Gordon Willis

American cinematographer and film director

Gordon Hugh Willis Jr., (May 28, 1931 – May 18, 2014) was an American cinematographer and film director. He is best known for his photographic work on eight Woody Allen films (including Annie Hall and Manhattan), six Alan J. Pakula films (including All the President's Men), four James Bridges films, and all three films from Francis Ford Coppola's The Godfather series. 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.

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 mimimalist. 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). 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". saying of him: "He's an artist. He's got a great sense of humor he taught me a lot."

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."

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."

Year Award Category Title Result Ref. 1972 National Society of Film Critics Best Cinematography The Godfather 1974 The Godfather Part IIThe Parallax View 1976 British Academy Film Awards Best Cinematography All the Presidents Men 1979 Manhattan 1979 National Society of Film Critics Best Cinematography 1981 New York Film Critics Circle Best Cinematography Pennies from Heaven 1981 National Society of Film Critics Best Cinematography 1981 Boston Society of Film Critics Best Cinematography 1983 New York Film Critics Circle Best Cinematography Zelig 1983 National Society of Film Critics Best Cinematography 1983 British Academy Film Awards Best Cinematography Best Visual Effects 1984 Academy Awards Best Cinematography 1991 Best Cinematography The Godfather Part III 1990 American Society of Cinematographers Outstanding Cinematography 1991 Chicago Film Critics Association Best Cinematography 1995 American Society of Cinematographers Life Achievement Awards 2009 Academy Award Honorary Academy Award