Robert Bresson: A Spiritual Style in Film

Book Description

Although Robert Bresson is widely regarded by movie critics and students of the cinema as one of the greatest directors of the twentieth century, his films are largely unknown and are rarely shown in the English-speaking world. Nonetheless, Susan Sontag has called Bresson "the master of the reflective mode in film."

The present book, which introduces Bresson's movies to a broader audience, assesses thirteen of his most significant films in the context of detailed plot summaries, vivid descriptions of characters and settings, and perceptive, jargon-free insights into the director's execution, intention, and technique. Among these films, made between 1943 and 1983, are Diary of a Country Priest, A Man Escaped, Pickpocket, The Trial of Joan of Arc, Au Hasard Balthasar, Mouchette, A Gentle Woman, Lancelot of the Lake, and L'Argent.

Each of these films in its own way illustrates what Joseph Cunneen calls Bresson's "spiritual style." Though not necessarily focused on the explicitly religious, they illustrate two complementary principles: on the negative side, the rejection of what the director called "photographed theater" with its artificiality and dependence on celebrity performers. On the more positive side, as Bresson himself expressed it, the conviction that, "The supernatural is only the real rendered more precise; real things seen close up." Being equally adamant about both these principles, he often had difficulty getting financial backing, and this in turn resulted in his having to abandon his long-cherished hope of making a movie on the biblical book of Genesis. Nevertheless, because of these firmly held principles, Martin Scorsese suggested that a young filmmaker should ask: "Is it as tough as Bresson?... Is [meaning] as ruthlessly pared down, as direct, as unflinching in its gaze at aspects of life I might feel more comfortable ignoring?"

Questions that every reader of this book and every viewer of Bresson's films will also ask.

Customer Reviews:

A Good Bresson Primer but Spiritual Style?.......2003-06-16

Cunneen's "Robert Bresson: A Spiritual Style in Film" is a good survey of Bresson's filmography. The subheading, however, "A Spiritual Style in Film," is a bit of an an overpromise as Cunneen does not explain what encompasses his understanding of "style" and subordinates the discussion of the truly cinematic, stylistic considerations such as cinematography, editing, lighting in favor of the more literary bases of film such as plot construction and narrative. Moreover, Cunneen borrows heavily from existing work on Bresson and actually devotes more space to summarizing Bresson's body of work rather than the actual analysis of Bresson's unique stylistic signature. A title that reads something like "Bresson: An Introduction" might have been more realistic. Paul Schrader's "A Transcendental Style in Film" offers a more insightful analysis of Bresson's style that lives up to its title. Unlike Cunneen's book, it is, primarily, about cinematic style, not just content analysis.

The Definitive Brisson.......2003-05-04

"Robert Bresson: A Spiritual Style in Film" by Joseph Cunneen is a much-needed introduction to a master film director. Cunneen, long-time movie critic for the "National Catholic Reporter," approaches Bresson's career in a way that easily explains the director's distinctive approach to cinematography.

Bresson rejects the artificiality and dependence of "photographed theater" with it's reliance of star performers and instead emphasizes an austere, elliptical approach to narrative, making a masterful use of natural sound.
Cunneen explores all 13 films of Bresson in chronological order, clarifying the development of Bresson's technique while making clear that his "spiritual style" is why Susan Sontag called him "the master of the reflective model in film."
Easily understood by the novice as well as the movie buff, this book should send readers hunting down Bresson movies in the better video stores, and begging local universities to stage retrospectives of Bresson's entire oeuvre.

Book Description

Praise for the first edition:

"Hinson concentrates on works that include the piano as an equal participant, and each entry is annotated with a brief description of the style of the composition, both musical and technical, and an assessment of its difficulty from the pianist's viewpoint. . . . A reference work of exceptional value for teachers, students, and performers."
-- Library Journal

The Piano in Chamber Ensemble describes more than 3,200 compositions, from duos to octets, by more than 1,600 composers. It is divided into sections according to the number of instruments involved, then subdivided according to the actual scoring. Keyboard, string, woodwind, brass, and percussion players and their teachers will find a wealth of chamber works from all periods.

Customer Reviews:

best book of its kind.......2001-07-06

Amazingly comprehensive text, with objective, intelligent reviews of most of the works listed, written by the author and/or those who heard the music first-hand. I didn't find a listing for the composer Kjerwulf, but I found listings for many others, including many I never heard of. Every piano piece of importance, and many others, are listed here, along with publication histories for most all works, and suggested bibliographies. You don't know how much piano music has been written until this book informs you of it. Very interesting biographical sketches are included of the most important composers.

