The Films of Robert Bresson

L'Argent, cause the donkey will get enough votes (like, two or three).

LOL!

Diary of a Country Priest.

I went for Lancelot over the abused donkey film in the end, the climactic battle is the strangest fight I've ever seen in a film.

I've seen 9; tough choice. A Man Escaped over donkey.

A Man Escaped; just thinking about the donkey inspires teary heaves.

Is it okay to vote if you've only seen one of these?

Of course!

One other thing is that "Mouchette" and "Diary of a Country Priest" are both admirably faithful to their novels (both were written by Georges Bernanos), even using a lot of dialogue verbatim.

i've also seen nine of his films, and of those i've seen a man escaped, pickpocket and au hasard balthazar multiple times. i have to go with the donkey, but followed closely by mouchette, a film i'm sure i will see multiple times ...

i love the braying ass that interrupts the music during the opening credits of balthazar. who says bresson was humorless?!

Mouchette, followed by Donkey and then A Man Escaped. Need to see Pickpocket again.

actually I've seen ten -- didn't read A Gentle Woman as Une Femme Douce

Diary of a Country Priest has that alluring young woman who threw herself in front of a train a fews later. She was pretty hot when alive, though.

I like how people keep using 'donkey' as shorthand on this thread.

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

I'm glad Diary of a Country Priest did well, but I have to admit, I'm a little distressed at the (near) lack of love for Pickpocket.

Aside from that very issue, I think this is one, and perhaps the only, poll result that most resembles the ABSOLUTE TRUTH.

who is my "Lancelot of the Lake" homie?

Why is it that I'm not interested at all in seeing A Man Escaped?

Don't answer that.

I am your Lancelot homie Ryan

I'm glad Diary of a Country Priest did well, but I have to admit, I'm a little distressed at the (near) lack of love for Pickpocket.

― Gukbe, Wednesday, June 27, 2007 2:09 AM (2 years ago) Bookmark

this at least gives me encouragement to watch the kinda old-time bressons that i've avoided for awhile.

did anyone ever read/flick through notes on cinematography?

I would have voted Lancelot too!

For a second I thought I was on the Walker Percy thread and was gonna say: RONG!

Country Priest is the most emotionally affecting, L'Argent is his most accomplished, Le Diable is his darkest, Une Femme Douce is his most visually-beautiful, perhaps.

have only seen country priest. it's heavy as fuck but i think there was something precious in there. i've heard you need to watch it differently to most other films. my best friend told me that. we will watch it again some day. the priest's relationship with that young lady/girl was intriguing

Country Priest still my favourite.

also RIP that actress who jumped in front of a train :(

country priest would have been my pick if i'd voted. i don't think i can watch the donkey again.

Still haven't watched A Man Escaped.

You should! It's a rather straightforward story (man is arrested, man devises way of breaking out, etc.), but the way Bresson films it can pretty much only be described as "poetic".

I'm sure it's great. Everything Bresson did was.

Ignatiy V inaugurates a series of essays:

http://mubi.com/notebook/posts/robert-bresson-the-over-plenty-of-life

related to 2-week NYC retro:

http://www.filmforum.org/films/bresson.html

Diary of a Country Priest is extraordinary. So much Bresson still to watch.

xp really weird to think that "that dude from the arty video store" is now an "authority"

The Trial of Joan of Arc pulls off the climactic barbecue better than the other 3 Jeanne films I've seen.

"just a little bread dipped in wine..."

We've got a big series starting at the Lightbox next month (hooked in to the same series showing in NY, undoubtedly):

http://tiff.net/filmsandschedules/tiffbelllightbox/2012/4400000375

yes, full North American tour:

http://mubi.com/notebook/posts/complete-bresson-retrospective-to-tour-north-america

Apparently George Cukor is responsible for evangelizing about Bresson's greatness after watching Country Priest.

I.V. on Bresson and comedy:

http://mubi.com/notebook/posts/the-comedy-stylings-of-robert-bresson

Diary... is so great.

Pains me to say it: his version of the Joan of Arc story is the weakest of the four, adds nothng to Dreyer's version beyond the non-silence of it. V well made staged and made and yet..

Four? I think I also know of Preminger, Victor Fleming and Rivette versions, I guess that's four

I hope you're not including the Milla Jovovich version

VF version with Ingrid Bergman in the title role was on last week but I didn't watch it.

I didn't know there was a Rivette version! Was thinking of Dreyer, Bresson, Ingrid then Jovovich.

The Jovovich version has 'tude ;-), which is more than can be said for the Bresson version.

