Haskell Wexler, Oscar-winning cinematographer and documentarian, has died. He was 93.
His son Jeff shared via Facebook that Wexler died today “peacefully in his sleep.”
“An amazing life has ended but his lifelong commitment to fight the good fight, for peace, for all humanity, will live on,” Jeff wrote.
Haskell Wexler won two Oscars for cinematography, for “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” in 1966 and for “Bound for Glory” in 1975. He also received an Oscar in 1970 for the short documentary “Interview With My Lai Veterans,” directed with Richard Pearce.
Wexler also wrote, directed and largely financed two feature films, the highly politically charged “Medium Cool” in 1969 and “Latino” in 1985.
He also directed 2007’s “From Wharf Rats to Lords of the Docks,” an adaptation of a play about labor leader Harry Bridges and unionization.
His visually distinct style grew out of his years as an educational and industrial filmmaker, which led to his photographing of documentaries such as Joseph Strick’s “The Savage Eye” in 1959. He continued to invest his own money in films that promoted causes because he saw them “as an instrument for social change,” he said.
He was partnered in commercial companies with cinematographers such as Vilmos Zsigmond and Conrad Hall), he was concerned about “the morality of the products,” he once said. He stopped shooting cigarette commercials before they were banned on U.S. television (he had lensed most of the famous Marlboro commercials).
“One person has a responsibility not just for himself but for inter-relationships with the existences of others and the world,” he once explained. That view informed his documentaries and was consistent with the subject matter of many of his feature assignments.
Wexler joined the International Photographers Guild in 1947. He co-directed and shot docu short “The Living City” in 1953 with John Barnes; it was nominated for an Oscar. He worked into the Hollywood system starting with Roger Corman’s 1957 independent feature “Stakeout on Dope Street,” directed by Irvin Kershner, and several other low-budget films. He also worked as an assistant cameraman on “The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet.”
By 1964, he was working with top directors including Elia Kazan (“America, America”), Franklin Schaffner (“The Best Man”) and Tony Richardson (“The Loved One”). His crisp black-and-white photography for “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” brought Wexler his first Oscar.
He shot some of the most memorable films of the era (all in color), including “In the Heat of the Night,” “The Conversation,” “American Graffiti” and (with the uncredited Bill Butler) “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest,” for which he was Oscar nominated.
In 1976 he earned his second Oscar for “Bound for Glory”; he would go on to photograph other Hal Ashby films including “Coming Home,” “Second Hand Hearts” and “Lookin’ to Get Out.” He also contributed some work to Terrence Malick’s “Days of Heaven.”
Through the 1980s and 1990s, he shot films including “Richard Pryor: Live on the Sunset Strip,” “Colors,” “Other People’s Money” and “The Rolling Stones: Live at the Max” in 1992. He was nominated for cinematography Oscars for “Matewan” in 1988 and “Blaze” in 1990.
Later feature films he lensed included “The Secret of Roan Inish,” “Canadian Bacon,” “Mulholland Falls” and “The Rich Man’s Wife,” all in the mid-’90s.
One of his most influential films, the chilling 1969 feature “Medium Cool,” was a fictional but documentary-style depiction of the riots outside the 1968 Democratic Convention. Bold in attitude and execution, “Medium Cool” was financed by Wexler for $800,000. Although it owed a nod to the work of Jean-Luc Godard, it was far ahead of its time for a Hollywood film.
Beginning with his documentary on the Washington Freedom March, “The Bus,” in 1965, Wexler busied himself with documentaries of social injustice. “Interview With My Lai Veterans” brought an Oscar in 1970. With co-director Saul Landau he shot “Brazil: A Report on Torture” and “An Interview with President Allende” (both 1971), “The Swine Flu Caper,” “The CIA Case Officer,” 1982’s “Quest for Power: Sketches of the American New Right” and “Target Nicaragua: Inside a Secret War.”
Other documentaries included “Hail Columbia” and “Introduction to the Enemy.” He also shot the 1980 film “No Nukes.” His 1975 documentary “Underground” (with Emile de Antonio and Mary Lampson), which dealt with the leftist faction known as the Weathermen, resulted in a controversial attempt at seizure of his materials by the FBI, which prompted an outcry among certain social-minded Hollywood celebrities.
Later documentaries he helmed included “Bus Rider’s Union,” directed with Johanna Demetrakas; “Who Needs Sleep,” about the danger to film crews of overlong shooting schedules that result in fatigue — and people falling asleep on the road home; and 2013’s “Four Days in Chicago,” in which he returned to the setting of “Medium Cool” and his hometown to document the Occupy Movement’s demonstrations against the 2012 NATO Summit.
In the mid to late 2000s, he was d.p. on a number of politically minded documentaries for other directors.
Wexler appeared in numerous documentaries about other directors and cinematographers, including 1992’s “Visions of Light.”
He was born in Chicago and spent five years in the Merchant Marines, after which he studied at UC Berkeley.
Wexler was honored with lifetime achievement awards from the American Society of Cinematographers (becoming the first active lenser to be so honored), the Independent Documentary Assn. and the the Society of Operating Cameramen.
In 1996 he was awarded a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, the first cinematographer in 35 years to be so honored.
In 2005, Wexler was the subject of a documentary, “Tell Them Who You Are,” directed by his son, Mark Wexler.
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