robert bresson, the eye solicited alone makes the ear impatient, the ear solicited alone, makes the eye impatient

(some books related to robert bresson):

-robert bresson by rené briot, editions de cerf, 1957
-bresson by jean semolue, editions universitaires, 1959
-the early work of robert bresson by richard roud, found in film culture, no. 20, 1959
-robert bresson by michel estève (#8 in the cinema d'aujourd'hui series), editions sehers, 1962
-the films of robert bresson edited by ian cameron, praeger, 1969
-the films of robert bresson by daryl chin, program notes for museum of modern art, 1970
-transcendental style in film: ozu, bresson, dreyer by paul schrader, university of california press, 1972
-on bresson and une femme douce & on bresson and the standards of cinema by jonas mekas from movie journal: the rise of a new american cinema 1959-1971, the macmiillan company, 1972
-the rethoric of robert bresson by p. adams sitney from the essential cinema: essays on the films in the collection of anthology film archives, vol. 1., anthology film archives and new york university press, 1975
-notes sur le cinematographe by robert bresson, gallimard, 1975
-notes on the cinematographer by robert bresson, urizen, 1977 & green integer, 1997
-fragments: bresson's film style by lindley hanlon, associated university presses, 1986
-cinematography vs. the cinema: bresson's figures from modernist montage: the obscurity of vision in cinema and literature by p. adams sitney, columbia university press, 1990
-robert bresson, éloge, cinémathèque français, 1997 (similar to the cinematheque ontario monograph)
-robert bresson edited by james quandt, cinematheque ontario, 1998
-le corps au cinema: keaton, bresson, cassavetes by vincent amiel, presses universitaires de france, 1998
-l'argent by kent jones, bfi, 1999
-la bellezza e lo sguardo : il cinematografo di robert bresson by luciano de giusti, il castoro, 2000
-robert bresson by keith reader, manchester university press, 2000
-le cinema de robert bresson : de l'effet de reel à l'effet de sublime by jean-louis provoyeur, harmattan, 2003
-robert bresson: a spiritual style in film by joseph cunneen, continuum, 2003
-robert bresson by philippe arnaud, cahiers du cinema, 2003
-the hidden god, moma 2003 (includes james quandt on robert bresson’s au hasard balthasar and le diable probablement)
-touching god: the novels of georges bernanos in the films of robert bresson by beth kathryn curran, peter lang publishing, 2006

-journal d'un curé de campagne by georges bernanos, librarie plon, 1936 (english editions: macmillan co., 1965 & carroll & graf, 1983/2002)
-nouvelle histoire de mouchette by georges bernanos, librarie plon, 1937 (english edition: new york review books 2005)

mouchette

(book quotes to follow)
((title from bresson's own book))

-more info found on univ. of california, berkeley library site
-for a very fine bibliography, see the essential cinema by anthology film archive
-download soundtrack to mouchette here

robert bresson, ghislain cloquet, de l'autre côté du miroir

through glass, au hasard balthazar 1966

though glass, mouchette (or, little fly), 1967

au hasard, balthazar & mouchette, through glass.
cinematography by ghislain cloquet (1924 - 1981), the belgian-born french cinematographer.
cloquet studied film at école national de photographie et cinématographie, and idhec (l'institut des hautes études cinématographiques).

"for au hasard, balthazar, bresson would begin his collaboration with ghislain cloquet, an adventurous cinematographer who also had done work in the united states (cloquet was just coming off the black-and-white pyrotechnics of arthur penn's mickey one). with cloquet, bresson would evolve a cinematic style of subtle, sun-dappled radiance; without extending the photography into extremes of chiaroscuro contrast, cloquet would heighten the lighting so that even the greys would glisten. (this was a style that cloquet would continue when he worked with marguerite duras on nathalie granger and with woody allen on love and death.) cloquet's mastery was such that he was able to accomplish this radiance with only the use of natural lighting. in this, of course, bresson and cloquet would be continuing the experiments of the new wave, particularly the work of the cinematographer raoul coutard with jacques demy (lola) and francois truffaut (the 400 blows, shoot the piano player, jules and jim), in which new film stocks were experimented with, as well as new camera equipment, for flexibility, naturalness, and vibrancy. with cloquet, bresson would create two of the most radiant black-and-white films of the 1960s, au hasard, balthazar and mouchette."
from the strange luck of au hasard, balthazar by daryl chin *

from mouchette

robert bresson & ghislain cloquet:
-au hasard balthazar 1966
-mouchette 1967
-une femme douce 1969

ghislain cloquet with other directors:
-nuit et brouillard 1955 (d. alain resnais)
-le trou 1960 (d. jacques becker)
-le demoiselles de rochefort 1967 (d. jacques demy agnès varda)
-love and death 1975 (d. woody allen)
-tess 1976 with geoffrey unsworth (d. roman polanski)

more info * ** ***

(title, lewis carroll. theartofmemory will exclusively represent bresson for the next 20 posts, approximately.....)

