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.

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.