Dreyer, with the right soundtrack (or even completely silent) is best.

Havne't seen Ingrid and that has to be corrected.

Sandrine Bonnaire is Joan in the Rivette version. I only saw Part I, the first four hours.

the films of robert depression

Looked this up, and I had forgotten, basically because I sense it probably won't be very good. Not sure he's the go to guy for 'The Battles'; they probably involve toy horses. xp = the end of Pickpocket gave me a very warm feeling.

xp really weird to think that "that dude from the arty video store" is now an "authority"

― tanuki, Sunday, January 8, 2012 12:22 PM (1 week ago) Bookmark

hyou mean ignatiy? hes a real good writer....

oh i know — didn't mean it as a slight, just weird seeing reg'lar folks become "celebrities"

http://www.momogalerie.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/Robert-Bresson-balthazar-Momo-Galerie-Romaric-Tisserand-margherita-ratti-.jpeg

Didn't dislike what I saw of the Rivette, just didn't have the opportunity to see the rest of it.

so what of Four Nights of a Dreamer? New print tonight.

it's coming here in feb -- une femme douce and jeanne d'arc this sunday.

braggin alert - i saw "a man condemned to die has escaped" on the big screen, with a pristine print

it is incredibly intense, basically pure action in the sense of not much talking, tiny noises having huge significance, the relationship of bodies in space driving the plot forward

and i love how the title says it all: the plot is entirely given away, so all that's left is the action of how it happens, and your empathy with this guy being enough to draw you into feeling what he's feeling

lLes Anges du péché and Les Dames de Bois du Boulogne at GSFC last night — a treat to see Les Dames on the big screen but Les Anges was the highlight — probably his most "literary" film, really excellent dialogue and a lot more in common with his later films than I'd expected.

i'd like to come down to chicago to see the ones i haven't seen on the big screen, esp four nights of a dreamer which i've only seen in a nth generation VHS bootleg.

yeah, really excited about that one.

Anyone in this thread planning to see the series at the National Gallery (Washington, DC)?

I am. Hyped for it.

saw A Man Escaped again last week, tot forgot about the teenage Matt Damon type who enters midway.

UGGGH. Netflix has pulled L'Argent from its roster. Saw it years ago but wanted to refresh my memory.

Yeah the New Yorker Video DVD is long OOP. I saw it when Doc Films played it here the year before last and I'll see it again when it plays at GSFC (which would make it my most-watched Bresson).

I watched L'Argent on Hulu Plus a few weeks ago. Don't know if it's still there.

bleh, we're not getting this retro til may

getting it again in Brooklyn in April....

I didn't know this abt Man Escaped:

Original author Andre Devigny served as adviser on the film, which was actually shot in the same Montluc prison where he was incarcerated. Devigny also loaned Bresson the ropes and hooks he had used in his escape.

iirc, l'argent is part of Criterion's hulu lineup, with a dvd/blu forthcoming.

also: Olive films has The Devil, Probably in their pipeline.

Four Nights of a Dreamer was brilliant — certainly explodes the narrative of his oeuvre sliding from bleak to bleaker in his later films. I had read that it was supposedly more "comedic" than his others but I didn't think it would be so funny! I hope a new DVD is in the works.

it has been a while since i saw it but i remember thinking it was kinda bresson's blow up, maybe just in setting - something so funny about even just seeing the bressonian leads hazily marching along against a backdrop of like guitar-strumming parisian folkies

Posting on Bresson during the Super Bowl--the most solitary of the solitary.

I watched the first quarter, now I'm over here to see what's buzzing

it has been a while since i saw it but i remember thinking it was kinda bresson's blow up, maybe just in setting - something so funny about even just seeing the bressonian leads hazily marching along against a backdrop of like guitar-strumming parisian folkies

― quick brown fox triangle (schlump), Sunday, February 5, 2012 5:39 PM (3 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

guitar-strumming parisian BOSSA NOVA band. on a BARGE. for the win.

How does it compare to this Bossa Nova?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iNuMoVqKEuE

it's in b+w.

no it isn't!

yes, it is. the bresson.

no, it isn't actually.

is it?

see what i did there?

actually i just forgot.

it is a very 'blue' film iirc
ty for bossa nova clarification

Looking forward to A Man Escaped tonight, the start of our Toronto series. Bart Testa, one of my film professors 30 years ago (he does the Frank Zappa entry in the first Rolling Stone Record Guide), is introducing.

