The Film Experience

David here. As time runs out on 2015, the world sees the loss of another cinematic great. Cinematographer Haskell Wexler, double Oscar winner, passed away today. [More...]

Sad to learn that Haskell Wexler has died. Simply one of the all time great cinematographers and a man of stirring political conscience.
— Mark Harris (@MarkHarrisNYC) December 27, 2015

Wexler has a place in Oscar history not just for his two Oscar wins, but by virtue of the fact that he was the last ever winner of the prize for Best Cinematography, Black-and-White - his triumph for Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? marked the last time AMPAS gave that Oscar before the categories merged into one, what with black and white cinematography fast becoming endangered. Nevermind that ...Virginia Woolf? is one of the greatest examples of how much richness there is within monochrome photography; a dynamic portrait of fading glory that felt every bit as revolutionary as the other New Hollywood films emerging around it.

Across his sixty year career, Wexler worked with some of the greatest Hollywood directors, including Elia Kazan, Mike Nichols and Miloš Forman, and was part of the revolutionary changes of 1960s Hollywood, captured so well in books like Mark Harris' indispensible Pictures at a Revolution. Harris' path crosses with Wexler's work on In the Heat of the Night, and in describing the modifications he made to capture Sidney Poitier's skin in the same detail as his white co-stars, Harris demonstrates how Wexler's work was both beautiful and revolutionary.

A mere glimpse at Wexler's website makes it clear how this great's passion for social justice had not faded with age; his last post, 'Random Thoughts on the war.', posted on 24 November, rings with continued disillusion with the government and a lasting plea for peace. One of the key works in Wexler's legacy, written, directed and shot by him and called Medium Cool, was one of the most vital and prescient works that felt ahead of its contemporaries like Easy Rider in how it looked self-reflexively on the act of filmmaking itself and sparked with political feeling.

The best way to represent Haskell Wexler's work, of course, is in pictures, so I'll get along to shutting up now. The scene that I'll always remember most fondly is the legendary chess game between Steve McQueen and Faye Dunaway in The Thomas Crown Affair - the most sophisticated of eye-sex scenes you're ever likely to come across, and, in its remarkable sexual imagery, fits right in to the rapidly shifting social landscape of the period, even in one of his most frivolous credits. (The Hollywood Interview has a great quote from Wexler on how this scene came about: "it said on the script, it said, 'They play chess with sex'"...)

R.I.P. Haskell Wexler. A giant in his field, producing iconic scenes like this beauty. https://t.co/J9y5RMyzn8 pic.twitter.com/Xt14acf2RR
— David (@randomfurlong) December 27, 2015

Your own favourite, of course, may be taken from any one of Wexler's remarkable filmography. Share your picks in the comments and pay tribute to this late legend.