Another useful guide by Hinson.......2001-06-07

Maurice Hinson's _Guide to Pianist's Repertoire_ is now a standard fixture on the bookshelves of performers and teachers everywhere. The current volume is another staggeringly comprehensive repertoire guide, listing published chamber music written with the piano as an equal partner, in combinations of up to eight instruments, composed since 1700 (although a few works prior to that date are included). Hinson follows the format he has used before, grouping works by instrumentation, with the emphasis being on locating publishers. Other information is given as available, for example, movement titles, timings, no. of pages, level of difficulty, etc. (It may be noted that no discography is attempted.) Selected works are given descriptive annotations and evaluations. While a volume of this type will invariably require multiple editions to stay current, the information contained herein will be of value for many years to come.

Wind Chamber Music: Winds with Piano and Woodwind Quintets--An Annotated Guide

Average customer rating:

Wind Chamber Music: Winds with Piano and Woodwind Quintets--An Annotated Guide
Barbera Secrist-Schmedes
Manufacturer: The Scarecrow Press, Inc.
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0810831112

Book Description

An invaluable reference work for music teachers, professional and amateur musicians, and music students. This guide lists works in print for woodwind quintet and piano with two to five wind instruments-- flute, oboe, clarinet, bassoon, or horn. Each entry provides composer birth and death dates, composition date, publisher, nationality, recording availability, instrumentation, length, and general description of the compositional style.

The Piano in Chamber Ensemble - an Annotated Guide

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The Piano in Chamber Ensemble - an Annotated Guide
Maurice Hinson
Manufacturer: Harvester
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000LZFY9Q

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The Piano in Chamber Ensemble: an Annotated Guide
Maurice Hinson
Manufacturer: Indiana
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000L862QC

Unknown Armies (2nd Edition)
Average customer rating:

Excellent RPG

The best modern RPG! (The best RPG in general?)

Very cool

A fine modern horror RPG

A new direction,,,I LIKE IT!!

Unknown Armies (2nd Edition)
Greg Stolze , and John Tynes
Manufacturer: Atlas Games
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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Changeling: the Lost

ASIN: 1589780132

Book Description

What will you risk to change the world?

The acclaimed RPG of modern occult intrigue returns in a stunning new hardcover edition. Completely reorganized, largely rewritten, and jam-packed with new art, the second edition of Unknown Armies isn't just better. It kicks metaphysical ass!

We've remixed the book based on the level of campaign you want to play: Street, Global, or Cosmic. At street level, you're outsiders to the secret world of magick, ordinary people entering a land of mystery and peril. At global level, you're mojo-wielding cabalists in the occult underground, pursuing your arcane agendas and plotting against your rivals. At cosmic level, you're in tune with the cosmos itself, fighting to shape the next incarnation of reality. Background material is divided up as well, so new players in a street-level campaign only read what the

GM wants them to know.

But the beats don't stop there:

Much more information for new players, to get them into the mindset of the game and help them make better characters and stronger campaigns.

* New character-creation options, including Trigger Events, Paradigm Skills, and power levels scaled to match the level of campaign you're playing.

* Numerous rules tweaks, including a new initiative system, Fuzzy Logic skill checks, player-directed combat modifiers, amped-up martial arts rules, a new experience system, and more, all dedicated to upgrading UA's innovative percentile system into a lean and precise tool for fast play and player empowerment.

* More magick for non-adepts: Authentic Thaumaturgy, new rituals and artifacts, and revised versions of Proxy Magick and Tilts allow the freewheeling use of symbolic, sympathetic magick by anyone with the will to make it happen.

* Twelve schools of magick (up from seven in UA1) for obsessed adepts, including revised versions of published schools (Bibliomancy, Personamancy, and Urbanomancy) and two new schools (Videomancy and Narcotic Alchemy).

* Fourteen avatars (up from eight in UA1) for archetypalists, including revised versions of published avatars (The Messenger, The Mother, The Mystic Hermaphrodite, and the True King) and two new avatars (The MVP and The Warrior).

* More resources for the GM, including specific guidance on combat, wounds, skill checks, campaign building, and other critical issues.

* New cover art and design, new interior art and design, and a hardcover binding to keep this game in line.

Customer Reviews:

Excellent RPG.......2007-09-22

This is one of the most fun RPGs I've had the pleasure of GM'ing. It's dark, fun, sometimes humorous, and overall a blast to play.

