Henri Cartier Bresson, the Eye and the Immanent Frame

The retrospective show of Henri Cartier Bresson’s career’s worth of photography at MoMA captures the work of a groundbreaking imagist who wrote the genre of the photo essay, started what is arguably the most important photo-house (Magnum), and retired from full time photography only to take on the movement image and illustration work. His work spanned the world, and the depth of the images and subject matter speak not only to artistic construction, but effective and engaging social critique – an immanent frame.

Any discussion of Henri Cartier Bresson’s photography requires a discussion of the importance of time and framing. Bresson’s own ideas of photography grew out of painting, and his link to fine art informed his photographic work. His own explanations of his work center around the concept of “The Decisive Moment” and an “impassioned eye.” It is these concepts that I want to consider in their relation to the concept of “the frame.”

Bresson’s work has framed some of the most important faces and places of the 20th century and I posit that without his work, new media artists and photographers would be ill-suited to accomplish the depth and breadth required of any photographic medium. His use of time and frame are at the base of this argument.

In considerations of “the frame” Bresson states that, “To take a photograph means to recognize— simultaneously and within a fraction of a second — both the fact itself and the rigorous organization of visually perceived forms that give it meaning” (2). To extend this idea, we might look to the Deleuzian ideas of context and how the present, past and future converge in genre-breaking artistic constructions, providing for a plane of immanence, a smooth surface upon which to travel towards social change. This “decisive moment” is the capture of a point instance of light, a part of the spectrum, a part of the waves of light, that exist before and after that moment. While I agree with Deleuze’s statements in Cinema 1 where he states that photography is a kind of ‘moulding’: "the mould organizes the internal forces of the thing is such a way that they reach a state of equilibrium,” I don’t agree that the “cast” that is taken in that photography is just the literal “luminous imprint” (25). What I believe is being ignored are the smooth surfaces from which the image was taken and the timelessness of the surfaces within the images themselves.

A good example of this is one of Bresson’s most famous works, and image of a person hopping over the majority of a puddle, the image was created a split second before the person disrupted the surface of the water, this provides an infinity of smooth water and an infinity of conceived splashes and surface disruption. An “impassioned eye” allows for a point instance to exist beyond the instance of itself, thus rendering it not “timeless” but rather, infinite — in understanding, in immanence.

A well-traveled man, open to the experiences of submersive travel and reportage, Bresson was privy to humanity in its various permutations. His work documenting Mexican prostitution is a great example of this, finding the humanity in the painted eyes and in the framing in doors and in doorways. In these images we see multiple framing, both by the prostitute in the hatches in the door, then by the door itself, and finally through Bresson’s camera lens. This multiplicity of frames places the prostitute in a self-referential frame (the hatch), a societal frame (the door), and that of the photographer (the lens). It is the multiplicity that allows for a deepened interpretation of the still — and a static image that transcends the static place of Mexico City in the 1940s and does not simply preserve the moment, but reinforces the forever issues of comodified sex, exploitation and our own referential framing.

--Mike von Wahlde

Warhol and the Art of Framing

Recently, we discussed framing in terms of architecture. Framing allows us to see the relationship between architecture and cinema because it allows for the spectator to reconnect with the world in new way. The early film work of Andy Warhol can give us an insight into the power that framing can have on a film.

The aesthetic qualities of Warhol’s early films are seemingly rudimentary. His films were created using static, unedited, one-take shots on black and white film stock with a 16mm Bolex. Warhol reverts back to the techniques of early cinema while others were taking a more modern aesthetic approach to their work. Bergson’s commentary on cinema would apply to much of Warhol’s work since its technicality would have been similar to that of the films of Bergson’s time. However, this is not to downplay the aesthetics of Warhol’s films. His stylistic choices are part of what bring intensity to his work. His films have a minimalist aesthetic, but the subject matter is undoubtedly modern.

Warhol frames his shots in order for the viewer to experience the subject in a new way. He often removes the subject from the world that typically surrounds it in order for the audience to have an unsuspecting encounter with it. This is clearly seen in Empire. Warhol has a shot consisting solely of the Empire State Building. We are used to seeing the building towering above other Manhattan buildings, which make up the whole of the skyline. By seeing the Empire State Building as a singular object instead of a part to a whole, a new relationship with the building is formed.

