When it was announced that the Woodstock Film Festival would present Haskell Wexler with its first-ever Lifetime Achievement Award in October 2008, he cited the spirit of the legendary 1969 concert and counter-culture event in upstate New York and, recalled "those rebel artists of the 1960s...rebels who tell stories artfully and honestly." (quoted in Moviemaker magazine). It was a fitting remark from a man who, in a 50-year career as cinematographer, director, and activist, has been acclaimed not only for the artistry of his work but for creating and contributing to films on a wide range of social issues and progressive political causes.

Wexler started his career making industrial films in Chicago, where he was born into a wealthy family in 1926. As assistant cameraman and cinematographer, he moved on to a variety of projects, including television commercials, episodes of the 1950s TV sitcom The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet, and documentary features and shorts. His first feature film credit as cinematographer was for a low-budget crime drama starring his younger brother Yale, Stakeout on Dope Street (1958), the directorial debut of Irvin Kershner. This would lead to two more independent films with Kershner for which the young cinematographer received critical attention, the Cannes Festival winner The Hoodlum Priest (1961) and Face in the Rain (1963). His working relationship with Kershner, in fact, would span forty-six years and include such blockbuster pictures as The Empire Strikes Back (1980) and Never Say Never Again (1983).

In the early sixties, Wexler picked up some second unit work on the feature Wild River (1960), directed by Elia Kazan, who liked Wexler's gritty, almost documentary style. Kazan then hired him for what would be the director's most personal and autobiographical film, America, America (1963). The two frequently clashed - over camera placement, politics (the fiercely leftist Wexler was one of many appalled by Kazan's cooperation with the House Un-American Activities Committee in the 1950s), and over what Wexler saw as an ungenerous and rather abusive directorial style. Yet he also counted the experience "one of the higher points of my life," impressed by Kazan's unwavering passion for the project and the electricity and excitement he created on the set. It was also a chance for Wexler to further hone his hand-held camera skills, which would serve him well in years to come. Although not shy about declaring his personal dislike of the cinematographer, Kazan admired his ability to perform camera maneuvers with absolute grace and smoothness.

Wild River led to steady work on major projects, and Wexler's talents have long been sought by the top directors in Hollywood. He has won awards from just about every major film and television organization and festival throughout the world, including Academy Awards for Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966) and Bound for Glory (1976) and nominations for One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975), Matewan (1987), and Blaze (1989). He has also contributed, to varying degrees and often without credit (even when his contribution has been more substantial than is generally acknowledged), to such films as Days of Heaven (1978), The Rose (1979), and Blade Runner (1982).

His career credentials as director of photography alone would be enough to guarantee him a place in film history, but Haskell Wexler has also made his mark as a director, writer, and producer, creating documentaries that deal with issues close to his heart and his conscience on such wide-ranging and often controversial subjects as labor struggles (From Wharf Rats to Lords of the Docks, 2007), civil rights (The Bus, 1965), government oppression (Brazil: A Report on Torture, 1971), the lives of radical activists on the lam (Underground, 1976), the other side of the Viet Nam conflict (Introduction to the Enemy, 1974), nuclear war (War Without Winners, 1978), and the social and political implications of the lack of funding for mass transit (Bus Rider's Union, 1999).

The small number of narrative films he has directed (with the exception of his first unreleased theatrical film The Runaway (1962), a children's film) have also displayed both his political commitment and his penchant for documentary approaches. Latino (1985) tells of a military veteran's awakening to the realities of the struggle between the Sandanistas and the U.S.-backed contras in Nicaragua. But among the ones he has directed, Wexler will be most remembered for a film that was released years earlier. Returning to his home town for a provocative piece about the riots at the 1968 Democratic National Convention, Wexler incorporated his leftist politics and documentary approach, skillfully weaving a fictional story into the very real backdrop of the violence in the streets. Medium Cool (1969) was truly an auteur work, with Wexler functioning as producer, director, writer, and cinematographer; in fact, he was one of the camera operators, shooting much of the footage of the riots himself. Although not a commercial success at the box office, the movie received glowing critical notices, with Vincent Canby of the New York Times calling it "a film of tremendous visual impact, a kind of cinematic Guernica, a picture of America in the process of exploding into fragmented bits of hostility, suspicion, fear and violence." Medium Cool was one of the most significant works of the period and remains highly influential to this day.

In his 80s at the time of this writing, Wexler remains as busy and committed as he has been throughout his career. Shaken by the death of a co-worker driven to exhaustion by the long, punishing hours of filmmaking, he spent several years making a documentary, Who Needs Sleep? (2006), about corporate America's, and particularly Hollywood's, obsession with long hours of work to the detriment of health, safety, and personal lives. He was also the subject of a recent documentary by his son, Mark Wexler, Tell Them Who You Are (2004), a starkly revealing portrait of a complex, often controversial artist and his difficult relationship with his family and associates in the film industry.

by Rob Nixon