The following is an excerpt of Chris McCoy’s interview with legendary cinematographer Gordon Willis. The full interview is in the Believer’s March-April film issue. Willis died on Sunday, May 18.

Last week my friend Gordon Willis died. Gordon moved into my parents’ neighborhood about the same time I got out of film school, when I had to move back home because I had no money and no connections and no idea what to do next. I got to know him that summer by walking across the street whenever he was down in the dirt working on his garden, which was a lovely garden. We talked about his time in the sixties/seventies film industry, we talked about Woody Allen and Francis Ford Coppola, I pretty much just asked him whatever questions I could come up with as a dumb twenty-two-year-old who, aside from a couple of internships, had no experience in the film industry. He was patient with me and he loved talking about movies, though he admitted he couldn’t see them as well as he once did because his eyesight was deteriorating, which I used to tell him was like Beethoven losing his hearing. He agreed, which I always thought was funny. The man knew his shit.

After I moved to Los Angeles I would come home a couple of times a year—for some portion of the summer, and then over Christmas break, which was my favorite time because it meant I got to stop by Gordon’s house and ask him about the movies that had been nominated for Oscars that year. He always saw everything, had opinions on everything. He hated Los Angeles, but he liked hearing about my work. When I told him I was having a hard time finding a copy of Hal Ashby’s first movie The Landlord on DVD—a film he shot—he sent me his personal MGM Limited Edition Collection copy with a note saying he was pleased with the transfer and it was very close to the original.

Recently the Believer asked me to interview him, and I got the chance to sit down with him alone for two hours with a microphone. He had an extraordinary life, and I tried my best to get as many of his experiences into the piece as I could, though I’m sure I failed. His life was too rich for a few pages.

Looking back, the best piece of advice he ever gave me was something that didn’t go into the piece, which he told me years ago when I was starting out: “Just hang around.” I took this to mean hang around people you thought were talented, hang around people whose work you...