Oscar-winning cinematographer Vilmos Zsigmond dies aged 85

Budapest (MTI) – Hungarian-born American cinematographer Vilmos Zsigmond died at the age of 85 on January 1, entertainment magazine Variety reported on its website on Sunday.

Zsigmond won an Oscar for his achievements on Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977) and received Oscar nominations for his work on The Deer Hunter, The River (1984) and The Black Dahlia(2006).

Born in Szeged in 1930, Zsigmond studied cinema at the Academy of Drama and Film in Budapest where he graduated in 1955. One year later he and his friend and fellow student Laszlo Kovacs escaped from Hungary with about 10,000 metres of footage taken during the anti-Soviet revolution and freedom fight.

The two friends settled later in the United States where Zsigmond became citizen in 1962.

Zsigmond started his career working on low-budget independent and educational films.

He then was hired as cinematographer by Robert Altman for the film McCabe and Mr. Miller in which he first used a technique applying filters.

Zsigmond later worked with Altman on The Long Goodbye and with Stephen Spielberg on The Sugarland Express, as well as on Close Encounters of the Third Kind which won him the Academy Award for Best Cinematography in 1977.