then be called ten times a donkey, and a mule, and an ass, and begone, or i’ll clear the world of thee!

classic books (number 4):

moby-dick; or, the whale by herman melville, 1851
(compiled with great assistance from the famed german librarian, herr t light)


such dreary streets! blocks of blackness, not houses, on either hand, and here and there a candle, like a candle moving about in a tomb. at this hour of the night, of the last day of the week, that quarter of the town proved all but deserted. but presently i came to a smoky light proceeding from a low, wide building, the door of which stood invitingly open. it had a careless look, as if it were meant for the uses of the public; so, entering, the first thing i did was to stumble over an ash-box in the porch. ha! thought i, ha, as the flying particles almost choked me, are these ashes from that destroyed city, gomorrah? but "the crossed harpoons," and "the sword-fish?" - this, then, must needs be the sign of "the trap". however, i picked myself up and hearing a loud voice within, pushed on and opened a second, interior door.


suddenly the waters around them slowly swelled in broad circles; then quickly upheaved, as if sideways sliding from a submerged berg of ice, swiftly rising to the surface. a low rumbling sound was heard; a subterraneous hum; and then all held their breaths; as bedraggled with trailing ropes, and harpoons, and lances, a vast form shot lengthwise, but obliquely from the sea. shrouded in a thin drooping veil of mist, it hovered for a moment in the rainbowed air; and then fell swamping back into the deep. crushed thirty feet upwards, the waters flashed for an instant like heaps of fountains, then brokenly sank in a shower of flakes, leaving the circling surface creamed like new milk round the marble trunk of the whale.




editions of note (with publisher and date):
-the whale, richard bentley 1851 (london, expurgated edition)
-moby-dick; or, the whale, harper and brothers 1851 (new york city)
-moby-dick; or, the whale, l.c. page & company publishers 1892
-moby-dick; or, the whale, lakeside press 1930 (three large volumes, with illustrations by rockwell kent)
-moby-dick; or, the whale, random house 1930 (illustrations by rockwell kent)
-moby-dick; or, the whale, norton critical edition 1967 (second edition 2001)
-moby-dick; or, the whale, arion press edition 1979 (illustrated by barry moser) reprinted by the university of california press 1981
-redburn, white-jacket, moby-dick, library of america 1983
-moby dick, or the whale: volume 6, scholarly edition, northwestern university press 1988
-unpainted to the last: moby-dick and twentieth-century american art by elizabeth a. schultz, university press of kansas 1995 (see images below)

barry moser

rockwell kent: whale beneath the sea

rockwell kent: moby dick trancendent

rockwell kent: moby dick the ungraspable squid

rockwell kent: moby dick rises

raymond bishop: ahab

gilbert wilson: moby dick arises from the deep

paul jenkins: homage a melville

robert motherwell: the tomb of captain ahab

sam francis: the whiteness of the whale

charles olson's melville project *:






















notecards from charles olson's 1930's master’s thesis, the growth of herman melville, prose writer and poetic thinker, completed in 1933. these cards mainly dealt with melville's reading and marginalia and the "lost five hundred" (melville's books sold to a brooklyn dealer in 1892 by his widow, pursued by olson).
"as a young scholar, olson was indefatigable in his research; when he located a volume from melville's library in a grand-daughter's home, in a private collector's hands, or on a public library's shelves, olson carefully transcribed onto 5 x 7-inch note cards complete bibliographic information on the volume, as well as the content and location of melville’s annotations and reading marks".
these cards ended up being severely water damaged, but were preserved by the university of connecticut.
(more information found here)

links:
-covers for rockwell kent editions **
-rockwell kent info **
-plattsburgh state art museum rockwell kent gallery **
-charles olson **
-publishing history **
-library of america **
-arion press **
-washington state university selected bibliography **
-first edition info **
-facsimile dust jackets **
-collecting melville **
-princeton moby-dick word search **