ASC Fetes Zsigmond, Rotunno, Altman, Mayer And Miyagishima With Special Achievement Awards
The American Society of Cinematographers (ASC) presented Vilmos Zsigmond, ASC, with the Lifetime Achievement Award; Giuseppe Rotunno, ASC, with the International Achievement Award; Robert Altman with the Board of Governors Award; and Albert Mayer and Tak Miyagishima with the Presidentís Award Sunday night February 21 at the 13th Annual ASC Outstanding Achievement Awards gala at the Century Plaza Hotel. Marlene and I covered the awards gala as guests of the ASC. This is a fabulous black tie and evening dress annual affair honoring the worldís finest filmmakers. Laszlo Kovacs, ASC presented the 1999 Lifetime Achievement Award to his lifelong colleague Vilmos Zsigmond, ASC. Zsigmond and Kovacs were film students in Hungary. They became political expatriates in 1956 after an uprising against the communist regime failed. Legendary actress-director Liv Ullmann presented the International Achievement Award to Giuseppe Rotunno, ASC, AIC. The 1999 ASC Board of Governors Award was presented to Robert Altman by director Mark Rydell. Tak Miyagishima and Albert Mayer received the ASC Presidentís Award from Victor J. Kemper, president of the organization. ASC also presented its first annual Heritage Award to two young filmmakers, Jonah Torreano, a graduate of Art Center College of Design, and Lisa Wiegand, a UCLA masterís alum. The presentation was made by Conrad Hall, ASC, who won the first ASC student scholarship award in 1950. The following is a brief biographical profile of the Special Achievement Award-Winners. Vilmos Zsigmond, ASC Zsigmond earned an OscarÆ in 1977 for his work on the landmark film Close Encounters Of The Third Kind. There were other Oscar nominations in 1978 for The Deer Hunter, which also received the British version of the Academy AwardÆ, and in 1984 for The River. In 1992, Zsigmond earned an Emmy and an ASC Award for his visualization of the mini-series Stalin. Other films in his body of work include McCabe & Mrs. Miller, Deliverance, The Sugarland Express, The Long Goodbye, The Last Waltz, The Rose, The Witches Of Eastwick, Maverick and The Ghost And The Darkness. Zsigmond joins an elite group of ASC Lifetime Achievement Award recipients, consisting of George Folsey, ASC, Phil Lathrop, ASC, Stanley Cortez, ASC, Charles B. Lang, Jr., ASC, Joe Biroc, ASC, Haskell Wexler, ASC, Conrad Hall, ASC, Gordon Willis, ASC, Sven Nykvist, ASC, Owen Roizman, ASC and Victor Kemper, ASC. Zsigmond was born and raised in Szeged, Hungary. When the Nazis occupied his native land, Zsigmond migrated to the U.S. as a political refugee in January 1957. He spent time in a refugee camp in New Jersey, and worked briefly in Chicago, before moving to Los Angeles hoping to find a job in the film industry. Later in the 1960s, Zsigmond made his mark as one of several ""new wave"" TV commercial cinematographers, who discovered and refined the use of long lenses, soft light and filters. He ultimately brought those skills and a new, unstylized look to U.S. movies. His first mainstream film was The Hired Hand, directed by and featuring Peter Fonda in 1971. That same year, Robert Altman asked Zsigmond to shoot McCabe & Mrs. Miller. While shooting that extraordinary movie, Zsigmond pioneered the idea of ""pre-flashing"" (or pre-exposing) the film a sufficient amount to alter the contrast level and craft a look which evoked the emotional response that Altman wanted. A year later, Zsigmond shot Deliverance with director John Boorman. ""I only have one rule,"" Zsigmond says. ""You only have time to make so many films in your life. If a movie doesnít say something of value, I donít think it is worth making."" Giuseppe Rotunno, ASC, AIC Rotunno, ASC, AIC, received the International Achievement Award, presented periodically to a cinematographer who is not a U.S. citizen, in recognition of exceptional artistic achievements. Rotunno joins a distinguished list of recipients, including Freddie Francis, Raoul Coutard, Henri Alekan, Gabriel Figueroa, Jack Cardiff and Freddie Young. Rotunno has compiled some 80 narrative credits. He has frequently collaborated with Federico Fellini, Vittorio De Sica, Luchino Visconti and other Italian neo-realists. His work with Visconti includes Rocco And His Brothers and The Leopard. Rotunno shot eight of Felliniís films including Roma, Amarcord, Casanova and City Of Women. His other credits include Carnal Knowledge, Man Of La Mancha, On The Beach, Regarding Henry, The Adventures Of Baron Munchausen and Sabrina. Rotunno earned his only Oscar nomination in 1979 for All that Jazz. Rotunno was among the first foreign nationals to become a member of ASC. Many others have followed in his footsteps. Rotunno was born in Rome in 1923. He began working as an apprentice in a photo lab on the Cinecitta studio lot in Rome when he was 17. On Sundays, the owner of the lab loaned him a Leica camera. Rotunno wondered around Rome taking pictures, and learning how to tell stories with images one frame at a time. Arthur Bragaglia, a still photographer on the studio lot, mentored Rotunno and allowed him to take pictures on sets. That led to an opportunity for Rotunno to work on motion picture crews. In 1954, he was the camera operator on a Visconti film called Senso, when the cinematographer, G. R. Aldo, was killed in an auto