Monday, May 19, 2014

Gordon Willis (1931-2014)

The cinematographer Gordon Willis was an artist of natural light, remembered for the stunning, almost experimental contrast between sunlight and shadow in The Godfather. All the President's Men had a similar stark concept of light and darkness. Willis's contribution was substantial to the New Hollywood. The juicy realism of Annie Hall. The menace behind the mundane in The Parallax View.

http://variety.com/2014/film/news/the-godfather-cinematographer-gordon-willis-dies-at-82-1201185649/
http://gordonwillis.blogspot.fi/
http://hcl.harvard.edu/hfa/films/2009octdec/willis.html
http://www.deadline.com/2014/05/godfather-cinematographer-gordon-willis-dead/

PS. 20 May 2014
John Anderson in The New York Times, 19 May 2014
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/20/movies/gordon-willis-godfather-cinematographer-dies-at-82.html?hp&_r=0

Amy Kaufman in LA Times, 19 May 2014
http://www.latimes.com/local/obituaries/la-me-gordon-willis-20140520-story.html
"One night he and I were having dinner and somebody asked, 'What is it you both like?'" Willis told the Hollywood Reporter in 2009. "Woody answered, 'It's not really that we like the same things; we hate the same things!'"

In a statement, Allen said Willis was "one of the few people who truly lived up to all of the hype about him." Coppola was equally effusive in his own prepared comments Monday — though he acknowledged that Willis could be irritable.

"He was a brilliant, irascible man, a one of a kind," Coppola said. "My favorite description was that 'he ice-skated on the film emulsion.' I learned a lot from him.
"

Betsy Sharkey in LA Times, 19 May 2014
http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/movies/moviesnow/la-et-mn-gordon-willis-master-of-dark-and-light-column.html

Oliver Gettell in LA Times, 19 May 2014
http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/movies/moviesnow/la-et-mn-gordon-willis-dies-8-memorable-movies-20140519-story.html

Wikipedia in English
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gordon_Willis

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