Le Retour (1964) by Henri Cartier-Bresson
Saturday, November 17, 1984, 8:00 pm
Personal Visions of War
Le Retour (1964) by Henri Cartier-Bresson, 34 min. Le Retour follows the liberation and homeward journey of French prisoners from Nazi concentration camps. From their disbelieving, sunken faces to their hospital recoveries and finally to their journey home, Cartier-Bresson’s adroit camera says more about the separation and destruction of war than hours of combat footage.
War Stories (1983) by Richard Levine, 38 min “There have been a number of recent attempts by formalist filmmakers to incorporate overt social concerns into their work… If Levine’s jarring incandescent War Stories seems the most successful it’s not because Levine is necessarily the deepest thinker, but because he demonstrates the most respect for the materials at hand.” — J. Hoberman, Village Voice.
Two wars, two films, two types of reflection. Both Henri Cartier-Bresson’s Le Retour and Richard Levine’s War Stories recombine images from footage compiled by the military. The result, filtered through each artist’s sensibility/culture are widely different. One film is nostalgic, poetic, sentimental, thoroughly moving. The other expresses a conflict after a conflict. Each is a tribute to its time.