The best modern RPG! (The best RPG in general?).......2004-04-11

Unknown Armies is the game that brought me back as a RPG enthuisiast. When the first edition of this game came along I had grown tired of the overly popular games such as Dungeons and Dragons and all the World of Darkness games. I read an online review of Unknown Armies and its intrigued me so much that I got the game. I read it over and instantly was drawn in. Unknown Armies seemlessly blends its setting and its system. Its truly a character driven game where the beliefs (obsessions and passions) of the characters can affect the outcome of the game and the success of dice roles. The modified percentile system that the game uses works great and stays in the background, not intruding the roleplaying and plot development. Tynes and Stolze created a unique cosmology that sets UA a head above the rest of the modern occult, horror, and conspiracy games that are out there. The 2nd Edition of the game corrects a couple of bumps in the system such as spending experience points. More importantly the 2nd Edition sets the framework for very exciting and interesting UA campaigns. This is the best modern setting RPG out there and I am serious in saying that it has the potential for being the best paper-and-pencil RPG. I hate to use the words "instant classic", since that is such an oxymoron, but this definitely will be a classic of RPGs.

Very cool.......2004-01-13

If you're a roleplayer, and you're tired of the same-old stuff, give this a look. The first edition of Unknown Armies was good, but the 2nd edition is much improved--the elegant rules are somewhat simplified and easier to grasp now (and thereby more elegant). The book is organized more logically, and the writers provide much better information on how to run a campaign, giving this book a lot more direction.

It's a very setting-specific game: It seems that the world we know is full of secrets, and when you start to learn of some of them, everything changes for you. That in itself isn't original, but the details often are. The "feel" of the game is that choices have consequences.

The rules focus properly on role-playing over rolling dice. Character generation is fast and simple, with only 4 characteristics, and no definitive skill list (players can make up their own skills, subject to GM approval). Combat requires only two rolls per round: initiative and a single attack/damage roll--whether you hit and how much damage you do is resolved in the same roll. There are three different and fascinating systems of magic, all easy to use, believable within the context, and highly flexible. The "sanity" rules are an improvement over the already-good Call of Cthulhu rules.

A comparison to Call of Cthulhu is apt--both Tynes and Stolze have written quite a lot of Call of Cthulhu material in the past, and it seems almost a cliche now that so many people who read this book immediately start to think of how to incorporate Call of Cthulhu into it. But while there are many correspondances, at their hearts, Unknown Armies and Call of Cthulhu are opposites, and merging them is a difficult (but worthy) task. CoC is about a nihilistic spiral into madness and death; Unkown Armies is about desire, hope, and what you'll do to get them--and the consequences of your actions. As dark as it can be, Unknown Armies is set in a human-centered world; CoC is set in an alien-centered world, in which human hopes are utterly irrelevant. Both are wonderful games.

A fine modern horror RPG.......2003-09-15

It isn't often that I can read an role-playing game cover to cover and find that the game is playable and it reads well. Unknown Armies, UA, is a fantastic game with ten gaming ideas for every paragraph.

The system is a simple percentile system but the system is elegant, letting the player characters flip numbers under certain role-playing situations. It plays dramatic and fast.

The combat chapter begins with ways to avoid a fight. Then it launches into the way combat works. Beautiful.

Magick is brutal and extracts a price.

The world is fun and has a captivating cosmology while still allowing the DM and the players to make some choices about how the world really works and the headlines of the paper are fine adventure fodder.

I cannot stress enough how well written and fun this game is. I have both played and run it. Please pick it up and find out for yourself.

The works of Tim Powers are where many of the metaphysical ideas of the game come from. Check out his novels if the game appeals to you.

A new direction,,,I LIKE IT!!.......2003-07-08

This game is well worth it, and that's putting it mildly.

The game's mechanics are simple whether you play street, global, or cosmic, and the fact that you're not limited by JUST what's in the book as far at character types makes it take your creativity to a whole new level; the only limits here are those of your imagination, and what your GM will allow. Over all, the game strikes me as a combo of Mage; the Ascension, Call of Cthulu, with a healthy dose Jung,(the man, not the game:) thrown in.

The trick here is that the simple game mechanics may not work for game players who come from "traditional" statistic laden systems that simply require a dice roll to solve most problems; players must think originally, creativly, and the game indulges you to go places that some folks may fear to tread, so it may not be for everyone. It'll be a grand and enjoyable challenge for both GM's as well as players.

Myself, I like it a lot, as it challenges more than just a few traditional ideas about life, the universe and everything; be prepared to be changed by this game, if ye dare!!!

