Oscar-winning cinematographer Vilmos Zsigmond, revered as one of the most influential cinematographers in film history for his work on several classic films, including “Close Encounters of the Third Kind” and “The Deer Hunter,” died Friday. He was 85.
The Hungarian-born Zsigmond died in Big Sur, Calif., from “a combination of many illnesses,” said his business partner Yuri Neyman.
Among Zsigmond’s most noteworthy achievements was his Oscar-winning photography on 1977’s “Close Encounters of the Third Kind,” written and directed by Steven Spielberg. In a 1998 interview with the Los Angeles Times, Zsigmond revealed that making that film was difficult because “we were breaking new ground.”
“Before ‘Close Encounters,’ there were some space movies about spaceships, but nothing really that great technically that we could follow,” he said. “So we had to invent.”
Part of that process involved managing Spielberg’s requests for bigger lighting effects: “He kept always telling me, ‘I want to see an incredible amount of light coming out of the spaceship.’ So we had to figure out a way to do that.”