[title]
When we speak of that great era of American cinema, the paranoid 1970s, you often hear the same names: Francis Ford Coppola, Woody Allen, Alan J. Pakula. Behind them all, though, was an even more essential player, cinematographer Gordon Willis, whose eye for lush, ominous shadows and the buzzy energy of urban streets came to define a cynical decade in shorthand.
Beginning this weekend and running through March 1, Astoria's Museum of the Moving Image will present "See It Big! Gordon Willis," a well-chosen series of the shooter's finest films. It's the theater's first retrospective to salute a cinematographer—Willis died last May—and he definitely merits it. His movies are so moody, they end up imparting a completely different vibe in a theater (as opposed to your flat-screen TV).
Here are five must-sees from the retrospective.
Annie Hall (1977) Woody Allen isn’t always the most visually interesting of filmmakers, but the unobtrusive warmth of Willis’s lighting helped cement this rom-com as an all-time classic. Fri 7pm
End of the Road (1970) Aram Avakian’s surreal contribution to the counterculture is a little stuck in its time, but Willis worked miracles with a shoestring budget that wouldn’t pay for the catering on his later films. Sat 3pm
The Godfather (1972) Draped in dense shadows and somehow both ominous and nostalgic, Francis Ford Coppola’s masterpiece is arguably the best film ever made. There’s no debating that it looks the part. Sat 7pm
Klute (1971) Jane Fonda is foul-mouthed and fierce in this expert thriller, which also features terrific work from Donald Sutherland—and, of course, our man of the hour, Willis, who comes up with his most daring compositions. Feb 22, 5pm
All the President’s Men (1976) Watergate can’t have been this exciting. But give director Alan Pakula credit for realizing he was making a movie, not filing a report. And it's out of Willis's deep shadows that the mysterious "Deep Throat" emerges. Feb 27, 7pm