We're dimming the marquee and the lights at the concession stand this evening in honour of the great László Kovács, one of the two great Hungarian cinematographers who were central to the great look of seventies American films (the other being his lifelong friend Vilmos Zsigmond).We could do a week of solid double-bills comprised purely of films shot by Kovács - Shampoo & Psych-Out, Five Easy Pieces & The King of Marvin Gardens, Easy Rider & The Last Movie (!), The Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living and Became Mixed-Up Zombies & Ghostbusters, Freebie and the Bean & Targets! Plus he did additional photography on The Last Waltz, Close Encounters and Blow Out!
On top of this, Kovács and Zsigmond were in their graduate year of film school in Budapest when the 1956 uprising took place - together they shot footage of the attacks with borrowed equipment and escaped with the footage to Austria! This footage is incorporated into a recent documentary about Hungary in '56, Kovács' final DP credit.
1 comment:
What an unbelieveably great list of credits he had. An original from a time that's sadly very long gone.
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