Sven Nykvist, Cinematographer, Dead at 83.

Sven Nykvist, the man whose camera captured such memorably beautiful and varied films as What’s Eating Gilbert Grape, Sleepless in Seattle, The Unbearable Lightness of Being, Crimes and Misdemeanors, Cries and Whispers, Winter Light, and Through a Glass Darkly has died at the age of 83. He won a few Academy-awards, and was one of my favorite cinematographers. This is a great loss, not just for moviegoers, but for the whole world of art.

This just in from Jeffrey Wells:

I met him on the set of King of the Gypsies in Manhattan back in ’78 or thereabouts. Sven was only 83 years old. He lived his last days in a Stockholm nursing home where he was being treated for (this is awful) a form of dementia called aphasia, according to Carl-Gustaf Nykvist, his son.

A selected filmography:

Celebrity (1998)
What’s Eating Gilbert Grape (1993)
Sleepless in Seattle (1993)
Chaplin (1992)
Crimes and Misdemeanors (1989)
New York Stories (1989) (segment “Oedipus Wrecks”)
The Unbearable Lightness of Being (1988)
The Sacrifice (1986)
Agnes of God (1985)
Fanny and Alexander (1982) (won Academy Award for Best Cinematography)
From the Life of the Marionettes (1980)
Autumn Sonata (1978)
The Serpent’s Egg (1977)
The Magic Flute (1975)
Scenes from a Marriage (1973)
Cries and Whispers (1973)(won Academy Award for Best Cinematography)
The Touch (1971)
The Passion of Anna (1969)
Hour of the Wolf (1968)
Shame (1968)
Persona (1966)
Winter Light (1963)
The Silence (1963)
Through a Glass Darkly (1961)
The Virgin Spring (1960)
Sawdust and Tinsel (1953)