The Films of Robert Bresson

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