Wexler briefly made industrial films in Chicago, then in 1947 became an assistant cameraman. Wexler worked on documentary features and shorts; low-budget
docu-dramas such as 1959's
The Savage Eye, television's
The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet and TV commercials (he would later found Wexler-Hall, a television commercial production company, with
Conrad Hall). He made ten documentary films with director Saul Landau, including
Paul Jacobs and the Nuclear Gang, which aired on
PBS and won an
Emmy Award and a George Polk Award. Other notable documentaries shot and co-directed (with Landau) by Wexler included
Brazil: A Report on Torture and
The CIA Case Officer and
The Sixth Sun: A Mayan Uprising in Chiapas. In 1963 Wexler self-funded, produced and photographed the documentary
The Bus in which a group of
Freedom Riders are followed as they make their way from San Francisco to Washington D.C. That same year he served as the cinematographer on his first big-budget film,
Elia Kazan's
America America. Kazan was nominated for a
Best Director Academy Award. Wexler worked steadily in Hollywood thereafter.
George Lucas, then 20, met Wexler who shared his hobby of auto racing. Wexler pulled a few strings to help Lucas get admitted to the USC Film School. Wexler would later work with Lucas as a visual consultant for
THX 1138 and
American Graffiti (1973). Wexler was cinematographer of
Mike Nichols' screen version of ''
Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966), for which he won the last Academy Award for Best Cinematography (Black & White) handed out. The following year had Wexler as the cinematographer for the Oscar-winning detective drama, In the Heat of the Night'' (1967), starring
Sidney Poitier. His work was notable for being the first major film in Hollywood history to be shot in color with proper consideration for a person of African descent. Wexler recognized that standard lighting tended to produce too much glare on that kind of dark complexion making the actors look bad. Accordingly, Wexler toned it down to feature Poitier with better photographic results. Wexler was fired as cinematographer during filming of
Francis Ford Coppola's
The Conversation and replaced by
Bill Butler. He was also fired from
Miloš Forman's 1975 film ''
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest and again replaced by Bill Butler. Wexler believed his dismissal on Cuckoo's Nest
was due to his radical left political views as highlighted by his concurrent work on the documentary Underground, in which the left-wing urban guerrilla group The Weather Underground were being interviewed while hiding from the law. However, Forman said he had terminated Wexler over mere artistic differences. Both Wexler and Butler received Academy Award nominations for Best Cinematography for One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest'', though Wexler later said there was "only about a minute or two minutes in that film I didn't shoot.” However, he won a second Oscar for
Bound for Glory (1976), a biography of
Woody Guthrie, whom Wexler had met during his time in the Merchant Marine.
Bound for Glory was the first feature film to make use of the newly invented
Steadicam, in a famous sequence that also incorporated a
crane shot. Wexler was also credited as additional cinematographer on
Days of Heaven (1978), which won a Best Cinematography Oscar for
Néstor Almendros. Wexler was featured on the soundtrack of the film
Underground (1976), recorded on
Folkways Records in 1976. He worked on documentaries throughout his career. The documentary
Paul Jacobs and the Nuclear Gang (1980) earned an
Emmy Award;
Interviews with My Lai Veterans (1970) won an Academy Award. His later documentaries included; ''
Bus Riders' Union (2000), about the modernization and expansion of bus services in Los Angeles by the organization and its founder Eric Mann, Who Needs Sleep?
(2006), the Independent Lens
documentary Good Kurds, Bad Kurds: No Friends But the Mountains
(2000), Tell Them Who You Are
(2004) and From Wounded Knee to Standing Rock: A Reporter's Journey'' (2019). Wexler also directed fictional movies.
Medium Cool (1969), a film written by Wexler and shot in a
cinéma vérité style, is studied by film students all over the world for its breakthrough form. It influenced more than a generation of filmmakers. In DVD commentary for Criterion Collection, Wexler recalled that the studio execs were flabbergasted the film, "an edgy, Godardian tale that ricocheted from one hot-button topic to the next (poverty, racism, civil rebellion, the war in Vietnam, the Kennedy and King assassinations)." The making of
Medium Cool was the subject of a
BBC documentary by Paul Cronin, ''Look Out Haskell, It's Real: The Making of Medium Cool'' (2001). "Medium Cool" was selected for preservation in the National Film Registry in 2003. Produced by
Lucasfilm and uncredited George Lucas, Wexler's film
Latino (1985) was chosen for the
1985 Cannes Film Festival. He both wrote and directed the work. Another directing project was
From Wharf Rats to Lords of the Docks (2007), an intimate exploration of the life and times of
Harry Bridges, an extraordinary labor leader and social visionary described as "a hero or the devil incarnate--it all depends on your point of view." In 1988, Wexler won the
Independent Spirit Award for Best Cinematography for the
John Sayles film
Matewan (1987), for which he was also nominated for an Academy Award. His work with
Billy Crystal in the
HBO film
61* (2001) was nominated for an Emmy. In 2021, filmmakers Joan Churchill and Alan Barker released a 26-minute documentary,
Shoot From the Heart, about Wexler's life and career. Churchill described her intention in making the film this way: “We were making a film about a man who was a passionate activist, who never gave up hope for the world.” A "lifelong liberal activist," during the final years of his life, Wexler trained his focus on raising awareness of sleep deprivation and long hours in the film industry, culminating in the documentary
Who Needs Sleep? (2006), which "examined the routine overworking of Hollywood film crews." == Personal life ==