Magnum photographer Henri Cartier-Bresson was 95.
While in New York, he met the photographer Paul Strand ("maître," Mr. Cartier-Bresson always called him). Making movies at the time, Strand inspired Mr. Cartier-Bresson to think about doing the same, and soon after his return to France, Mr. Cartier-Bresson got a job with Jean Renoir, the director, as a second assistant on "A Day in the Country" and "The Rules of the Game." He also helped Renoir on a propaganda film for the French Communist Party, denouncing the 200 most prominent families in France, Mr. Cartier-Bresson's among them. Although he never joined the party, his sympathy for the poor and downtrodden, and his dislike of class pretense became essential to the choice and content of his photographs.From the cinema, he said, he learned about narrative and the expressive moment. He directed his first film, "Return to Life," in 1937, a documentary about medical aid to the Loyalists in the Spanish Civil War. He made occasional films after that. In the 1970's, for instance, he directed two documentaries about California for CBS television.
