The films of the late French filmmaker Robert Bresson, once thought formidable both because of the somberness of their subject matter and the austerity of the filmmaker's style, have in the last decade found a new audience. In part, this is owing to the rarely acknowledged but profound influence his style has had on later filmmakers-from Chantal Akerman to Michael Haeneke. This book looks at Bresson's body of work not only by coming to terms with its thematic preoccupations and the development of its unique authorial style, but also in terms of the ouvre's seminal place in the history of film. The filmic rhetoric that Bresson pursued was nothing less than an effort to create an exemplary form of film narrative, throwing off the conventions of the theater and acting that still dominate mainstream filmmaking. In this respect, Bresson's films are no less ground-breaking than those of D.W. Griffith and Sergei Eisenstein. In addition, while few who have written about Bresson would deny the highly personal and idiosyncratic nature of his work, its autobiographical dimension has never been fully explored. This constitutes a rich vein for investigation and the films-in both their subject matter and style-mirror and trace the aesthetic and psychological dispositions of the filmmaker. What one discovers in these explorations is a deeper relationship between the filmmaker and his literary models-especially the novelists Georges Bernanos and Fyodor Dostoevsky. With both, he also shares convictions about the "fallennature of humanity, an attitude of mourning for the loss of childhood innocence, a strong preoccupation with Christian theology, and the role evil and sexuality play in our lives. In this book Bresson's sources, style, and biography are explored via a chronological investigation of his films, yielding a dense analysis worthy of this master filmmaker.

The films of the late French filmmaker Robert Bresson, once thought formidable both because of the somberness of their subject matter and the austerity of the filmmaker's style, have in the last decade found a new audience. In part, this is owing to the rarely acknowledged but profound influence his style has had on later filmmakers-from Chantal Akerman to Michael Haeneke. This book looks at Bresson's body of work not only by coming to terms with its thematic preoccupations and the development of its unique authorial style, but also in terms of the ouvre's seminal place in the history of film. The filmic rhetoric that Bresson pursued was nothing less than an effort to create an exemplary form of film narrative, throwing off the conventions of the theater and acting that still dominate mainstream filmmaking. In this respect, Bresson's films are no less ground-breaking than those of D.W. Griffith and Sergei Eisenstein. In addition, while few who have written about Bresson would deny the highly personal and idiosyncratic nature of his work, its autobiographical dimension has never been fully explored. This constitutes a rich vein for investigation and the films-in both their subject matter and style-mirror and trace the aesthetic and psychological dispositions of the filmmaker. What one discovers in these explorations is a deeper relationship between the filmmaker and his literary models-especially the novelists Georges Bernanos and Fyodor Dostoevsky. With both, he also shares convictions about the "fallennature of humanity, an attitude of mourning for the loss of childhood innocence, a strong preoccupation with Christian theology, and the role evil and sexuality play in our lives. In this book Bresson's sources, style, and biography are explored via a chronological investigation of his films, yielding a dense analysis worthy of this master filmmaker.

The prevalence of loss and mourning, and of charged relationships with parents or parental figures has had a surprising influence on several American avant-garde filmmakers' work . To date, however, little attention has been given to these themes. In The Melancholy Lens, author Tony Pipolo offers a detailed look at the significant role of underlying biographical and psychological factors in specific works by leading avant-garde filmmakers. Covering a range of filmmakers including Maya Deren, Stan Brakhage, Gregory Markopoulos, Robert Beavers, Ken Jacobs, and Ernie Gehr, The Melancholy Lens takes a sensitive approach to understand the motivations of each filmmaker as related to a given work. Pipolo argues, for example, that the work of Deren and Brakhage lends itself to a more aggressive appreciation of psychoanalytic principles. The Deren films studied-Meshes of the Afternoon, At Land, and Ritual in Transfigured Time-are read as varying responses to the death of her father, with whom she had a strained relationship. Tortured Dust-the final film Brakhage made about his first family-was, by his own account, a work of contention and desperation. The elusiveness of Gregory Markopoulos' The Mysteries cannot conceal its naked obsession with death any more than it can diminish the film's poignancy. Robert Beavers' Sotiros is an especially rich and vivid exposure of a vulnerable chapter in the filmmakers's life. In the final two chapters on Ken Jacobs and Ernie Gehr, Pipolo looks outward for artistic motivation to show how both filmmakers' fascination with the history of film and video manifests as a melancholic view of greater history in their work. In the afterword, the author considers later figures whose work is kindred to the theme of this book, among them Nathaniel Dorsky, Phil Solomon, David Gatten, and Lewis Klahr.

The prevalence of loss and mourning, and of charged relationships with parents or parental figures has had a surprising influence on several American avant-garde filmmakers' work . To date, however, little attention has been given to these themes. In The Melancholy Lens, author Tony Pipolo offers a detailed look at the significant role of underlying biographical and psychological factors in specific works by leading avant-garde filmmakers. Covering a range of filmmakers including Maya Deren, Stan Brakhage, Gregory Markopoulos, Robert Beavers, Ken Jacobs, and Ernie Gehr, The Melancholy Lens takes a sensitive approach to understand the motivations of each filmmaker as related to a given work. Pipolo argues, for example, that the work of Deren and Brakhage lends itself to a more aggressive appreciation of psychoanalytic principles. The Deren films studied-Meshes of the Afternoon, At Land, and Ritual in Transfigured Time-are read as varying responses to the death of her father, with whom she had a strained relationship. Tortured Dust-the final film Brakhage made about his first family-was, by his own account, a work of contention and desperation. The elusiveness of Gregory Markopoulos' The Mysteries cannot conceal its naked obsession with death any more than it can diminish the film's poignancy. Robert Beavers' Sotiros is an especially rich and vivid exposure of a vulnerable chapter in the filmmakers's life. In the final two chapters on Ken Jacobs and Ernie Gehr, Pipolo looks outward for artistic motivation to show how both filmmakers' fascination with the history of film and video manifests as a melancholic view of greater history in their work. In the afterword, the author considers later figures whose work is kindred to the theme of this book, among them Nathaniel Dorsky, Phil Solomon, David Gatten, and Lewis Klahr.