American Cinematographer - December 2006 - 152

credit

screen

on

/ morkaste Smaland

(1943), on which he was co-cinematographer.
Dissatisfied with his assign¬
ments, Nykvist left Sandrews Studio in
1947 to make a documentary in Africa. "I
thought documentaries would be less
offensive to religious people [like my
parents] than all of the singing and danc¬
ing," he later told Marlene Edmunds.
When

the

returned

cameraman

to

Sweden, Sandrews offered to distribute
the film if

Nykvist would return to the
studio. He did, and remained on staff at
Sandrews until 1960.

Nykvist admitted that early in his
he did not think about the script
and only "wanted to make beautiful
shots." He credits directors Alf Sjoberg
and Ingmar Bergman, both also noted
theater directors, as being the filmmak¬
ers who got him interested in lighting. He
first worked with Sjoberg on Barabbas
(1953), and with Bergman on The Naked
NightOn Bergman's film, Nykvist
replaced cinematographer Hilding Bladh,
who was sent to the United States by
Sandrew to learn about CinemaScope.
"Before I worked with Alf and Ingmar, I
was only interested in composition," he
said. "I came to see lighting as of equal
importance."
Nykvist also credited Bergman
with helping him make the transition
career,

Academy Award-winning cine¬
matographer Sven Nykvist, ASC died
in Stockholm, Sweden, on September 20
at the age of 83.
Nykvist was born on December 3,
1922, in Moheda, Sweden, to missionary
parents who had little regard for the
cinema, but he would go on to become
one of the most highly regarded cine¬
matographers in the world. Noted for his
mastery of film lighting, Nykvist moved
effortlessly between modestly budgeted
European art films and big-budget Holly¬
wood movies throughout his career.
He became interested in photog¬
raphy as a boy, but soon tired of shooting
still images. He bought an 8mm camera
and began to experiment with moving
images. "At the time, there were no
schools for cinematographers, at least
not in

Sweden," he recalled in

view with Tony
was

for

an

inter¬

Peyser. "Your only chance

from black-and-white to color cine¬

matography. "At one time we considered
black-and-white
than color. The
with

light

When
severe

we

to have

eight years."
Nykvist started his apprenticeship

come to

assistant

the lab we

as an

cameraman

in 1941, at

age 19, at the studio of Anders Sandrew,
a former grocer who headed a theater

chain, film-distribution company and
studio. He did not have to
trainee for

serve as a

long, and earned his first

classic medium

could

paint
than he could in color.
began with color, we had such
more

technical limitations and

to be an assistant to a cameraman

seven or

a more

cameraman

we

had

light everywhere
we have
learn how to light dramatically
...

with color, and both on the camera and in
can

realize effects undreamed

of in black-and-white."

Nykvist's long, fruitful collabora¬
Bergman began in earnest with
The Virgin Spring in 1960. Over the next
24 years, they made 22 pictures together,

tion with

including Through

a Glass Darkly (1962),
Persona (1966), Cries and Whispers

(1972), Scenes from a Marriage (1974),
Autumn Sonata (1978), and Fanny and
Alexander(]332). Nykvist won Academy
Awards for his work

on

Cries and Whis¬

pers and

Fanny and Alexander.
Bergman usually shot his films in

the autumn and devoted his efforts to the

theater the rest of the year.

Between
assignments with Bergman, Nykvist
worked with other directors in Europe,
and he shot his first U.S. project, Pretty
Baby, for director Louis Malle in 1978.
The cinematographer was soon in
demand

on

both sides of the Atlantic,

lending his lighting skills to such projects
as The Postman Always Bings Twice
(1981), Cannery Bow (1982), Agnes of
God( 1985), The Unbearable Lightness of
Being (1988), Another Woman (1988),
New York Stories (1989), Crimes and
Misdemeanors (1989) and What's Eating

Gilbert

Grape (1993).
Nykvist earned ASC and Academy

award nominations for his work

Unbearable

on

The

Lightness of Being. At the

ASC Awards in 1996, he became the first

cinematographer honored with the Soci¬
ety's Lifetime Achievement Award who
had not been born and raised in the

United States.
In 1999, Nykvist was director of
photography on the comedy Curtain Call,
about a commitment-allergic bachelor
who buys a house that is haunted by the
spirits of a famous theatrical couple. The
title and theme of the film proved to be
both appropriate and ironic. It was
Nykvist's final bow as a cinematogra¬
pher; he spent his last years haunted by
his own ghosts as he lost the ability to
communicate due to the effects of apha¬

sia.
A tribute to

Nykvist will be
published in an upcoming issue of Amer¬
ican Cinematographer.
-

Robert S. Birchard

American

Cinematographer 143
American Cinematographer - December 2006

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