Notes on the Cinematographer, by Robert Bresson

Review by Jeffrey M. Anderson

Buy Notes on the Cinematographer, by Robert Bresson.

Bresson, who died in December of 1999, was one of the world's greatest film artists. He attempted to make something a little more than the product of a business arrangement. Lucky for us, he left behind 13 films and this book, a slim, small volume, that illustrates how he did it. Written in little bursts of poetry are the elements of his filmmaking manifesto. Everyone who makes films would do right to read it. Randomly: "Images and sounds are fortified by being transplanted." or "Your film will have the beauty, or the sadness, or what have you, that one finds in a town, in a countryside, in a house, and not the beauty, sadness, etc. that one finds in the photograph of a town, a countryside, or a house."

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