I ended up seeing five of these: A Man Escaped, Mouchette, Diary of a Country Priest, Angels of Sin, and Four Nights of a Dreamer. I went in tired every time, so staying alert was a struggle. A Man Escaped, which I'd never seen and thought I'd like, I didn't care for at all. Mouchette was good, but when you know you're not nearly as moved at the end as you're supposed to be, that's a problem. I liked Four Nights of a Dreamer, which I saw today, best. I guess this a Kael thing, but after the pronounced flatness of the first four, it was a relief to have some beautiful colour photography, a little music, and pretty girls. The lead guy, who looks so much like a young Scorsese in the still you always see, had some good comic timing reminiscent of Jean-Pierre Léaud at times.

http://altscreen.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/four-nights.jpg

Meant to add, I think Woody Allen may have gotten the idea for Annie Hall's penultimate scene--where Alvy's play fixes everything that went wrong in his final meeting with Annie--from Four Nights.

those elements you list are why I found 4 Nights to be his most "ordinary," if that's the word.

Other Bresson films have different virtues but Pickpocket (which I know isn't on your list) and A Man Escaped generate, in my judgment real suspense.

They're also very short.

I saw Pickpocket years ago and think I liked it fine (can't be sure, though). Four Nights is definitely the odd film out. I'm sure my general susceptibility to the look and feel of '70s films is a part of what I liked--hard to believe that that would apply to a Bresson film, but Four Nights felt very much of its era.

Clemenza, you were at the Lightbox in Toronto, right? I hope you weren't sitting in the back next to me, and if you were, I apologize for all of my fidgeting and distracting behaviour. It wouldn't have happened if only I got there earlier.

I was real confused by the way the female lead acted. I think it's because she delivered all of her lines in that mildly apprehensive tone, but I found it somewhat difficult to believe she could really be in love with anyone. And what a cocktease too. It is very likely that I missed the whole point of the film.

L'Arent is in color and also probably his best film other than, depending on my mood, the ass Christ.

Une Femme Douce is in color and probably his most visually-gorgeous film. Not very cheery, though.

xpost I can't think of another filmmaker who could spend minutes on someone taking money from an ATM (admittedly fraudulently) and have it feel like the most riveting cinema evah

Ascai: that's funny--I'm a tyrant about noise, but no, I didn't hear a thing. (I was towards the front-left.) As my friend pointed out to me, the female lead was Léaud's former girlfriend in The Mother and the Whore. She seemed comparable to the female leads in the other Bressons I saw. I thought her sudden choice at the end was effectively hurtful.

Every time I hear pebbles crunching under feet I think of Bresson

Four Nights of a Dreamer def got more laughs out of an audience than any other bresson film i've seen (low bar, but still). quite beautiful as well.

i also recall Four Nights as odd in that it was so 70's, i saw it like 10 years ago and was so thrown off because it wasn't what i expected. wikipedia tells me there are quite a few films made of this story (White Nights, Dostoevsky).. is it really that maudlin in the original russian or is this a translation issue?

Now think I'd put Mouchette #2 behind Man Escaped.

Went to see Lancelot Du Lac earlier today, which is starting to rival Diary of a Country Priest for my "favourite Bresson film". I adore it. Audience I saw it with didn't seem too keen based on grumblings upon exit.

I'm afraid I was one of those who weren't very into Lancelot, even if I didn't say anything out loud. But I really liked Jeanne d'Arc.

Were you at Une Femme Douce/L'Argent tonight?

I was, yes. Was really impressed with L'Argent.

http://www.filmcomment.com/entry/kent-jones-and-b-kite-on-bresson-part-one

Jone's essay was really good.

Video essay was tedious. If any film sequence doesn't need that treatment, it's the LdL tournament one.

I've seen Au Hasard Balthazar, A Man Escaped and Pickpocket. I think AHB and AME are a smidge better than Pickpocket. What should I see next?

Diary of a Country Priest. Mouchette. Then move to the colour ones, specifically Lancelot and L'Argent.

L'Argent is my favorite.

still havent seen 'au hasard' or 'priest' but my faves are devil probably and mouchette

Thanks I'll probably go the Gukbe route.

