Scan barcode
A review by djoshuva
Transcendental Style in Film: Ozu, Bresson, Dreyer by Paul Schrader
5.0
"Transcendental style seeks to maximize the mystery of existence; it eschews all conventional interpretations of reality: realism, naturalism, psychologism, romanticism, expressionism, impressionism, and, finally, rationalism. To the transcendental artist rationalism is only one of many approaches to life, not an imperative." (41)
"The transcendental style, like the vase, is a form which expresses something deeper than itself, the inner unity of all things. This is a difficult but absolutely crucial point; transcendental style is a form, not an experience. The purpose of transcendental style is not to get the viewer to share Hirayama’s tears, but to purge those tears and integrate them into a larger form. This form, like the mass, can encompass many emotions, but it is expressive of something greater than those emotions.... This distinction between form and experience is not pedantic, but fundamental: a form can express the Transcendent, an experience cannot." (77)
"Susan Sontag has gone so far as to say that Bresson’s form “is what he wants to say," a statement which is somewhat ambiguous because when a work of art is successful the content is indiscernible from the form. It would be more helpful to say that in Bresson’s films (and in transcendental style) the form is the operative element—it “does the work.” The subject matter becomes the vehicle (the “pretext”) through which the form operates. The subject matter is not negligible; Bresson has chosen his subject very carefully, as the term “prison cycle” indicates. But in transcendental style the form must be the operative element, and for a very simple reason: form is the universal element whereas the subject matter is necessarily parochial, having been determined by the particular culture from which it springs. And if a work of art is to be truly transcendent (above any culture), it must rely on its universal elements. Appropriately, Bresson has set his priorities straight: “I am more occupied with the special language of the cinema than with the subject of my films.”" (88)
"Transcendental style can take a viewer through the trials of experience to the expression of the Transcendent; it can return him to experience from a calm region untouched by the vagaries of emotion or personality. Transcendental style can bring us nearer to that silence, that invisible image, in which the parallel lines of religion and art meet and interpenetrate." (185)
"The transcendental style, like the vase, is a form which expresses something deeper than itself, the inner unity of all things. This is a difficult but absolutely crucial point; transcendental style is a form, not an experience. The purpose of transcendental style is not to get the viewer to share Hirayama’s tears, but to purge those tears and integrate them into a larger form. This form, like the mass, can encompass many emotions, but it is expressive of something greater than those emotions.... This distinction between form and experience is not pedantic, but fundamental: a form can express the Transcendent, an experience cannot." (77)
"Susan Sontag has gone so far as to say that Bresson’s form “is what he wants to say," a statement which is somewhat ambiguous because when a work of art is successful the content is indiscernible from the form. It would be more helpful to say that in Bresson’s films (and in transcendental style) the form is the operative element—it “does the work.” The subject matter becomes the vehicle (the “pretext”) through which the form operates. The subject matter is not negligible; Bresson has chosen his subject very carefully, as the term “prison cycle” indicates. But in transcendental style the form must be the operative element, and for a very simple reason: form is the universal element whereas the subject matter is necessarily parochial, having been determined by the particular culture from which it springs. And if a work of art is to be truly transcendent (above any culture), it must rely on its universal elements. Appropriately, Bresson has set his priorities straight: “I am more occupied with the special language of the cinema than with the subject of my films.”" (88)
"Transcendental style can take a viewer through the trials of experience to the expression of the Transcendent; it can return him to experience from a calm region untouched by the vagaries of emotion or personality. Transcendental style can bring us nearer to that silence, that invisible image, in which the parallel lines of religion and art meet and interpenetrate." (185)