Rating: 
Summary: Writing With Images
Review: "Notes on the Cinematographer" is a tidy, Zen-like summation of the special aesthetic Bresson brought to film. 'Cinema' to him was simply filmed theater. He wanted movies to do something more, to create a new language of images that could express a character's inner states and moods (I think this goal, more than anything, explains why he's so often labeled a 'spiritual' director). Bresson wanted faces, not actors; events, not scenes; "BEING instead of SEEMING." To this end he insisted on amateurs over trained actors, noises over music, slowness and close-ups over speed and pans. Cinematography as Bresson explains it here is a unique form of writing. His efforts to make an essentially mechanical & visual medium parallel the inwardness of the written word has to be one of the strangest and most fascinating projects in the history of film. Not surprisingly, he writes beautifully, and these aphoristic koans, surrounded by all that empty white space, are as haunting as anything he captured on film. A tiny masterpiece.
Rating:
Summary: Must have for any non-Hollywood Style Filmmakers
Review: "Notes on the Cinematographer" is a tidy, Zen-like summation of the special aesthetic Bresson brought to film. 'Cinema' to him was simply filmed theater. He wanted movies to do something more, to create a new language of images that could express a character's inner states and moods (I think this goal, more than anything, explains why he's so often labeled a 'spiritual' director). Bresson wanted faces, not actors; events, not scenes; "BEING instead of SEEMING." To this end he insisted on amateurs over trained actors, noises over music, slowness and close-ups over speed and pans. Cinematography as Bresson explains it here is a unique form of writing. His efforts to make an essentially mechanical & visual medium parallel the inwardness of the written word has to be one of the strangest and most fascinating projects in the history of film. Not surprisingly, he writes beautifully, and these aphoristic koans, surrounded by all that empty white space, are as haunting as anything he captured on film. A tiny masterpiece.
Rating:
Summary: Writing With Images
Review: "Notes on the Cinematographer" is a tidy, Zen-like summation of the special aesthetic Bresson brought to film. 'Cinema' to him was simply filmed theater. He wanted movies to do something more, to create a new language of images that could express a character's inner states and moods (I think this goal, more than anything, explains why he's so often labeled a 'spiritual' director). Bresson wanted faces, not actors; events, not scenes; "BEING instead of SEEMING." To this end he insisted on amateurs over trained actors, noises over music, slowness and close-ups over speed and pans. Cinematography as Bresson explains it here is a unique form of writing. His efforts to make an essentially mechanical & visual medium parallel the inwardness of the written word has to be one of the strangest and most fascinating projects in the history of film. Not surprisingly, he writes beautifully, and these aphoristic koans, surrounded by all that empty white space, are as haunting as anything he captured on film. A tiny masterpiece.
Rating:
Summary: A fundamental approach to know the master of masters!
Review: Bresson was a poet . His clear and smart thoughts about the cinema are so clearly expossed that breathe honesty all the way .
If you still do not know the Bresson filmography and you are a real hard lover of the cinema , it is time for you to get close to that unique film maker.
A real jewel.
Rating:
Summary: An extraordinary film book
Review: Bresson's book is an extraordinary piece of film litterature. Seemingly consisting of random notes, it actually contains a very deep and original vision of the essence of cinema as the author understands it. The book is written in the same minimal style Bresson directs his films. Nothing is explained. This is a book to be read slowly.
Rating: 
Summary: Not what I expected
Review: I imagined this book would comprise an edited collection of notes or series of essays on cinematography. It is, however, merely an (apparently) unedited compilation of disparate notes and observations taken from what must have been bresson's scrapbook or notepad, the sort of thing that would make sense only to the author. It is entirely without textual comment or organisation, and I found it quite useless. Nice for the dedicated enthusiast, perhaps.
Rating:
Summary: Must have for any non-Hollywood Style Filmmakers
Review: If you want a step by step, how to make film book, you're better off browsing the bookstore at your local film school.If you are a novice filmmaker, and you want to make art with film or video, and you want a guidebook on how to THINK and FEEL about your chosen art form, this is a must. Bresson inspired the French New Wave filmmakers, and in my opinion was one of the few directors this world has seen who actually considered the particular reality of the moving image and created a set of principles to guide his choices as a director based on the medium itself, and not on any inherited traditional technique. One of the primary divisions in film theory is whether you believe film to be an extension of theatre or something entirely different. For Bresson theatre is a more intellectual, mind based experience, whereas film is an EXPERIENTIAL art form. Bresson was highly interest in TRUTH over the APPEARANCE of truth. For Bresson the camera and audio recorder capture the essence of a thing, and therefore he cautions against using actors, and sets, and instead suggests people being themselves and shooting on actual locations. This book is actually a collection of notes that Bresson wrote to himself over the course of his career. It is a wonderful look into the mind of an artist. In this book I have found a kindred spirit, whose insights into the nature of film and film production are distilled down to their essential forms. What kind of Truth does the camera capture, what elements go in the mise-en-scene which add or distort that truth, how do you illicit the inner truth of the actor (model) while still maintaining the requirements of the plot and script? There are two books which have, for me, opened up the truest possibilities of film as an artform. These books are: "Notes on the Cinematographer" by Bresson, and "Sculpting in Time" by Tarkovsky. These books are a must read for anyone interested in exploring the true potential of film as an art form. Also, this book goes in and out of print fairly regularly, so you should buy it whenever you see it being sold. Its relatively inexpensive, but contains a wealth of knowledge. It makes a great gift for someone interested in film or video as an art form.
Rating: 
Summary: Notes on the Cinematographer
Review: Not what I expected. This book is more philosophical, than literal. I like it, but it's like reading a lot of proverbs, you cannot absorb it all, only the few that strike you at that moment.
Rating: 
Summary: A haiku-like glimpse into the mind of a great director.
Review: The random, notebook quality of this book is what gives it a certain charm. It's quite like Bresson's films: full of hints, suggestions. The notes are study in how a director thinks through the problems facing him. The scrapbook quality of it shows a mind with firm beliefs, yet always searching. Reveals that the artistic life is a work in progress.
Rating:
Summary: Towards a Poetics of Film
Review: There is no better guide to the process and experience of making a film. Though its epigrammatic style makes it at first seem abstract, Notes on the Cinematographer is essentially a step-by-step handbook on what to do (and more so, what not to do) with actors and a movie camera. The title is so unintentionally misleading as to the subject of the work, which contains not a single line on lighting or photography ('cinematographer' is Bresson's rhetorical name for 'film-maker') that I believe it has obscured what would otherwise be a justly renown (and more readily-available) classic text on filmmaking. This book stands also as an intriguing commentary on Bresson's films, on which is it is difficult to say anything adequate.
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