L'ARGENT also my favorite.

diary of a country priest!

awesome vampire scenes too

Une femme douce and four nights of a dreamer are ones I've checked out in the last couple of years after seeing the "essentials"
Both so beautiful
My fave remains diary tho

http://www.youtube.com/watch?&v=FED1zl5p-kA

Donald Richie on Au Hasard Balthazar

A Man Escaped has, to BluRay.

http://www.fandor.com/blog/daily-bressons-a-man-escaped

I watched the Criterion a couple weeks.ago

http://vimeo.com/98484833

his book, mentioned way back by schlump, is being reissued.

http://hyperallergic.com/337987/an-auteurs-enduring-and-confounding-guide-to-filmmaking/

What do people think of Les dames du Bois de Boulogne? I've managed to somehow not seen any of his films, but Les dames is playing this weekend. I get that it's probably not the best place to start with Bresson, but would it be, I don't know, an actually bad place to begin?

i don't see why you should bypass it; just know it's not typical of the later stuff.

thanks

Les Dames du Bois de Boulogne is great, has some really breathtaking scenes. It's definitely an early work, but I'd butter it in the better half of his.

otm -- I love early films where an artist's processes are still embryonic (e.g. Tori Amos' debut)

butter? have no idea how that happened...

tbh Bresson's rep for emotional devastation is one reason I haven't gone out of my way to see, eg, the donkey, so I was actually pretty intrigued by Les Dames, which sounds a little too mannered to be too depressing (?). Just thought I'd check in with y'all since the thread got bumped

I butter both halves, personally.

The Donkey is overrated. I also rewatched Mouchette recently, and was a bit disappointed, remembered it better. I think his fifties films are the best, of course, but after that I prefer his 70's films like Four Nights of the Dreamer and The Devil, Probably. But they're advanced work, they definitely only work if you accept the style completely. Lancelot is a bridge too far, even for me.

Lancelot and Country Priest are my two favourites. I wouldn't say The Donkey is overrated but it's the closest to that bridge too far for me.

Lancelot is just too silly... I mean, the skeleton hanging from a tree with his armor still on... Every Bresson film has a minimalist feel, but Lancelot just feels too wrong to me. And it's not just because it's a historical film, Jeanne d'Arc is much better. Agreed on Country Priest, that one is fantastic, though.

Balthazar is the best - the scene where the donkey encounters the other caged animals in particular is a transcendent bit of filmmaking. I don't understand what this 'bridge too far' business means in this context, but Lancelot is great as well, even if the echoes with Monty Python and the Holy Grail (especially the way violence is treated in both of them) is a bit disconcerting.

The only Bresson I've seen that comes close to being a disappointment is A Gentle Woman (haven't watched Four Nights of a Dreamer).

“I began writing these notes 20 years ago. At that time, I still went to see films. Now I don’t go any more. I’ll tell you why: I don’t go, as I say in the book, because I can’t abide these actors who—in close-ups that reveal every detail—are there only to provide mimicry and theatrical gestures. And this feeling has grown even stronger—something has changed and I simply can’t do it, I can’t bear to see it or hear it.”

http://lithub.com/robert-bresson-im-not-a-director-i-am-a-filmmaker/

Another link which I saw shared on Facebook. There was some chat that Bresson was a bit of a big fibber sometimes, that he was in fact a frequent moviegoer, and that he continued to work with 'professional' actors throughout his career.

http://www.publicbooks.org/artmedia/the-intrusion-artist

notes on the cinematographer is good to dip into

A Man Escaped is such an amazing movie. It maintains the doomy tautness to the death and has really brilliant use of off camera events and truncated faceless nazis to create atmosphere of indifferent evil. Brilliant use of Mozart as well.

L'Argent creates the same effects with the so-called villains.

RB is Dennis Cooper's fave artist

http://denniscooperblog.com/happy-birthday-to-me-robert-bresson-day-restored/

A Facebook friend asked just the other day if there was any 'good' anti-Bresson criticism; as with Ozu, it seems thin on the ground.

Lancelot is just too silly... I mean, the skeleton hanging from a tree with his armor still on... Every Bresson film has a minimalist feel, but Lancelot just feels too wrong to me. And it's not just because it's a historical film, Jeanne d'Arc is much better. Agreed on Country Priest, that one is fantastic, though.

― Frederik B, Wednesday, 16 November 2016 23:25 (nine months ago)

Oh man the skeletons with their armour still is so grimly effective and surreal that John Boorman re-used it for Excalibur, where knights dying from the plague were hung on trees. Im halfway throguh Lancelot, but I just wanted to reguister how unique the tone is, how great it looks, how Brittanic Arthurian it feels in an uninhibited, unabandoned way.

I want to agree with yuo about Diary of a Country Priest though. I haven't watched Jean D'Arc yet.

L'Argent is one of his best, isn't it? I was heistant after Le diable probablement, but this is much more enjoyable.

