Masters of Light by Schaefer Dennis

Author:Schaefer, Dennis
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780520274662
Publisher: University of California Press

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Laszlo Kovacs

“You can’t photograph a piece of paper that has a bunch of lines written on it. That’s not life; that’s not drama. You have to bring that alive; you have to visualize it.”

Laszlo Kovacs tells one of those mythical, almost clichéd, American success stories: the immigrant boy driven from his native land comes to America and makes a name for himself. It’s part of our collective folk culture.

Just over twenty-five years ago, Kovacs was a young filmmaker in Hungary. When the Hungarian Revolution exploded and was ruthlessly put down by Russian armor, Kovacs along with Vilmos Zsigmond took to the streets and chronicled the revolution on film. They smuggled thirty thousand feet of documentary footage out of the country, achieving freedom for themselves in the process. Kovacs immigrated to the United States and eventually ended up in Hollywood, lured by the opportunities he thought existed there. But the only thing he found was odd jobs to support himself, while he shot, in his words, “no-budget” features on the side. But he finally scored his big breakthrough with Easy Rider. A watershed film that crystallized the feelings of the burgeoning youth movement, it also changed the way Hollywood made films. No longer confined by studio sound stages, filmmakers rushed out to shoot in the streets, seeking a kind of authenticity impossible in constructed sets—a concept that continues to influence Hollywood today.

Inevitably, Easy Rider changed Kovacs’s life, giving him deserved recognition and high visibility—and eventually his union card. He easily made the transition to big-budgeted, studio-financed films, and has been in constant demand ever since.

A self-confirmed workaholic, Kovacs has worked with a great variety of directors. The one thing, however, that remains constant in his work is the organic matching of a visual look and style to each specific film. He constantly emphasizes that each film has its own character and that the cinematographer’s approach to it must come from the material. That’s why none of his films look the same. His slight European accent gives his voice an air of artistic authority and indeed he has a different way of “seeing” than a native American. His mind does not work on an assemblyline basis but on a loving, handcrafted level.

It’s a long way from Budapest to a cool bungalow overlooking a lush green canyon in the Beverly Hills. But Kovacs has overcome many obstacles that would have doomed an ordinary man to failure. Once a stranger in a strange land, he persevered and succeeded through ability, talent and confidence.

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