Re: Pix not sharp nor digital

Mark Bohrer wrote:

Hitchcock was a class act, a great filmmaker who chose excellent talent for classics like Rear Window. Today's directors and producers create mostly gratuitous trash.

Not to take anything away from the considerably talent and skill of Hitchcock, but I'm sure that in his day the majority of the directors and producers created mostly gratuitous trash too. Our perception of what has become gratuitous changes over time. That, and the fact that most of the gratuitous trash doesn't survive, makes comparing the greats of a past time with everything that is going on in the current one becomes a problematic endeavour.

Even when Cartier-Bresson shot slightly risque stuff he did so in classy style to communicate an idea.

Cartier-Bresson's "risque" stuff leaves me pretty cold. I love HCB's photography but I don't feel that it communicates much beyond a very strong style of visual aesthetics, a style that has since been picked up and carried on most notably by Sebastiao Salgado (but others too). It is characterized by an almost total divorce of aesthetics from content -- which in and of itself can be read as a very astute commentary on social values in the post-modern age, but I doubt that in HCB's case it was that conscientious (in Salgado's earlier work, possibly more so). HCB appears to have approached photography almost as an exercise in geometry. Again, I state this not to detract from his talent, artistry, skill, or influence on photography, but merely because I like calling a spoon a spoon.

It is interesting to compare HCB with Jeanloup Sieff. With regard to "risque" subject matter, I find Sieff's ability to communicate an idea far exceeds that of HCB.

M.


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