Yep. I bought the Criterion last year, a rarity these days.

Saw this image on Facebook today - Tarkovsky, Welles, Bresson at Cannes in 1983

https://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=i&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=images&cd=&ved=2ahUKEwjK9cD_2JHZAhVM6aQKHbOoCCAQjRx6BAgAEAY&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.pinterest.com%2Fpin%2F790663278303356930%2F&psig=AOvVaw0x-SOHD5705p6ADOBKcCom&ust=1518020338204499

Reading Bresson's Notes on the Cinematograph, which is half great advice and half "wow, this guy is a massive asshole"

it's only 88 pages, all brief diary entries, aphorisms, self-reminders, and some veiled criticism. there's a lot of fantastic advice and insights, this is the one I've found most true so far:

What no human eye is capable of catching, no pencil, brush, pen of pinning down, your camera catches without knowing what it is, and pins it down with a machine's scrupulous indifference.

I give that book to a friend as a birthday present and then he proceeded to make a great show of adding his own marginal notes to every page and I was thinking “no, dude, don’t go there.”

Laugh at a bad reputation. Fear a good one that you could not sustain.

donkey film = perfect film

just saw A Man Escaped, it was pretty great!

Gonna assign Pickpocket to my students next week as an example of sound design and editing.

that's my next one

also just noticed that Diary of a Country Priest is on the criterion channel

saw it originally years ago, only remember the feelings of estrangement and loneliness

remember really liking Au Hasard Balthazar, looking forward to seeing that one again

loved Pickpocket as much as A Man Escaped

I Lancelot of the Lake a lot. It’s strange.

I like*

want to see Lancelot du Lac, not sure how at the moment, going to watch Diary of a Country Priest again and looking forward to Mouchette and L'Argent

yeah that one rules

The Devil, Probably escaped me

loved man escaped, thought pickpocket was trash soz

I assigned Pickpocket to my students this week, and they've written well about it.

don't know how my post could be improved on really

though i should have mentioned that the photography is just jawdroppingly gorgeous

just saw Mouchette, it is also great, with perfectly economical storytelling

didn't know Bresson beyond Balthazar before now

all three of the ones I've seen - A Man Escaped, Pickpocket, Mouchette - have a ruthless, closed-off quality

Good description

L'Argent is another incredible film. I really like his style as a director

A Man Escaped is so good. The truncated Gestapo guards in it is something that sticks in the memory, if I'm remembering it right you only see angled/restricted shots of them mostly and that adds to the feeling of de-humanised hopeless dread.

enjoyed reading Ebert's tribute article from when he died in 1999:

https://www.rogerebert.com/interviews/robert-bresson-was-master-of-understatement

I like the quote: "If the eye is entirely won, give nothing or almost nothing to the ear. One cannot be at the same time all eye and all ear."

I went to a screening of Pickpocket once and another random guy who was there followed me afterward trying to get me to admit it was pretentious bullshit.

Good one

don't think his films are pretentious but they are on the surface inscrutable

they seem very modest

My post was an xpost to Dan S, but I guess it works either way.

I like that only the most significant moments mattered to him: “He pared down every scene and shot, every movement and utterance of his performers, to the bare essentials. Each situation, image, and sound had to have a sharpness, a freshness, a novelty. That is why Bresson’s cinema is forever modern” (Adrian Martin, Criterion)

don't think his films are pretentious but they are on the surface inscrutable

― Dan S, Friday, November 8, 2019 9:57 PM

Really? His films mean what they say.

I think I mean that he doesn't bother to explain anything, you have to make your own interpretation

Martin's review of L'Argent and Bresson is good I think

https://www.criterion.com/current/posts/4719-l-argent-the-weight-of-the-world

Balthazar is a captivating character, but Au Hasard Balthazar as a film is hard for me to grasp

most of his stuff could not be called easy to grasp

The story focuses on the fate of Balthazar, but there is a lot of incidental nihilism in the events he witnesses

Mari’s “no tenderness, no heart, no feelings” masochism is really heartbreaking, in that sense the film elicits empathy, it's the component of the story that means the most to me

I guess there is a lot to think about with it

most of his stuff could not be called easy to grasp

lol nvm The Devil Probably is a nonpareil masterpiece

Why do people say L'Argent is "loosely" based on Tolstoy when virtually everything that happens in the movie is in The Forged Coupon? OK the main character in L'Argent is an amalgamation of several characters in The Forged Coupon and Bresson stops the film at the end of part one of the book (which is very violent and bleak) but he still sticks pretty closely to it.