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tobiasbroucke's review against another edition
4.0
a cocktail of the ridiculous and the sublime that is unmistakably Bresson. I want to read this every day. the falconetti slander will not stand, though.
neilrcoulter's review against another edition
5.0
Notes on the Cinematograph is sometimes published as Notes on Cinematography or Notes on the Cinematographer, but “Cinematograph” feels best. In these musings, director/author Robert Bresson explores an understanding of film as a contrast between the cinematograph (Bresson’s ultimate aim)—the form in which film achieves its truly unique place among the arts—and other terms for movies, all of which represent a kind of film that merely replicates theater. By “theater,” Bresson means a particular way of portrayal on stage that becomes artificial or inauthentic on film. So Bresson refers to his film performers as “models” rather than “actors,” to maintain the distinction that is very clear in his mind and perhaps less clear to anyone else. His goal for filmmaking is a truly collaborative endeavor in which director and models discover unexpected things about themselves and the film process by allowing a naturalness and truthfulness.
The book is a collection of short journal entries Bresson wrote during his career in the second half of the twentieth century. Though headings indicate general themes, the entries don’t exactly follow those themes in an obvious way. For me, it made an interesting journey, contemplating sometimes cryptic thoughts and intuiting, as best I could, what Bresson was thinking about that led him to that thought just then. I think the book will feel different every time I read it, and I can easily understand why it often appears on filmmakers’ lists of “favorite books on cinema.” I don’t recall if I’ve heard that David Lynch enjoys this book, but I found a lot of resonance between Bresson’s perspective and what I know of Lynch’s perspective on the art life.
In a review, I think it’s best to share just a small selection of Bresson’s musings which particularly intrigued me on this read-through:
The book is a collection of short journal entries Bresson wrote during his career in the second half of the twentieth century. Though headings indicate general themes, the entries don’t exactly follow those themes in an obvious way. For me, it made an interesting journey, contemplating sometimes cryptic thoughts and intuiting, as best I could, what Bresson was thinking about that led him to that thought just then. I think the book will feel different every time I read it, and I can easily understand why it often appears on filmmakers’ lists of “favorite books on cinema.” I don’t recall if I’ve heard that David Lynch enjoys this book, but I found a lot of resonance between Bresson’s perspective and what I know of Lynch’s perspective on the art life.
In a review, I think it’s best to share just a small selection of Bresson’s musings which particularly intrigued me on this read-through:
“An image must be transformed by contact with other images as is a colour by contact with other colours. A blue is not the same blue beside a green, a yellow, a red. No art without transformation.” (9)
“To create is not to deform or invent persons and things. It is to tie new relationships between persons and things which are, and as they are.” (13)
“Be sure of having used to the full all that is communicated by immobility and silence.” (16)
“The real, when it has reached the mind, is already not real anymore. Our too thoughtful, too intelligent eye.” (48)
“Make visible what, without you, might perhaps never have been seen.” (50)
“Your public is not the public for books, stage shows, exhibitions or concerts. Taste in literature, in theatre, in painting or in music is not what you have to satisfy.” (63)
“Let the cause follow the effect, not accompany it or precede it.” (63)
“From the clash and sequence of images and sounds, a harmony of relationships must be born.” (63)
“The most ordinary word, when put into place, suddenly acquires brilliance. That is the brilliance with which your images must shine.” (70)
“Ideas gathered from reading will always be bookish ideas. Go to the persons and objects directly.” (82)
6pminhell's review against another edition
4.0
Poetic quotes on filmmaking and the nature of film as an art. A quick read at about an hour, but a fascinating one nonetheless.