Review by Choice Review
Cunneen advocates Bresson to a US audience not familiar with such reflective, focused cinema. Treating each of Bresson's 13 feature films in turn, Cunneen provides some source and production background and a summary of its themes and critical reception. The bulk of each discussion is his very detailed retelling of the film. Lay readers will be grateful for this detail and the accessible text, but scholars would be better served by Robert Bresson, ed. by James Quandt (1998), and Keith Reader's Robert Bresson (CH, Dec'00). Cunneen clearly nails the spiritual effect of his subject's style. Though Bresson won't promise happy endings, "his austere, clear-eyed cinematography fosters a deep understanding of the grandeur and pain of our common humanity." But even this valiant effort will not bring Bresson to the multiplex. ^BSumming Up: Recommended. Lower/upper-division undergraduates; graduate students. M. Yacowar University of Calgary
Copyright American Library Association, used with permission.
Review by Library Journal Review
Although over his long life (1901-99) Bresson only directed 13 films, his unique, austere style, combined with his intensely religious, "distinctly Catholic sensibility," set him apart on the world cinema scene. Bresson was famous for a great devotion to location shooting, a creative use of sound and silence, and a rejection of professional actors. Above all, Bresson eschewed trendiness and escapism in favor of "a clear-minded honesty about life and an emotional identification with its victims." With tightly written, jargon-free prose and an abundance of critical insight, film critic Cunneen reviews Bresson's oeuvre, finding meaning in his subject's view that life can be demanding or tragic but is ultimately redeemed by our common vulnerability and humanity. The author also makes a plea for the wider distribution of Bresson's films outside France. (Indeed, only 1951's Diary of a Country Priest has received any real exposure in America.) To provide a more complete picture, Cunneen might have answered some of Bresson's critics, like Pauline Kael, who compared viewing his films to "taking a whipping and watching every stroke coming." Still, this is a worthy effort to make the works of an uncompromising artist accessible to general audiences and a new generation of film students. Recommended for large public and academic film collections.-Stephen Rees, Levittown Regional Lib., PA (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Choice Review
Review by Library Journal Review
