Happy Birthday cinematographer Vilmos Zsigmond (1930–2016)

Born: June 16, 1930 in Szeged, Hungary

Died: January 1, 2016 (age 85) in Big Sur, California, USA

OSCAR Winner Best Cinematographer for Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977)

Also earned 3 other Oscar nominations.

QUOTES:

[on Heaven’s Gate (1980)] Michael [Cimino] really wanted to make a perfect film. He could have made this film for much less. He overdid it; he overcomplicated it. But they should not have killed him for it.

We had a terrible situation on “Close Encounters”, because they wanted to fire me several times. The only reason they didn’t was because they didn’t have a replacement who could take over.