Vilmos Zsigmond ASC (; June 16, 1930 – January 1, 2016) was a Hungarian-American cinematographer. His work in cinematography helped shape the look of American movies in the 1970s, making him one of the leading figures in the American New Wave movement. Over his career he became associated with many leading American directors, such as Robert Altman, Steven Spielberg, Brian De Palma, Michael Cimino and Woody Allen. He is best known for his work on the films Close Encounters of the Third Kind and The Deer Hunter. He won the Academy Award for Best Cinematography for his work on Close Encounters of the Third Kind as well as the BAFTA Award for Best Cinematography for The Deer Hunter. He also won the Emmy Award for Outstanding Individual Achievement in Cinematography for a Miniseries or a Special for the HBO miniseries Stalin. His work on the films McCabe and Mrs. Miller, Close Encounters of the Third Kind and The Deer Hunter made the American Society of Cinematographers (ASC) list of the top 50 best-shot films from 1950–97. The ASC also awarded him with their Lifetime Achievement Award in 1998. In 2003, Zsigmond was voted as one of the ten most influential cinematographers in history by the members of the International Cinematographers Guild. Life and career Zsigmond was born in Szeged, Hungary, the son of Bozena (née Illichman), an administrator, and Vilmos Zsigmond, a soccer player and coach. He became interested in photography at age 17 after an uncle had given him The Art of Light, a book of black-and-white photographs taken by Hungarian photographer Eugene Dulovits, but under the Soviet-imposed government of the Hungarian People's Republic he was not allowed to study the subject because his family was considered bourgeois. Instead, Zsigmond worked in a factory, bought a camera and taught himself how to take pictures, going on to organize a camera club for the workers. As a result he won the respect of local commissars and was allowed to study cinema at the Academy of Drama and Film in Budapest and received an MA in cinematography. He worked for five years in a Budapest feature film studio becoming director of photography. Zsigmond, along with his friend and fellow student László Kovács, borrowed a 35-millimeter camera from their school and chronicled the events of the 1956 Hungarian Revolution in Budapest by hiding the camera in a shopping bag and shooting footage