SFA to screen 'Henri Cartier-Bresson: The Impassioned Eye' on June 7

Henri Cartier-Bresson

NACOGDOCHES, TEXAS - The Stephen F. Austin State University School of Art and Friends of the Visual Arts will present a one-night screening of "Henri Cartier-Bresson: The Impassioned Eye" at 7 p.m. Friday, June 7, at The Cole Art Center @ The Old Opera House. The free screening is part of the School of Art's First Friday Film Series.

In this 72-minute documentary directed by Heinz Bütler, Cartier-Bresson pulls out photographs, comments briefly, and holds them up to Bütler's camera, according to information at www.imdb.com.

A few others share observations, including Isabelle Huppert, Arthur Miller and Josef Koudelka. Cartier-Bresson talks about his travels - Mexico in the 1930s, imprisonment during World War II, being with Gandhi moments before his assassination, and returning to sketching late in life. He talks about becoming and being a photographer, about composition, and about some of his secrets to "capture the moment," the website says.

"For me, the camera is a sketchbook, an instrument of intuition and spontaneity, the master of the instant which, in visual terms, questions and decides simultaneously," the late Cartier-Bresson is quoted at www.henricartierbresson.org.

"To take a photograph is to hold one's breath when all faculties converge in a face of fleeting reality," he said. "It is at that moment that mastering an image becomes a great physical and intellectual joy."

Upon his death in 2004 at the age of 96, Cartier-Bresson was mourned as "the father of photojournalism."

The film series is sponsored in part by the Nacogdoches Junior Forum.

The Cole Art Center is located at 329 E. Main St. in downtown Nacogdoches. For more information, call (936) 468-1131.