LOS ANGELES — Haskell Wexler, one of Hollywood’s most famous and honored cinematographers and one whose innovative approach helped him win Oscars for “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” and the Woody Guthrie biopic “Bound for Glory,” died Sunday. He was
LOS ANGELES — Haskell Wexler, one of Hollywood’s most famous and honored cinematographers and one whose innovative approach helped him win Oscars for “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” and the Woody Guthrie biopic “Bound for Glory,” died Sunday. He was 93.
Wexler died peacefully in his sleep, his son, Oscar-nominated sound man Jeff Wexler, told The Associated Press.
A liberal activist, Wexler photographed some of the most socially relevant and influential films of the 1960s and 1970s, including the Jane Fonda-Jon Voight anti-war classic, “Coming Home,” the Sidney Poitier-Rod Steiger racial drama “In the Heat of the Night” and the Oscar-winning adaptation of Ken Kesey’s “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.”
He was also the rare cinematographer known enough to the general public to receive a star on Hollywood’s Walk of Fame.
“He was a wonderful father. I owe most of who I am to his wisdom and guidance,” said his son, nominated for Oscars himself for “Independence Day” and “The Last Samurai.”
“Even in an industry where, when you’re working on a movie, there is not much else you can do, he was always there for me,” Jeff Wexler said.
His last film credit, the biopic “To Begin the World Over Again: The Life of Thomas Paine,” is in postproduction, according to the Internet Movie Database.
“Movies are a voyeuristic experience,” he once said of the attraction to the work. “You have to make the audience feel like they are peeking through a keyhole. I think of myself as the audience. Then I use light, framing and motion to create a focal point.”
