Word: bressons
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Beauty hath ever some strangeness; the beauty of Adams' work is strangely cold. It has little of the subtle irony or quick warmth of Cartier-Bresson, for instance; it is not man facing himself, but man facing a huge natural universe. The one real portrait in the show, happily, is magnificent. "Dr. Dexter Perkins" exhibits the photographer as more than a master of the flawless snowscape; it is both artistically and emotionally comprehensible and satisfying. Adams' irritating crispness of vision is relieved in "Woman at Screen Door" by the device of shooting through the screen and using it to soften...
This is, of course, to some extent true. But it cannot explain the uncanny ability of a photographer like Henri Cartier-Bresson to capture so many critical moments. In this exhibit, the best example of precision timing is Robert Doisneau's "Le Tableaudans la Vitrine...
...Festival's best film, Robert Bresson's "Au Hasard, Balthazar," went largely unheralded. Bresson's austere French film, made in 1965-66, confronts huge abstract themes, including time, love, and coincidence. Bresson creates some of the most enigmatic and interesting characters in all film, including a beautiful fatalistic young girl who is finally killed by the leader of a motorcycle gang, and a Christ-like town drunk who is perhaps a murderer...
These people and the other adults in the town represent different characteristics of Bresson's attitude toward humanity. The characters' relationships to one another are further explored indirectly through their connection with Balathazar himself is symbolic of patience and, the program notes tell us, of love. But more important, Bresson reveals the truths about his characters by contrasting their attitudes toward and treatment of the donkey...
Actually, another major fault of the Fourth New York Film Festival was that the best films shown were those made by the best-known directors: Bresson, Jean-Luc Godard, Luis Bunuel, Alain Resnais, Adnes Varda. The Festival failed to screen any films of importance by unknown film-makers, and also little that won't be seen again. The box-office power of directors like Resnais and Godard will assure almost all of the Festival's films a theatrical release sooner or later...