Vilmos Zsigmond

Vilmos Zsigmond, A.S.C.
Vilmos Zsigmond at 43rd KVIFF
Born	June 16, 1930 Szeged, Hungary

Vilmos Zsigmond, A.S.C. (born June 16, 1930) is an Academy Award winning Hungarian-American cinematographer.

Biography

Zsigmond was born in Szeged, Hungary, the son of Bozena (née Illichman), an administrator, and Vilmos Zsigmond, a celebrated soccer player and coach.^[1][2] He studied cinema at the Academy of Drama and Film in Budapest.^[3][4] He received an MA in cinematography.^[1] He worked for five years in a Budapest feature film studio becoming "director of photography".^[1] Together with his friend and fellow student László Kovács, he chronicled the events of the 1956 Hungarian Revolution in Budapest on thirty thousand feet of film^[1] and then escaped to Austria shortly afterwards.^[1]

In 1962, he became a naturalized citizen of the United States.^[2] He settled in Los Angeles and worked in photo labs as a technician and photographer. During the 1960s, he worked on many low-budget independent films and educational films, as he attempted to break into the film industry^[1]. Some of the films that he worked on during this period credited him as "William Zsigmond," including the classic horror B-Film, The Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living and Became Mixed-Up Zombies. In 1964 working with a favorite crew which included László Kovács, Jim Enochs, and Ernie Reed, Vilmos shot the European style, neo-noir, black and white film "Summer Children" (aka a Hot Summer Game)which has recently been fully restored digitally for DVD release. The first film he worked on in the United States was "The Sadist," starring Arch Hall, Jr.

He gained prominence during the 1970s working on Robert Altman's McCabe & Mrs. Miller and The Long Goodbye^[1], John Boorman's Deliverance and Steven Spielberg's The Sugarland Express and Close Encounters of the Third Kind, the latter of which won him the Academy Award for Best Cinematography. Zsigmond has worked with Brian De Palma on Obsession, Blow Out, The Bonfire of the Vanities, and The Black Dahlia, with Michael Cimino on The Deer Hunter and Heaven's Gate, with Richard Donner on Maverick and Assassins , and with Woody Allen on Melinda and Melinda and Cassandra's Dream.

Has been a longtime user and endorser of Tiffen filters.

Awards and nominations

• Oscar, 1977, Close Encounters of the Third Kind
• Nomination, Academy Award, 1978, The Deer Hunter
• Nomination, Academy Award, 1984, Mark Rydell's The River
• Nomination, Academy Award, 2006, The Black Dahlia.
• Lifetime Achievement Award, 1999, from the American Society of Cinematographers

References

External links

• Vilmos Zsigmond at the Internet Movie Database
• Internet Encyclopedia of Cinematographers profile
• Budapest Cinematographers MasterClass's Master
• Sulinet-Panteon (Hungarian)

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