being under a regime, terrible things happened. we were studying cinematography. being in the film school was like an island of the craziness. i grew up in new jersey. my family was sentimental about beautiful pictures, a beautiful script. we saw every film you ever shot and talked about them at the dinner table. these were important. this has got to look pretty close to the way it did in the old day, right? oh, yeah. didn t change much. through it all for vilmos was this place, however. a very special place for a boy growing up during wartime. the moviehouse where he saw his first films. what memorable films did you see in this theater? [ speaking german ] my probably best experience
richie s wife maria, daughter judith, vilmos wife susan, friends and family reunite for the best of simple pleasures. we start with a rich carroway and onion and paprika soup finished with homemade croutons and there s a deeply rich and deeply warming beef stew with smoked pork sausage for good measure and cooked for hours and, of course, heavy on the paprika, traditional cucumber salad. to accompany the stew, boiled dumplings. our style in photography was not realist. it s poetic realist. that s what we always thought about that certain photography,
new best friend, who would also become a cinematographer, laszlo koufax. then in 1956, something amazing happened. hated emblems of red tyranny went down as hungarian patriots for ten glorious days sent armored russians which pitted rifles against tanks. few blocks away, where the statue of stalin used to be under the first night, actually, when the revolution started, the people wanted to take the statue down. it took about a couple of hours, actually, to cut mr. stalin s legs off. and naturally, the next day, people took pieces home as a souvenir. to date, this was something that had never been done. the hungarians took to the streets. a revolution. that s when vilmos and laszlo
but i must say that under this whole four years, the happiest part of my life was i was learning. so i fell in love, immediately. in fact, some of vilmos most powerful and world-changing footage occurred around this time, before leaving hungary, as a film student during the outbreak of revolution. but we ll get to that later.
vilmos zigma. legendary cinematographer. if you don t know his name, you sure as hell know his work. the oscar-winning close encounters. the deer hunter. his absolutely evolutionary work on mccabe and mrs. miller. the long good-bye. deliverance. he created a whole new palette, took crazy risks, changed film language in ways people still try to imitate. and he s making our camera crew very nervous, i can tell you. you taught yourself to shoot. basically, i always tried to use my father s kodak camera. my luck is i became sick with kidney disease. i was in bed for a month and an uncle of mine gave me a book about a great photographer.