(Or was he quoting a message dated 1/6/03 12:54:42 AM, written by ksprouse@hsc.edu ?)
Anyway, I read that question :
Truth is, I don't know exactly how Doisneau's image was presented in the magazine-- did an exhaustive search on the internet to see if I could find a reproduction of the actual page or article, but had no success. So, since the context does matter, we really can't get much farther until we know if any explanation accompanied the photograph, and all we can base our discussion on is two actors kissing in front of a cafe. I base my opinion on the fact that this image was staged and I therefore question every other photograph made by Doisneau. He was held up as a model of reportage, but how much of his work really was? How many other actors and staged scenes were there?
Hi again,
Since the context is described in that Taschen book entitled “Photo Icons – Vol. 2” I’ll try to make a translation of that paragraph of the book.
... ( A previous paragraph tells how Doisneau only got a late recognition for his work in the seventies, while he had already been shooting a lot in the fifties and sixties)..
The “Baiser de l’Hôtel-de-Ville”, his winning picture suffered from the same late recognition. It appeared for the first time in a small format, in a series of six little B&W pictures. The editor did neither recognize the visual impact of the picture, nor pay any attention to its author : Doisneau’s name didn’t appear anywhere in the double-page. The picture was part of a story on “Paris, the city of the lovers”. There, insinuated both text and pictures, couples are enlacing themselves at each street corner, without that anyone nearby seems to take notice. That was well seen, indeed, because back in the fifties people were still so prude that gestures of affections in the streets were a total exception. Thus, the report published in Life is once again rehearsing the old cliché of Paris as a city of loose moral and joyous sensuality, a Hollywood movie cliché which was constantly brought forward in these years. Basically and until now, the “Baiser de l’Hôtel-de-ville” works at this level : The image offered a representation of troublefree and happy love, just a few years after the war. Thus the picture got a double meaning as both peace and love messenger.
(this is a free translation from German to English by a French speaking person.. So I beg your pardon in advance in case you get to the English edition of that book and discover there are some inexactitude; btw, it is well worth the reading and presents 20 famous pictures in details for the 20th century).
--
Christiane
