Gunnar Fischer

Gunnar Fischer (18 November 1910 – 11 June 2011) was a Swedish cinematographer who worked with director Ingmar Bergman on several of the director's best-known films, including Smiles of a Summer Night (1955) and The Seventh Seal (1957). In addition to his career as cinematographer, Gunnar Fischer directed short films, wrote screenplays (1933–41) and published books for children.

Born in Ljungby on 18 November 1910, Fischer studied painting for Otte Sköld before electing to join the Swedish Navy for 3 years. His passion for film led him to the Svensk Filmindustriwhere he learned cinematography from Victor Sjöström's photographer Julius Jaenzon. Acting as an assistant cameraman for 16 feature films, he made his debut as director of photography in 1942.

Known for his work with directors Bergman and Carl Theodor Dreyer (Two People, 1945), as well as work with Walt Disney, Fischer received an honorary Guldbagge Award for lifetime achievement in 2002, as well as the Ingmar Bergman Award in 1992. His first collaboration with Bergman was on the melodrama Port of Call (1948), a partnership which continued until The Devil's Eye (1960). Fischer has been quoted saying the two men were never each other's "bowing servants" yet his admiration for Bergman stood firm: "I felt privileged collaborating with Bergman."

"Fischer's great skill was in monochrome," according to the British film historian Peter Cowie. "He gave Bergman's films that unique expressionist look, with their brilliant contrasts in every gradation of black and white." His style was drawn from the landscapes of Carl Theodore Dreyer and Victor Sjöström, whom he knew well. The International Dictionary of Films and Filmmakers describes Fischer's style as "in the mainstream of the Scandinavian tradition," and celebrates the close and "intensely psychological close-ups and two-shots."

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