Vilmos Zsigmond

Professional Trajectory

Vilmos Zsigmond (June 16, 1930 – January 1, 2016) was a Hungarian-American cinematographer born in Szeged, Hungary. After studying cinematography in Budapest, he left Hungary following the 1956 revolution and settled in the United States, where he shot low-budget features before becoming one of the defining cinematographers of the New Hollywood era. He won the Academy Award for Best Cinematography for Steven Spielberg's Close Encounters of the Third Kind and was nominated for The Deer Hunter, The River and The Black Dahlia. He worked repeatedly with Robert Altman, on McCabe & Mrs. Miller, Images and The Long Goodbye; with Brian De Palma, on Obsession, Blow Out, The Bonfire of the Vanities and The Black Dahlia; with Michael Cimino; and, late in his career, with Woody Allen.