World armies
Average customer rating:
World armies

Manufacturer: Facts on File
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Unknown Binding

Military Science | History | Subjects | Books
ASIN: 0871964074

Barbarians inside the gates: The viper's venom
Average customer rating:

Informative and Sobering Look at the "State of the Union"

Barbarians inside the gates: The viper's venom
Donn de Grand Pre
Manufacturer: Grand Pre Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Unknown Binding
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ASIN: 096643742X

Customer Reviews:

Informative and Sobering Look at the "State of the Union".......2005-07-09

This is the third book in the "Barbarians Inside the Gates" series. There is so much historical information that it took a while to complete, but was worth the time to gain the insight into what has happened to our government since the beginning of the 20th century.

The great value in this book series was the "connecting of the dots" regarding the bits and pieces of confusing information I had acquired over a long period of time. I had previously come to the conclusion that the greatest evil in our country and cause of corruption were the thousands of Washington lobbyists bribing our representatives to act on their behalf contrary to the best interest of the citizens of the United States.

I now believe that the problems in America are far deeper, wider, and advanced than anyone other than a government insider like Col. Donn de Grand Pre could believe and document. He clearly explains why patriotic Americans are in trouble and have been sold out to globalism and the New World Order elites.

Facts are presented that show how Russia was taken over and the resulting Soviet Union has been given our nuclear secrets almost as fast as we discovered them, and infiltrated most controlling departments in goverment with the help of the Council on Foreign Relations

If you feel that you are being lied to by the media, the President, the Secretary of Defense, the Secretary of State, the FBI, the CIA, the Senate, most of the House of Representatives, and everyone else aligned with politically or profiting from their no-bid contracts, you will find that you are correct. The explains the reasons why terrorist threats are created to gain "emergency" Presidential powers, and why lies are costing us freedom, fair trade, fair taxation, and the lives of our citizens.

After reading this book, you will be able to believe that the global elitists will stop at nothing, not even assasination or bombing their own countrymen, to succeed in controlling the world as tyrants ruling slaves. The end of the psychologically ingrained denial of the facts that the leaders of the United States and the UK could really be organized criminal monsters selling us out as fast as they can may be the only hope for maintaining any democracy at all.

Epidemics resulting from wars, (Carnegie endowment for international peace. Division of economics and history ... [Publications])

Average customer rating:

Epidemics resulting from wars, (Carnegie endowment for international peace. Division of economics and history ... [Publications])
Friedrich Prinzing
Manufacturer: H. Milford
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Unknown Binding
ASIN: B00085QF60

Average customer rating:

Confederate revolvers
William A Gary
Manufacturer: K8 Communications
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Unknown Binding
ASIN: 0961811005

Mussolini's Afrika Korps: The Italian Army in North Africa, 1940-1943

Average customer rating:

Disappointing

Mussolini's Afrika Korps: The Italian Army in North Africa, 1940-1943
Rex Trye
Manufacturer: Axis Europa Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Unknown Binding

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ASIN: 1891227149

Customer Reviews:

Disappointing.......2004-01-16

Trye's first book, 'Mussolini's Soldiers', gave a thoughtfully writter and illustrated look at a generally maligned and overlooked subject. I was anxious to hear that "Mussolini's Afrika Korps..." would be published, and made an advance order direct from the publisher.

This second work is, however, a bit of a disappointment. It gives the overall impression of having been rushed to publication. The text repeats itself at times, lacks much depth or continuity, and the photos and illustrations are often poorly reproduced.

Too bad. There's a lot to be said about the Italian war effort in Africa, and this does little to address this need.

John Spring's Arizona
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John Spring's Arizona
John A Spring
Manufacturer: University of Arizona Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Unknown Binding

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ASIN: B0007EJ5NC

Encyclopedia of Continental Army units--battalions, regiments, and independent corps
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Encyclopedia of Continental Army units--battalions, regiments, and independent corps
Fred Anderson Berg
Manufacturer: Stackpole Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Unknown Binding

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ASIN: 0811705447

The Ardennes: Battle of the Bulge, (United States Army in World War II: The European theater of operations)
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The Ardennes: Battle of the Bulge, (United States Army in World War II: The European theater of operations)
Hugh Marshall Cole
Manufacturer: Office of the Chief of Military History, Dept. of the Army; [for sale by the Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Govt. Print. Off.]
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Unknown Binding
ASIN: B0006D925U

Shoemaker's Battery: Stuart Horse Artillery, Pelham's Battalion, afterwards commanded by Col. R.P. Chew, Army of Northern Virginia
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Shoemaker's Battery: Stuart Horse Artillery, Pelham's Battalion, afterwards commanded by Col. R.P. Chew, Army of Northern Virginia
John J Shoemaker
Manufacturer: Butternut Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Unknown Binding
ASIN: B0006Y8MMI

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