accident. Rotunno earned his first credit on that film. Many other milestones mark Rotunnoís career. In 1987, he became one of the first cinematographers to photograph a narrative film, Julia And Julia, in HDTV format. In 1989, he photographed Leonardo's Dream, a narrative story in Showscan format (65 mm film produced at 60 frames per second). Rotunno is currently teaching cinematography at the state film school in Rome. ""I tell my students to study art, history, geography, everything,"" he says. ""You need everything you can learn in a lifetime to make a two-hour movie."" Robert Altman Altman received the Board of Governors Award for his unique contributions toward advancing the art of filmmaking. Altmanís films as a director include such classics as That Cold Day In The Park, Brewster McCloud, M*A*S*H, McCabe & Mrs. Miller, California Split, The Long Goodbye, Nashville, Streamers, The Player and Short Cuts. He has earned Oscar nominations for directing Nashville, M*A*S*H, The Player and Short Cuts, and another for producing Nashville. Previous recipients of the Board of Governors award include Francis Ford Coppola, Robert Wise, Steven Spielberg and Martin Scorsese, Jodie Foster, Kay Kanin, Sheldon Leonard and Charles Champlin. Altman was born and raised in Kansas City, where he was educated at Jesuit schools. He served as a bomber pilot during the final years of World War II. After the war, he studied engineering at the University of Missouri and tried his hand at writing screen stories. Altman collaborated on writing the story that provided the basis for The Bodyguard in 1948. He spent the following decade writing, directing and producing 16 mm corporate films for the Calvin Company, in Kansas City. Altman finally broke through in 1957, when he wrote, produced and directed an independent feature called The Delinquents. He spent the next decade directing episodic TV (Bonanza) and anthology films (Alfred Hitchcock Presents, Kraft Suspense Theater, etc.). Before there were fast color films, fast lenses, and lightweight cameras, Steadicams and other devices for mobility, Altman improvised in such movies as Once Upon A Savage Night by using a high-speed Ektachrome film that Kodak made for NASA. It enabled him and the cinematographer to record color images and get the texture they wanted. A wheelchair was used to get the bumpy tracking shots. That spirit of innovation has permeated Altmanís films. Altman also won the Palme díOr award at the Cannes International Film Festival, for M*A*S*H, which was both a stunning critical success and smash hit at the box-office. Albert Mayer And Tak Miyagishima Mayer and Miyagishima received the Presidents Award. Miyagishima is Senior Vice President, Engineering, and Mayer is Senior Vice President, Research and Development for Panavision. The Presidentís Award is presented to individuals who have made exceptional contributions to advancing the art of filmmaking. Former recipients include visual effects pioneers Linwood Dunn and Hans F. Koenekamp, film preservationist Kemp Niver, ASC, cinematographer Bill Clothier, ASC, Douglas Trumbull and actor Robert Duvall. Miyagishima joined Panavision as a draftsman in 1955 only a few months after Robert Gottschalk founded the company. Mayer was hired as an engineer in 1968. Originally, Panavision manufactured and sold lenses to exhibitors, which enabled them to project movies in the CinemaScope format. The company subsequently segued into designing and manufacturing lenses for motion picture cameras. Panavision developed a series of auto Panatar lenses designed for producing movies in the widescreen anamorphic format. It quickly began a standard format for widescreen movies at all of the major studios except Fox, which remained committed to CinemaScope. ""Our lenses had a counter rotating element which could be adjusted for close-ups,"" Miyagishima recalls. ""That was an important feature because actors and actresses tended to look like they had fat faces on CinemaScope close-ups. In 1965, Mark Robson (director) prevailed on Fox to allow Bill Daniels, ASC to use the auto Panatar lenses on Von Ryanís Express. That was a great day at Panavision."" Mayer worked briefly for The Mitchell Camera Company before joining Panavision. ""The Mitchell BNC cameras were the standard in the industry for 40 to 50 years, but many cinematographers felt they were too cumbersome for location work. They also wanted reflex viewing."" The Panavision PSR camera introduced in 1968 was a highly modified version of the Mitchell BNC camera. The first Panaflex camera was introduced in 1974. The ASC Outstanding Achievement Awards were inaugurated in 1986 to recognize and inspire artistic and innovative cinematography in narrative filmmaking. This is one of the few, if not the only, major competition for cinematography where peers perform the selection of nominees and winners. ASC was founded in 1919 for the purpose of advancing the art and craft of cinematography. Membership is by invitation based on the individualís body of narrative film work. The organization has some 210 members who are active cinematographers, and about 100 associate members who work in allied sectors of the film industry. Miyagishima and Mayer are the first associate members to receive the ASC Presidents Award. For additional information about the ASC, visit the website at www.cinematographer.com.