Description
Book SynopsisThe color films of French film director Robert Bresson (1901-99) have largely been neglected, despite the fact that Bresson himself considered them to be more fully realized reflections of his aspirations for the cinema. This study presents a revised and revitalized Bresson, comparing his late style to painterly innovations in color, light, and iconography from the Middle Ages to the present, to abstract painting in France after World War II, and to affinities with the avant-garde movements of Surrealism, Constructivism, and Minimalism. Drawing on media archeology, this study views Bresson's work through such allied visual arts practices as painting, photography, sculpture, theater, and dance.
Trade Review"Watkins's approach refreshingly expands the scope of Bressonian scholarship ...
Late Bresson and the Visual Arts sheds light on a part of the filmmaker’s career that has often been unjustly neglected, by way of commendable, high-level visual and intertextual analysis." - Marco Grosoli,
H-France Review, Volume 20 (2020) "In his excellent book on
Late Bresson and the Visual Arts (Amsterdam University Press 2018), Raymond Watkins argues that a blue-painted door evokes the work of Yves Klein. ... Watkins discusses the centrality of Schöffer's Lux 1 piece in the art museum sequence of Une femme douce = I fully concur with Watkins's reading." - Roland-François Lack, University College London,
The Cine-TouristTable of ContentsIntroduction Bresson in Color: Reinventing History through Avant-Garde Experiment Part 1: Classical and Post-War Painting Chapter 1 Bresson's Debt to Painting: Iconography, Lighting, Color, and Framing Practices Chapter 2 The Turn to Post-War Abstraction: Action Painting, L'Art Informel, and Le Nouveau Réalisme Part 2: Avant-Garde Experiment Chapter 3 Bresson's Flirtation with Surrealism: Sexual Desire, Masochism, and Abjection Chapter 4 The Design and Pattern of the Whole: Constructivist Painting and Theatre Chapter 5 Between Constructivism and Minimalism: Bresson's Ambivalence Toward the Modern Bibliography Index
