, New York. His parents had been dancers in Broadway theatre before his father became a makeup man at Warner Bros. in Brooklyn. As a child, Willis fell in love with films. He wanted to be an actor and then became interested in lighting and stage design, later turning to photography. For a time he intended to be a fashion photographer, photographing models he knew from living in Greenwich Village. "I didn't know shit," Willis said, "[I was] dumber than dirt, as they say. No money, no jobs etc." Through contacts of his father's he worked as a "gofer" on various movies in New York.

During the Korean War, Willis served in the Air Force, managing to join the Photographic and Charting Service in a motion picture unit. "I spent four years learning everything I could about making movies," Willis said. After leaving the Air Force a friend helped him to join the East Coast union in New York and he started to work as an assistant cameraman, working his way up to become a first cameraman about thirteen years later.

Willis once stated: "I'm a minimalist. I see things in simple ways ... It's human nature to define complexity as better. Well, it's not." In 1969, director Aram Avakian hired Willis to work on his film End of the Road. He collaborated with Hal Ashby on The Landlord (1970), James Bridges on The Paper Chase (1973), and Herbert Ross on Pennies From Heaven (1981); as well as shooting all three of Coppola's Godfather films and working with Woody Allen on a succession of films that included Annie Hall (1977) and Manhattan (1979). His work turned out to be groundbreaking in its use of low-light photography and underexposed film, as well as in his control of lighting and exposure to create the sepia tones that denoted period scenes in The Godfather Part II. On Annie Hall he contrasted the warmth of Annie and Alvy Singer's romance in New York with the overexposure of the film's California scenes, while in Allen's Manhattan he was responsible for what has been called a "richly textured black-and-white paean to the beauty and diversity of the city itself". Willis, whose idea it was to use anamorphic widescreen for the filming, said: "We both felt that New York was a black-and-white city".

Willis also worked on the Allen films Interiors (1978), Stardust Memories (1980), A Midsummer Night's Sex Comedy (1982), Zelig (1983), Broadway Danny Rose (1984), and The Purple Rose of Cairo (1985). Allen said that working with Willis had helped to improve his technical skills, saying of him: "He's an artist. He's got a great sense of humor--he taught me a lot."

Academy Awards In the seven-year period up to 1977, Willis was the director of photography on six films that received among them 39 Academy Award nominations, winning 19 times, including three awards for Best Picture. The fact that Willis did not receive a single nomination was a subject of some controversy. His frequent absence from this period's nominees has been ascribed both to his unhidden "antipathy for Hollywood" and his work being ahead of its time. and then for The Godfather Part III (1990). In 2009, at the inaugural Governors Awards, the Academy chose Willis as the recipient of the Academy Honorary Award for his life's work. He admitted the film had been a mistake,

His last film was The Devil's Own (1997), directed by Pakula. Of his decision to retire, Willis said: "I got tired of trying to get actors out of trailers, and standing in the rain". ASC president Richard Crudo said: "He was one of the giants who absolutely changed the way movies looked. Up until the time of The Godfather and The Godfather Part II, nothing previously shot looked that way. He changed the way films looked and the way people looked at films."

Legacy Willis's work became celebrated for his ability to use shadow and underexposed film with a "subtlety and expressivity previously unknown on color film stock", with one critic citing as examples Don Corleone's study in The Godfather and a parking garage in All the President's Men. but Willis himself preferred to talk in terms of "visual relativity", saying: "I like going from light to dark, dark to light, big to small, small to big". Discussing The Godfather he said:"You can decide this movie has got a dark palette. But you can't spend two hours on a dark palette. . . So you've got this high-key, Kodachrome wedding going on. Now you go back inside and it's dark again. You can't, in my mind, put both feet into a bucket of cement and leave them there for the whole movie. It doesn't work. You must have this relativity."

Filmography Film Year Title Director 1970 End of the Road Aram Avakian Loving Irvin Kershner The Landlord Hal Ashby The People Next Door David Greene 1971 Little Murders Alan Arkin Klute Alan J. Pakula 1972 The Godfather Francis Ford Coppola Bad Company Robert Benton Up the Sandbox Irvin Kershner 1973 The Paper Chase James Bridges 1974 The Parallax View Alan J. Pakula The Godfather Part II Francis Ford Coppola 1975 The Drowning Pool Stuart Rosenberg 1976 All the President's Men Alan J. Pakula 1977 Annie Hall Woody Allen September 30, 1955 James Bridges 1978 Interiors Woody Allen Comes a Horseman Alan J. Pakula 1979 Manhattan Woody Allen 1980 Windows Himself Stardust Memories Woody Allen 1981 Pennies from Heaven Herbert Ross 1982 A Midsummer Night's Sex Comedy Woody Allen 1983 Zelig 1984 Broadway Danny Rose 1985 The Purple Rose of Cairo Perfect James Bridges 1986 The Money Pit Richard Benjamin 1987 The Pick-up Artist James Toback 1988 Bright Lights, Big City James Bridges 1990 Presumed Innocent Alan J. Pakula The Godfather Part III Francis Ford Coppola 1993 Malice Harold Becker 1997 The Devil's Own Alan J. Pakula

TV movie Year Title Director 1984 The Lost Honor of Kathryn Beck Simon Langton

Awards and nominations