Warhol’s ability to frame objects in a way to showcase them solely can also be seen in the 500 “living portraits” he shot between 1964 and 1966 know as Screen Tests. The Screen Tests consist of three-minute static shots of individual people. These films were all shot at the Factory, and it is clear that what was happening off camera was often times more exciting than what was happening on camera. Warhol took people out of the world around them in the Factory, away from the whole, to create an entirely new view of that individual. He has the ability to frame shots in way that restricts the viewer from what the human eye would see if they were present at the scene. Ann Buchanan’s emotional response to stimuli off camera would not have been as powerful if we had been allowed insight into what was happening in the world around her. Instead, removing her from the whole and focusing solely on her expression is what makes her particular Screen Test intriguing.

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Additionally, Blow Job serves as a perfect example of how Warhol masters the art of framing. This thirty-five minute film consists of a close up of DeVeren Bookwalter as he supposedly receives a blow job from someone off camera. Whether Bookwalter is actually receiving a blow job or not is left for the viewer to decide. Warhol allows the audience to have just enough information to gain insight into what is happening on screen, without completely giving everything away. He wants you to draw your own conclusions and think differently about what is being presented to you as a viewer.

The beauty of Warhol’s work often lies in its ability to create an attentive response within the zone of indetermination. The combination of his use of long shots and restrictive framing creates a captivating and sometimes unsettling cinematic experience. What is left out of frame is often what creates an enthralling event for the audience. You are confronted with images in which you are forced to encounter for the duration of the entire film, whether you want to or not.

- Stephanie Class

Thoughts on Bernard Cache's Earth Moves

Beginning his text announcing that "architectural images seem to be a good starting point" (2) for distinguishing between and navigating around the myriad visual elements that are present in our daily lives, Bernard Cache continues his text with an exploration of the philosophical and formal nature of architecture. But delegating the text to this definition - assigning Earth Moves the category of a "formal and philosophical study of architecture" - would be far too limiting, for he indeed discusses a great deal more than just forms and thought. Architecture is indeed inherently about forms and shapes, and is therefore also about geometry and mathematical interests. Cache discusses the city of Lausanne, a Swiss city located near the shores of Lake Geneva. The topography of the city has been profiled by filmmakers like Godard, who in a short film about Lausanne describes the city to have a visual problem or inconsistency that is to him Cezannian in nature - broad, disconnected spaces that make navigating the terrain problematic.



Cache chooses to profile the city of Lausanne due to its unique topography and geography that somehow dictated the construction of roads, buildings, works of art, and so on. However, Cache goes on to remind us that "in no case does the identity of a site preexist, for it is always the outcome of a construction" (15). For Cache, no destination has a predetermined future or path along which it necessarily will or must follow, an assertion that should strike a familiar chord with readers of Deleuze: one of the French philosopher's key concepts is a subscription to process ontology, which privileges being as becoming, as transformation, as constant change. Gilles Deleuze tends to prioritize difference over identity, a concept that is almost directly paraphrased in Cache's affirmation that once a being is defined or once a place has a definition, it is no longer capable of evolution. Remembering Todd May's definition of Deleuze's main question "how might one live?", Cache's own question regarding the development of architectural projects on a topographic space could possibly be summed up as "how might this space be altered?"

After attending class and discussing, albeit briefly, Cache's text and its significance to the world of critical architectural theory and Cache's relationship to Deleuze (they were contemporaries, even though Cache's text was not published until almost 12 years after it was written and only because Deleuze cross-referenced Cache's ideas in his own work, thus giving him notoriety), I found myself developing a new appreciation for Cache's approach to architecture and the interrelated realms of science, mathematics, and representational art. It was interesting to learn that not just Deleuze's ideas on the individual - or what he would call the becoming-human (so in this case, the becoming-site?) - are what influenced Cache, but also Simondon's embrace of individuation and his subsequent rejection of preformism, a rejection that he came to after his studies of physical matter led him to dismiss this idea of substance. A rejection of preformism can also be said to be a rejection of the preexisting identity of a geological site, something that Cache adamantly repeats throughout his text and his argument. I must say that this idea is quite appealing to me, especially because it expresses the possibility of unlimited potential, a potential that one would not normally assign to an inanimate object. In some ways, a rejection of preformism and an embrace of individuation opens the door for so much creativity, even if the site is already altered to a certain specification or a temporary definition of what it is at that moment; once a concrete structure is formed on a specific site, this does not mean that the structure is permanent or the only way to define the site. Instead, defining a site as capable of endless possibilities allows for impermanence, creativity, and growth in the eternal becoming-site.

You can also find this post on You Ain't Heard Nothing Yet!, my personal blog.

..Katharine R.