If he’d only shot The Godfather, Annie Hall and Manhattan, Gordon Willis’s reputation would be secure as one of the visual artists responsible for Hollywood’s last golden age of artisanal filmmaking. But his other films were equally masterful–this was the man who also did Pennies from Heaven, Woody Allen’s wonderful run of 80s films (Zelig, The Purple Rose of Cairo, and Broadway Danny Rose) and Alan J. Pakula’s great trilogy of paranoid thrillers (The Parallax View, All the President’s Men and my personal favorite, Klute). His name was the last word in elegant, complex cinema, and a guarantee that, once the lights dimmed, images that thrilled and disturbed would not only be served–they’d haunt the viewer for days and weeks to come. That’s the mark of an artist; Gordon Willis’s work is for the ages. RIP.
