Vilmos Zsigmondís Acceptance Speech For Lifetime Achievement Award At The 13th Annual ASC Awards
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. Thank you ASC! Thank you Laszlo! This award means so much to me, especially because tonight, in this room, are so many people who helped me in the past years ñ and I feel that I share this honor with them. As Laszlo already mentioned, I came to America as a political refugee, I spoke no English and had no connections to the Hollywood industry. But, I knew that I wanted to photograph important, artistic films. During the years, I worked towards my goal. I was lucky ñ I had Laszloís friendship and support, and help from other generous people, so I was not really alone. On one occasion, I was shooting a real low budget, a sort of no-budget film on a street in Burbank. Two reps from Eastman Kodak showed up on the set, Les Baker and Fred Godfrey to find out if I needed any help from them. They asked me where my crew was. I told them HE WAS OUT FOR LUNCH! Laszlo was my whole crew: my gaffer, my grip, and my camera assistant! What made this memorable for me was that Les and Fred told me they had come that day to meet the cameramen of the future! This little episode in my life encouraged me to feel that I was part of a larger film community. After I completed one of my first feature films, Futz, Haskell Wexler approached me after a screening and told me he liked my work and offered his help in the future if I needed it. I had always admired Haskellís work and I was really touched that he took the trouble to encourage an unknown struggling cameraman. Some of my first features were credited to WILLIAM Zsigmond, because some people had trouble pronouncing my name. I'll always he grateful to Peter Fonda who directed Hired Hand in 1971 for giving me my Hungarian name back. Then there was the time when Herb Lightman visited the set of Deliverance in Tollulah Gorge in Georgia and broke his camera, lost his wallet in the river and came back to write an article. Iíll never forget the first time my name appeared in American Cinematographer magazine, with Herbís feature story and photos. I was very fortunate to begin my career in the seventies, when so many talented directors were pioneering a new style of filmmaking. It allowed us cinematographers to break rules, to experiment, to take risks. Some people now are calling this period a GOLDEN AGE of filmmaking, probably because we were discovering ways to make movies more relevant to the important social changes happening then. I miss that kind of awareness in films today. I was lucky during this period to work with Robert Altman and Mark Rydell, as well as Brian de Palma, Steven Spielberg, Jerry Schatzberg, Michael Cimino, among others... I came to this country with the desire to find work as a cinematographer, but I found much more! I found a community of people who shared my enthusiasm, problems, distant locations, local celebrations, disappointments, successes -- I found a home! Within this community that we call Hollywood, there are so many innovative, creative professionals. Not all of their names appear in the list of credits in the theatre. Without contributions made by Phil Radin at Panavision, Phil Hetos at Deluxe, Don Henderson at Kodak, my friends at Tiffen, Technicolor, Fotokem, Leonard Chapman and all the others, I could never have accomplished my workÖÖ And of course my thanks go to the ASC members and to the ASC awards committee, headed by Bud Stone. This is a night Iíll never forget. Thank you. For additional information, visit the ASC website at www.cinematographer.com.