Todd McCarthy(I)

Writer
Director
Actor

NO SUBTITLES NECESSARY: LASZLO AND VILMOS. The lifelong friendship of the great cinematographers Laszlo Kovacs and Vilmos Zsigmond and their impact on American cinema. As film students in Hungary, Laszlo and Vilmos took to the war-torn streets of Budapest to shoot footage of the Russian invasion, and subsequently volunteered to smuggle it out of the country. Barely escaping with their lives, the two friends fled to America and settled in Hollywood, eventually saving enough money to buy their own 16mm camera.

After working on a string of low-budget horror and biker movies, both men soon rose to prominence in the late 60's and 70's, shooting the films that defined what came to be known as the American New Wave: Easy Rider, Five Easy Pieces, McCabe and Mrs. Miller, Deliverance, Paper Moon, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, and more. Working with directors including Robert Altman, Bob Rafelson, Peter Bogdanovich, and Martin Scorsese, they helped create a new American film aesthetic, and pioneered innovative, fearless ways to tell stories.

Â“When it comes to Laszlo Kovacs and Vilmos Zsigmond, it's clear that the American New Wave of the late 1960's and early '70s wouldn't have flowered as it did without them." Â– Leonard Maltin

Told through interviews with Laszlo (who died in 2007) and Vilmos, as well as directors including Rafelson, Bogdanovich, John Boorman, Graeme Clifford, Richard Donner, William Richert, Mark Rydell, composer John Williams and actors such as Jon Voight, Peter Fonda, Sandra Bullock, Karen Black, Dennis Hopper and Sharon Stone, NO SUBTITLES NECESSARY is an intimate portrait of two giants of modern imagemaking and their deep bond of brotherhood that transcended every imaginable boundary. Two heroes. One road.

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No Subtitles Necessary: Laszlo & Vilmos

Todd is a veteran trade publication film critic, columnist and reporter who has also written several acclaimed books and documentary films. He served two stints on the staffs of Variety and The Hollywood Reporter and extensively covered film festivals internationally for both publications. His film "Visions of Light: The Art of Cinematography" won the best documentary prizes from the New York Film Critics and National Society of Film Critics associations and he won an Emmy for writing the documentary "Preston Sturges: The Rise and Fall of an American Dreamer." He also directed the documentaries "Man of Cinema: Pierre Rissient" and "Forever Hollywood," which played at the American Cinematheque's Egyptian Theater for a decade. His books include "Kings of the Bs: Working Within the Hollywood System," the definitive biography "Howard Hawks: The Grey Fox of Hollywood" and "Fast Women: The Legendary Women of Racing."