Gold for Gordon: Cinematographer Willis, part-time Florence resident, receives lifetime Oscar for film career
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NORTHAMPTON - Legendary Hollywood cinematographer Gordon Willis, a part-time Florence resident, was nominated for an Academy Award twice before he finally walked away with one this week - though he'd never before attended a ceremony.
"It's extremely expensive," he said in a telephone interview Tuesday from his primary residence in Falmouth. "They don't pay for anything."
Not to mention that all the Hollywood hype and fluff is just not his cup of tea.
"He's not a West Coaster... He's a very low-key kind of guy. It took some encouragement to get him to go and to commit himself," said his son, Tim Willis, of Florence. "It's not his thing. He's an artist and he loves making films. What it's associated with is not what he likes."
After some coaxing from his family, Willis, his wife Helen, and their three children, including Tim, were on hand for a special Academy Awards ceremony Saturday in Los Angeles. Willis was honored with a coveted lifetime achievement award. Also honored with career awards at the Academy of Motion Picture's Governor's Awards were movie industry greats Lauren Bacall, Roger Corman and John Calley.
Willis is certainly in the "greats" category. Films that bear his signature read like they should be on a list of the best movies from the '70s and '80s. Notable among them are "All the President's Men," the "Godfather" trilogy and 10 years worth of Woody Allen films. He also worked on "Malice," a 1993 film shot in Northampton.
The Boston Globe Saturday described Willis' long career in motion pictures this way: "few people alive have so fundamentally affected the movies - have so influenced their appearance - as the cinematographer Gordon Willis. So fundamentally or so variously: The warm and sinister earth tones of the 'Godfather' pictures could hardly be more different from the toxic fluorescent blues of 'All the President's Men' (1976) or the lustrous black and white of 'Manhattan' (1979). And that's not counting how Willis made the daunting technical gymnastics of 'Zelig' (1983) seem as effortless as screwing in a lightbulb."
Willis himself called the five-hour event, convened in a ballroom not far from the Kodak Theater where the Academy Awards ceremony will be held March 7, "very pleasant, very exciting and very tiring."
Retirement years
Willis has been retired from the industry for about 10 years, though he says it feels sometimes like he's busier in retirement then when his career was in full gear.
"But the difference is," he said, "I don't have to do anything."
He spends a great deal of time with his five grandchildren, and in fact, maintains a second home on Bridge Road in Northampton so he can spend time with Tim Willis' two children, who are 14 and 19.
"He hasn't missed a birthday yet," said Tim Willis. "It does keep him busy."
He also frequently speaks at various forums, as he will this weekend during a retrospective at Harvard. Several years ago, he lectured at several events at the Northampton Independent Film Festival, said Tim Willis.
A long and storied career
Willis said his 45-year career began with an avant-garde film, "The End of the Road," and went on to include 31 films. His first really big break came with the first "Godfather" film in 1972.
Before this year, he was nominated for Academy Awards, though he didn't win, for his work on "Zelig" and "Godfather III."
"This one is better because it's for a body of work," he said.
When he got the call about a month ago informing him he would be honored, he was taken aback, in part because he's been retired for about 10 years.
"I was surprised. I sort of put that all out of my mind," said Willis, who is 78.
He says he doesn't have a particular favorite movie, but rather there are "pieces of movies that I like a lot," though if pressed, he guesses "Godfather II" and "Manhattan" would rank among his favorites.
"It's not really right to name two, but they're two movies that were well done and people enjoy watching," he said.
He said he tends not to watch his own movies except every now and then, if he's been talking about something within a movie and he wants to refresh his memory of a passage. He says he remains objective about his own work.
"It's fun if it's done well, if I don't get upset about something I should have done but didn't do," he said. "Perfection becomes a state of mind after a while. If you get hooked into this thing about perfection, you can keep chasing your own tail. I'm basically satisfied."
Asked about his favorite director, he says it's hard to choose. Sometimes, he said, even if working with a director wasn't the greatest experience for any number of reasons, an excellent movie resulted from the collaboration.
"As a person just doing a day's work, I think I enjoyed working with Woody the most," he said, referring to Woody Allen. "It was like working with your hands in your pockets. It's not a huge strain, it's very pleasant."
As for the legendary stories of difficult Hollywood personalities, well, Willis takes that all in stride.
"Anyone that is any good is difficult," he said. "If you want to get what you want or you want it right, you're difficult. I was difficult."
Indeed, a toast made by Caleb Deschanel, for whom Willis was a mentor, offered glimpses of that, according to the New York Times. Willis referred to other cinematographers who he believed had a tendency to use too much light as "flamethrowers," and he said some directors who gave editors reams of film to edit as "dump trucks."
"My dad was never shy about criticizing the movie industry and the movie studios," conceded Tim Willis. And while his frankness may have held him back at times through his career, in the end, it didn't matter because he was so talented.
The ceremony included a video tribute from Woody Allen and Francis Ford Coppola, which showed the high esteem his father was held in, no matter how outspoken he sometimes was.
Woody Allen, he said, talked about how much he learned from Willis, and over the course of the evening, he said, celebrities like Tom Hanks, Alec Baldwin, Warren Beatty, Annette Bening and others greeted him warmly, asking where his father was. It was clear he had many admirers.
"My dad was brilliant - I'm glad the Academy finally came forward," he said. Of the evening, he said, he's still marveling at the surreal nature of it.
"I was flattered by how people received him and the applause and the standing ovation. I'm still taken aback by the immensity of it," Tim Willis said.
