Gordon Willis Quotes

A cinematographer is a visual psychiatrist, moving an audience... making them think the way you want them to think, painting pictures in the dark.

There are a lot of cameramen but not so many photographers. And a lot of cameramen attack from a technical approach without much imagination. They look, but they don't see.

Complexity is not good. People don't understand the elegance of simplicity.

Don't get simple mixed up with simplistic.

I'm a minimalist. I see things in simple ways...It's human nature to define complexity as better. Well, it's not.

Grips and electricians have done more to help me shoot good movies than any other craft.

The lack of perfection, that's the hardest quality of all, because you're fighting your instincts. You're trained to want to do things perfectly.

A huge problem in movies or with people who work on movies is that two people can look at the same thing but they don't necessarily see the same thing.