GORDON WILLIS   ASC

Born: 28 May 1931, Astoria, New York City, N.Y., USA. His father was a make-up man at the Warner Bros. Studio in Brooklyn, New York, during the 1930's.

Career: 'My father was a make-up man at Warner Brothers during the depression. I sort of grew up around show business; my father and mother were dancers in the theater before he settled down at Warner... lucky break, during the depression. At any rate, I wanted to be an actor as a kid. I grew out of it, got interested in stage design and lighting [summer stock and all that] but never really got into it before I got the photo bug, which cost my father a lot of money. I knew a few young models when we lived in the Village in New York; I'd shoot pictures of them so they had something to put on a composite. I was going to be a fashion photographer! I didn't know shit, [I was] dumber than dirt, as they say. No money, no jobs etc. Meanwhile my father had some friends that got me some jobs as a go-fer on some movies that were passing through.'

During the Korean War, he spent four years in the Air Force on a motion picture unit photographing instructional films. After the war, in 1956, Willis returned to New York, where he worked as a freelance assistant cameraman. The TV industry was undergoing vigorous growth, and New York was a creative focal point for commercial production. There was also much creative work being done in the documentary genre. 'In those days, you could cross back and forth between operating on commercials and shooting documentaries, and in my opinion there was no better way to learn,' Willis says. [From the ASC website.]

Retired in the late 1990s: "You don't want to keep breathing the same air. As for the business in general, I got tired of trying to get actors out of trailers, and standing in the rain. I shoot stills for my own pleasure. I've lectured on occasion, and did teach some classes. I always enjoy a good movie. My eyesight, however, is now failing. Ironic, I guess. I just have to watch out for fireplugs and telephone poles on the street."

Ph commercials.

Member of the ASC since 1975.

His son, Gordon Willis Jr., is a dir & ph of commercials.

Appeared in the doc's 'Visions of Light: The Art of Cinematography' [1991], 'To Woody Allen, From Europe with Love' [1980, André Delvaux; ph: Walther Vanden Ende & Michel Baudour], 'The Godfather Family: A Look Inside' [1991, Jeff Werner; 73m], 'Easy Riders, Raging Bulls: How the Sex, Drugs and Rock 'N' Roll Generation Saved Hollywood' [2002, Kenneth Bowser; ph: Paul Mailman; 119m] & 'Cinematographer Style' [2005, Jon Fauer; ph: J. Fauer, Jeff Laszlo, Brian Heller & David Morgan].

Awards: As doph: NSFC Award [1975] for 'The Godfather, Part II'; NSFC Award [1975] for 'The Parallax View'; BAFTA Film Award nom [1977] for 'All the President's Men'; BAFTA Film Award nom [1980] for 'Manhattan'; NSFC Award [1982] and BSFC Award [1982] for 'Pennies from Heaven'; NYFCC Award [1983], 'Oscar' AA nom [1984] and BAFTA Film Award nom [1984] for 'Zelig'; 'Oscar' AA nom [1991] and ASC Award nom [1991] for 'The Godfather, Part III'; ASC Lifetime Achievement Award [1995]; AMPAS Governors Award - Honorary 'Oscar' [2009].

As dir: 'Razzie Award Worst Director' nom [1981] for 'Windows'.

Gordon Willis was on the leading edge of a New Wave of cinematographers who were changing the art form in radical ways. In 'The Godfather', he selectively masked Marlon Brando's eyes to conceal his thoughts from the audience. "I still can't believe the reactions," he says. "People said, 'You can't see his eyes [Brando's].' Well, you didn't see his eyes in 10 percent of the movie, and there was a reason why. I remember asking, 'Why do you have to see his eyes in that scene? Based on what?' Do you know what the answer was? 'That's the way it was done in Hollywood.' That's not a good enough reason. There were times when we didn't want the audience to see what was going on in there [Brando's eyes], and then suddenly, you let them see into his soul for a while." Willis was different in other ways. He was an outsider who lived on the East Coast, and did most of his best work there. He was also was an outspoken advocate for the creative role that cinematographers play in the collaborative art of filmmaking at a time when most of his peers believed it was prudent to stay in the background. One veteran cinematographer from that period candidly admits, "I would have been fired if I lit the way Gordon did. The studios wanted to always see the actor's eyes, and they didn't want windows blown out, or flaring lights." [From the ASC website.]

At a time in film history when cinematographers are receiving an unprecedented amount of attention and credit for their contributions to the art of filmmaking, Gordon Willis has emerged as one of the screen's most gifted and creative cameramen. Working closely with his directors, Willis manages in film after film to create a visual style that is uniquely suited to the story's thematic intentions. His work on such widely varied films as 'The Godfather', 'Annie Hall', 'All the President's Men', and 'Zelig' has helped establish him as a cinematographer able to translate a director's vision into a physical reality while still planting his own particular stamp on a film's visual style.

The son of a Hollywood makeup man, Willis initially considered a career as an actor before an early interest in photography and the theater led him into behind-the-scenes jobs involving scenery and stage lighting. After a brief stint working on documentaries and television commercials, Willis began his career as a cinematographer on feature films with 'End of the Road', and was soon earning critical acclaim for his work on such films as 'Klute', 'All the President's Men' and the first two 'Godfather' films. In each of these pictures, the photography takes its cue from the mood of the story.

'Klute', a hard-edged psychological thriller, has a chilly, dark, claustrophobic style, while 'All the President's Men' shifts between the bright fluorescent lights of the Washington Post newsroom to the shadowy settings of Woodward and Bernstein's meetings with the informant known as 'Deep Throat'. The 'Godfather' films make use of muted colors, richly photographed and darkly lit, to evoke the secretive, somber atmosphere of the criminal underworld. 'The Godfather, Part II' contrasts this style with the sunny scenes of Vito Corleone's childhood in Sicily and the golden and sepia tones of his days as a young immigrant in New York City.

Willis was not nominated for a cinematography 'Oscar' until 'Zelig' in 1984. It is an oversight that has been a source of great controversy, with Willis's admirers maintaining that his resolutely east coast-based career has led the Hollywood establishment to snub him as an outsider. [Willis: "The studio system was beginning to buckle, but I think it’s more like 'A Man For All Seasons'. All of us came along at the right time and did what we wanted to do. And it wasn't easy - management, and many in the old school hated us, me especially (since) I didn't live in California."]

'Annie Hall' began Willis's long and mutually profitable collaboration with Woody Allen, who has utilized the cinematographer's talents on eight films so far. The pair's most remarkable collaborative achievement is 'Zelig', Allen's fictional mock-documentary. Imitating the style and tone of early newsreels, Allen and Willis 'aged' their own film stock by scratching and marking its surface, matching their footage seamlessly with actual newsreels from the 1920s and 1930s. In several astonishing shots, Willis superimposes Allen's character, Leonard Zelig, onto the older footage, creating the impression that Zelig is actually a part of the newsreels and is conversing with well-known historical figures.

Willis has directed a film of his own, 'Windows', which drew mixed notices, but his true talents lie in his ability to translate a director's concepts into precise and compelling visual terms. He has stated that his job is to "make movies with directors . . . ultimately it's their idea that I'm executing." In Willis's case, however, the execution is often one of the most creative aspects of the film itself. [From article by Janet Lorenz, updated by David Levine.]