2016 at the Movies: farewells

THE HIRED HAND
Vilmos Zsigmond photographed THE HIRED HAND

Vilmos Zsigmond: He was known as a champion of natural light in filmmaking, a major contribution that he and fellow Hungarian László Kovács brought to Hollywood in the late 1960s. Zsigmond shot The Deer Hunter, Deliverance and Close Encounters of the Third Kind,and was nominated for four Oscars, winning for Close Encounters.  Read my Vilmos Zsigmond remembrance for recommendations on one of his overlooked masterpieces and a film ABOUT his art, along with several of his striking film images and a link to an excellent essay by Sheila O’Malley.

 

George Kennedy (left) in COOL HAND LUKE
George Kennedy (left) in COOL HAND LUKE

George Kennedy:  Won his Oscar for Cool Hand Luke (remember the bet on eating boiled eggs?).   Kennedy’s performances were essential elements of The Dirty Dozen, The Eiger Sanction and one of my guilty pleasures, Bandolero!  He labored in episodic TV for years until the mid 1960s when he triumphed in those singular supporting roles in war movies, cop movies and Westerns.   His career peaked throughout the mid 1970s, when he was cast in all of the big disaster movies.

 

Alan Rickman in EYE IN THE SKY
Alan Rickman in EYE IN THE SKY

Alan Rickman, the reliable British actor most well-known for playing Snape in the Harry Pottter movies, left us a supremely textured performance in this year’s Eye in the Sky, layered with the character’s wry humor, contained frustration and quiet determination.

 

Gene Wilder (left) in YOUNG FRANKENSTEIN
Gene Wilder (left) in YOUNG FRANKENSTEIN

Gene Wilder:  Star of perhaps the funniest movie of all-time, The Producers.  And star and  CO-WRITER of another comedy classic, Young Frankenstein.

 

Frank Finlay in THE THREE MUSKETEERS
Frank Finlay in THE THREE MUSKETEERS

Frank Finlay:  The British character actor had 137 screen credits, but was talented enough to earn an Oscar nod for  playing Iago to Laurence Olivier’s Othello.  As recently as 2002, he played the father in The Pianist.  But I am a huge fan of Richard Lester’s immensely entertaining The Three Musketeers (1973) and The Four Musketeers (1974), and Finlay’s Porthos was a major ingredient in the fun.

Abe Vigoda: We remember him for one of The Godfather’s most unforgettable lines, “Luca Brasi sleeps with the fishes”.

Jacques Rivette: The prolific French director with one great masterpiece, La Belle Noiseuse (1991); that movie is almost four hours long, yet transfixing.

Robert Vaughn: The icy actor left a body of work with 226 screen credits, mostly on television. He was nominated for a Supporting Actor Oscar for The Young Philadelphians, but I think his most enduring feature film role was as one of The Magnificent Seven.  Of course, for us Baby Boomers, Vaughn will always be remembered as Napoleon Solo in the Bond spy spoof The Man from U.N.C.L.E., which absolutely dominated television briefly in the mid-1960s.

Leon Russell: The band leader in the groundbreaking concert movies Mad Dogs and Englishmen and The Concert for Bangladesh.   (The Concert for Bangladesh, organized by George Harrison, was the first big benefit concert with a collection of mega-stars.)  You can enjoy lots of unfiltered 1972-74 Leon, both on- and off-stage in the documentary A Poem is a Naked Person.

Jacques Rivette's LA BELLE NOISEUSE
Jacques Rivette’s LA BELLE NOISEUSE

Movies to See Right Now

Leonardo DiCaprio in THE REVENANT
Leonardo DiCaprio in THE REVENANT

I’ve now seen ’em all and my list of Best Movies of 2015 is now complete – you can see five of these in theaters this week:

  • The Revenant, an awesome and authentic survival tale that must be seen on the BIG SCREEN.
  • Creed, the newest and entirely fresh chapter in the Rocky franchise; it’s about the internal struggle of three people, not just The Big Fight.
  • The Irish romantic drama Brooklyn is an audience-pleaser with a superb performance by Saoirse Ronan.
  • Spotlight – a riveting, edge-of-your-seat drama with some especially compelling performances.
  • The Big Short – a supremely entertaining thriller – both funny and anger-provoking.
  • (a sixth top film, 45 Years, will be released in the Bay Area in two weeks.)

Two more choices:

  • The Hateful Eight, a Quentin Tarantino showcase for Samuel L. Jackson, Walton Goggins and Jennifer Jason Leigh, but a movie that’s not for everyone.
  • Carol – a vividly told tale of forbidden love.

I’m not a fan of Joy or The Danish Girl.

My DVDs of the Week celebrate the late cinematographer Vilmos Zsigmond. The Hired Hand is one of his overlooked masterpieces. Visions of Light is a documentary about his art of cinematography. Both are available on Netflix DVDs.

On January 21, Turner Classic Movies is playing Pushover, one of my Overlooked Noir. An amoral cop (Fred MacMurray) decides that, if he can double cross BOTH the other cops and the criminal, he can wind up with the loot AND the gangster’s girlfriend (“Introducing Kim Novak”).

DVDs of the Week: celebrating a master of cinematography

THE HIRED HAND
THE HIRED HAND

The great cinematographer Vilmos Zsigmond died last week at 85.  He was known as a champion of natural light in filmmaking, a major contribution that he and fellow Hungarian László Kovács brought to Hollywood in the late 1960s.  Zsigmond shot The Deer Hunter, Deliverance and Close Encounters of the Third Kind.  He was nominated for four Oscars, and won for Close Encounters.

Zsigmond shot The Sugarland Express, Steven Spielberg’s first theatrical feature (Duel was a TV movie) and worked with directors Robert Altman, Woody Allen, Brian De Palma and even Jack Nicholson (The Two Jakes).  Yet he may best known among cinephiles for his groundbreaking and artistically risky work in McCabe & Mrs. Miller and Heaven’s Gate (two movies that I otherwise don’t care for).   He was even on the all-star camera crew for the prototype concert movie The Last Waltz.

To celebrate Zsigmond, this week I am recommending two DVDs – one of his overlooked masterpieces and a film ABOUT his art.  First, there’s the 1971 Western directed by Peter Fonda, The Hired Hand. This is a moody, captivating and underrated film – and it looks great, thanks to Zsigmond.  The Hired Hand is available on DVD from Netflix.

Second, Zsgimond is one of the artists discussing the art of cinematography in the excellent 1992 documentary Visions of Light; it’s a Must Watch for movie fans. Visions of Light is also available on Netflix DVD. Zsigmond also appears in the fine documentary on 1970s auteur-driven cinema Easy Riders, Raging Bulls: How the Sex, Drugs and Rock ‘N’ Roll Generation Saved Hollywood.

I recommend this fine piece from Sheila O’Malley on Zsigmond, along with the excellent links contained therein.

Scroll down this page for some samples of Vilmos Zsigmond’s imagery.

THE HIRED HAND
THE HIRED HAND
HEAVEN'S GATE
HEAVEN’S GATE
CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE THIRD KIND
CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE THIRD KIND
THE DEER HUNTER
THE DEER HUNTER
THE DEER HUNTER
THE DEER HUNTER
DELIVERANCE
DELIVERANCE