Re: American Photo & HCB

[George Huczek <ghuczek@sk.sympatico.ca>]

At 12:29 PM 24/08/97 -0600, you wrote:
>Gerard, that sounds like a wonderful film. I would love to see it. Should it
>pop up in anyone's TV Guide here in the US, please record it, or post when
>and where it is showing.

There are several you may be interested in. They are rarely aired on TV
now.  One, La Vie est a Nous (Life is Ours), is a French Communist
propaganda documentary, while the other, Victoire de la Vie (Return to
Life), is propaganda designed to raise money for the Republicans prior to
the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War.  HCB also served as an assistant
director and played a priest in Une Partie de Campagne (A Day in the
Country), and had another spot appearance in the film, Regle du Jue (Rules
of the Game).  
   All of this took place while HCB was under the mentorship of the film
director Jean Renoir, after a previously uneventful try at fashion
photography in New York.  HCBs attempt at filmmaking was, to say the least,
less than memorable.  After his marriage, perhaps for pragmatic reasons, he
may have recognized that his bread-winning talent was with his Leica,
recording those decisive moments for which he would become famous.  He had
to arrive at this point in his career by travelling full circle through
various vocations, from his earlier days as an aspiring painter, later to
his travels in Africa, (of which little remains photographically due to the
ravages of the tropics), then to the time he did his wonderful stills of
1932-34 in Europe, (when he first began using Leicas after abandoning the
Krauss), to when he again began to photograph in earnest, taking a job at
Ce Soir around 1937, where he became acquainted with Seymour and Capa, who
were later to form Magnum shortly after the war.




- -GH