February 21st, 2012
The Films of Cartier-Bresson by admin
Cartier-Bresson, known as the ‘father of photojournalism’, co-directed an anti-fascist film with Herbet Kline. The film was directed during the years of the Spanish civil war and heavily promoted the Republican cause, their medical services in particular. ‘Victoire de la Vie’, or ‘Return to Life’, was a documentary concerning medical relief during the Spanish Civil War for the Republican side. Having learnt the rudiments of documentary filmmaking in New York in 1935, Cartier-Bresson also provided “most of the visual ideas” for the film, according to Herbert Kline.

The amount of footage that was condensed into one documentary film would certainly have filled a memory card or two. As would the amount of fottage used by Cartier-Bresson for the subsequent two films that he directed in support of Republican Spain: L’Espagne vivra (‘Spain Will Live’) and ‘With the Abraham Lincoln Brigade in Spain’. When the French army collapsed in June 1943, Cartier-Bresson was taken prisoner but managed to escape the Nazi work camp he was held in near Stuttgart on his third attempt in Fenruary 1943.

