Lessons in looking, seeing and simplicity,
from Henri Cartier-Bresson
The independent bookstores. What would we do without them? I believe there would be very few promising new authors, or rare, under-the-radar books to discover. It often happened that I bought the book that was shelved right next to the one I was actually looking for whenever I visited the small bookshops in my town or whenever I travelled. Henri Cartier-Bresson is certainly not new, nor new to anyone, but his essays book, The Mind’s Eye: Writings on Photography and Photographers, was certainly new to me when I spotted it in a recently re-opened favourite bookstore in town. More about this special place and the fantastic selection of books it carries, in an up-coming feature, but, for now, here are a few lessons in looking, seeing, and simplicity from Cartier-Bresson – the pioneer of street photography and the man responsible for the term the “decisive moment”, one of the most influential photographers of the twentieth century and one of the founders of Magnum Photos, and the second assistant director to Jean Renoir on the films Une partie de campagne and La règle du jeu, but who realised soon that he was never going to be a director, because a great director must treat time as a novelist would, while the metier of a photojournalist was closer to a documentary filmmaker. Henri Cartier-Bresson discovered the Leica in 1932 and would never be separated from it from then on.
“What I am looking for, above all else,
is to be attentive to life.”
“I am a visual man. I watch, watch, watch.
I understand things through my eyes.”
“It is by great economy of means that one arrives
at simplicity of expression.”
“I have spent my whole life trying to be
inconspicuous in order to observe better.”
“It’s marvelous, such a sense of economy,
which is the measure of taste.”
“Then there were the movies. From some of the great films, I learned to look, and to see. Mysteries of New York, with Pearl White; the great films of D.W. Griffith –Broken Blossoms; the first films of Stroheim; Greed; Eisenstein’s Potemkin; and Dreyer’s Jeanne of Arc – these were some of the things that impressed me deeply.”
photo by me
Hello there!
I accidentally found your site some months ago, and I got very impressed with your sense for both cinema and fashion. The content is great, regularly updated, and to me it is indeed a pleasure to keep reading it. But my first comment here is also to share some thoughts that have been ghosting my mind, and I believe that maybe you could understand me.
How amazing you think it would be a movie that could portrail John-John-Bessette’s life? With everything involving it, from politics to American dream’s skeleton; jetset society cintilance and backstage, obviously going through a thoroughly art and costume direction?
Oh, if I were a filmmaker!
Thanks for your page. It’s delightful.
Cheers from Rio de Janeiro
Hello, Ana. Thank you for your readership. I completely understand you would be interested in a movie based on the life of JFK Jr and Carolyn Bessette. The subject is prone to drama and glamour, and that is already enough to stir up interest, but if handled well, it could make for much more than that – what I want to say that this kind of movie could very easily fall into a Hollywoodian cliche and if that they ever decided to produce it they should keep it realistic. I myself have read a lot about the Kennedy family and I’ve long admired Carolyn’s smart attractiveness that sprung from self-assurance, which felt very calming and unpretentious, and nothing about her felt overworked – I wrote about her classic American style some time ago: https://classiq.me/classic-american-style-carolyn-bessette-kennedy
Thank you for sharing your thoughts, Ana. I am glad every time my blog inspires this kind of conversations.