American Cinematographer - May 1990 - 66

and all the news is about them,
how they made this picture and
...

they made that picture. I've always
taken a somewhat simpler view -
that the people down on the
soundstage make the pictures."
Brief information on the
ASC and Academy winners and
nominees in the field of cinematog¬

raphy:
ASC and

Academy Nominees

for Feature Motion Pictures
Haskell

Wexler, ASC

Blaze

Academy Nominee
and ASC Award Winner

After

a

World War II stint

in the Merchant

Marines, Haskell

Wexler

began his camera career in
Chicago by shooting hundreds of
industrial films and documenta¬
ries. His body of work is diverse
and extensive, including In the Heat

of the Night, Medium Cool, Latino,
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest,

Coming Home, and Colors.
Wexler earned Oscars for
his work on Who's Afraid of Virginia

Woolf and Bound for Glory. In 1988

Cinematographers
Honor Their Own

he was nominated by the ASC and
the Academy for Matewan. He was
an

amateur

cinematographer in his

teens and made his first

The

feature,

Savage Eye in 1959.
The shaping of the look of

Blaze was more of an evolution
than a design. "People talk about

by David Heuring
"You

are

the

ones

who make

mo¬

tion

pictures great. You are the
ones who turn
bickering into high
drama, gags and pratfalls into high
comedy, prose into poetry, you are
the ones who really make cinema
cinema. Without you, the only
people who would ask for my
autograph are my mother and fa¬
ther." So said James Woods during
his presentation of the Amercian
Society of Cinematographers Life¬
time

Achievement Award

to

"Night of the Tarantula" episode
Gayne

of Murder, She Wrote, while

Rescher, ASC took the honors in
the movie of the week or pilot cate¬
gory

for Single Women, Married

Men.

Also in the spotlight was
Linwood G. Dunn, ASC, who re¬
ceived an honorary award for his
immeasurable contributions to

Wexler saturated his colors with

cinematography and special visual

tors would be

gels on lights to draw attention to
the change.
To make certain

specta¬

to note Paul

sure

effects.

Newman's blue eyes,

Gregory Peck echoed
Woods' sentiments during his
acceptance of the first-ever Gover¬
nor's Award, presented in recogni¬
tion of his distinguished body of
work and the respect he has ex¬
tended to cinematographers

very small unit right over the lens
with cloth diffusion
instead of
the usual eye light. "Usually this
kind of light is used with photo

present to witness the event.
Singled out for the award in the
feature film category was Haskell

throughout his career: "These
days, you hear a lot about execu¬
tives who work for conglomerates

square,

American

May 1990

Stanley Cortez, ASC. The presen¬
tation took place at the Society's
Fourth Annual Awards for Out¬

standing Achievement in Cinema¬
tography at the Beverly Hilton
Hotel

March 25.
More than 600

on

guests,

celebrities and honorees

64

Wexler, ASC for his work on Blaze.
John Elsenbach, ASC won for the

preconceiving a look," Wexler
said. "That imposes unnecessary
limits. It's like a poet who sets
parameters where everything has
to be 14 lines ending in a couplet."
The photography of Blaze
enhanced the story in many subtle
ways that were transparent to the
audience. As the story evolved the
main character's career improved.
Her early nightclub work is of a
duller quality than later when

Cinematographer

were

Wexler used

a

-

enlargers. It is softer and lasts
longer than a photo floodlight.
Instead of looking round, it looks
like a window when it is
reflected in someone's eye," Wex¬
ler explains.
American Cinematographer - May 1990

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