Gordon Willis - Character of Work

Character of Work

Willis's work became celebrated for his ability to use shadow and underexposed film "with a subtlety –and expressivity– previously unknown on colour film stock", as one commentator had it, citing as examples Don Corleone's study in The Godfather and Deep Throat's parking garage in All the President's Men. His friend the cinematographer Conrad Hall named him "The Prince of Darkness" but Willis himself preferred to talk in terms of "visual relativity", saying: "I like going from light to dark, dark to light, big to small, small to big". Discussing The Godfather he said:

"You can decide this movie has got a dark palette. But you can't spend two hours on a dark palette. . . So you've got this high-key, Kodachrome wedding going on. Now you go back inside and it's dark again. You can't, in my mind, put both feet into a bucket of cement and leave them there for the whole movie. It doesn't work. You must have this relativity."

The director Francis Ford Coppola once said of Willis, “He has a natural sense of structure and beauty, not unlike a Renaissance artist”, while Willis was praised for his capacity to use "painterliness" to define "not just the look but the very meaning and feel of a film". Speaking of contemporary film-making in 2004, Willis said:

"I’m delighted that people can fly, dogs can talk, and anything destructive can be fashioned on the screen, but much of what’s being done lacks structure or taste. As I’ve asked in the past: can anyone give me the definition of a camera? It’s a tool, a means to an end. So is a light, and everything else you can pile on your back. They’re all meant to transpose the written word into moving pictures that tell a story."

Another trademark is his preference for filming at the magic hour before twilight, when the sun is low and creates a golden glow. Willis created the trope of warm ambers to denote nostalgic glow for the past, for the young Vito sequences of The Godfather Part II; many films since then have copied this cinematic technique when depicting pre-World War II America.