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.
― flappy bird, Wednesday, 14 November 2018 21:18 (five years ago) link
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.”
― Buckaroo Can't Fail (James Redd and the Blecchs), Wednesday, 14 November 2018 22:02 (five years ago) link
Laugh at a bad reputation. Fear a good one that you could not sustain.
― flappy bird, Wednesday, 14 November 2018 22:56 (five years ago) link
donkey film = perfect film
― flappy bird, Monday, 8 April 2019 16:19 (four years ago) link
just saw A Man Escaped, it was pretty great!
― Dan S, Wednesday, 9 October 2019 02:16 (four years ago) link
Gonna assign Pickpocket to my students next week as an example of sound design and editing.
― TikTok to the (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, 9 October 2019 02:20 (four years ago) link
that's my next one
― Dan S, Wednesday, 9 October 2019 02:21 (four years ago) link
also just noticed that Diary of a Country Priest is on the criterion channel
― Dan S, Wednesday, 9 October 2019 02:26 (four years ago) link
saw it originally years ago, only remember the feelings of estrangement and loneliness
― Dan S, Wednesday, 9 October 2019 02:40 (four years ago) link
remember really liking Au Hasard Balthazar, looking forward to seeing that one again
― Dan S, Wednesday, 9 October 2019 02:53 (four years ago) link
loved Pickpocket as much as A Man Escaped
― Dan S, Thursday, 17 October 2019 01:38 (four years ago) link
I Lancelot of the Lake a lot. It’s strange.
― circa1916, Thursday, 17 October 2019 01:59 (four years ago) link
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
― Dan S, Thursday, 17 October 2019 03:13 (four years ago) link
yeah that one rules
The Devil, Probably escaped me
― flappy bird, Thursday, 17 October 2019 04:06 (four years ago) link
loved man escaped, thought pickpocket was trash soz
― Li'l Brexit (Tracer Hand), Thursday, 17 October 2019 07:26 (four years ago) link
I assigned Pickpocket to my students this week, and they've written well about it.
― TikTok to the (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Thursday, 17 October 2019 10:17 (four years ago) link
don't know how my post could be improved on really
though i should have mentioned that the photography is just jawdroppingly gorgeous
― Li'l Brexit (Tracer Hand), Thursday, 17 October 2019 10:40 (four years ago) link
just saw Mouchette, it is also great, with perfectly economical storytelling
― Dan S, Sunday, 27 October 2019 22:01 (four years ago) link
didn't know Bresson beyond Balthazar before now
― Dan S, Sunday, 27 October 2019 22:10 (four years ago) link
all three of the ones I've seen - A Man Escaped, Pickpocket, Mouchette - have a ruthless, closed-off quality
― Dan S, Sunday, 27 October 2019 22:31 (four years ago) link
Good description
― Ferlinghetti Hvorostovsky (James Redd and the Blecchs), Sunday, 27 October 2019 22:40 (four years ago) link
L'Argent is another incredible film. I really like his style as a director
― Dan S, Friday, 8 November 2019 01:00 (four years ago) link
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.
― calzino, Friday, 8 November 2019 01:15 (four years ago) link
enjoyed reading Ebert's tribute article from when he died in 1999:
https://www.rogerebert.com/interviews/robert-bresson-was-master-of-understatement
― Dan S, Friday, 8 November 2019 01:32 (four years ago) link
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."
― Dan S, Friday, 8 November 2019 01:54 (four years ago) link
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.
― Chris L, Friday, 8 November 2019 02:10 (four years ago) link
Good one
― Irae Louvin (James Redd and the Blecchs), Saturday, 9 November 2019 02:41 (four years ago) link
don't think his films are pretentious but they are on the surface inscrutable
― Dan S, Saturday, 9 November 2019 02:57 (four years ago) link
they seem very modest
― Dan S, Saturday, 9 November 2019 03:01 (four years ago) link
My post was an xpost to Dan S, but I guess it works either way.
― Irae Louvin (James Redd and the Blecchs), Saturday, 9 November 2019 03:04 (four years ago) link
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)
― Dan S, Saturday, 9 November 2019 03:32 (four years ago) link
― Dan S, Friday, November 8, 2019 9:57 PM
Really? His films mean what they say.
― TikTok to the (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Saturday, 9 November 2019 03:34 (four years ago) link
I think I mean that he doesn't bother to explain anything, you have to make your own interpretation
― Dan S, Saturday, 9 November 2019 03:38 (four years ago) link
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
― Dan S, Saturday, 9 November 2019 03:54 (four years ago) link
Balthazar is a captivating character, but Au Hasard Balthazar as a film is hard for me to grasp
― Dan S, Saturday, 14 December 2019 00:11 (four years ago) link
most of his stuff could not be called easy to grasp
― a Mets fan who gave up on everything in the mid '80s (Dr Morbius), Saturday, 14 December 2019 01:03 (four years ago) link
The story focuses on the fate of Balthazar, but there is a lot of incidental nihilism in the events he witnesses
― Dan S, Saturday, 14 December 2019 01:14 (four years ago) link
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
― Dan S, Saturday, 14 December 2019 02:09 (four years ago) link
I guess there is a lot to think about with it
― Dan S, Saturday, 14 December 2019 02:19 (four years ago) link
― Lidsville U.K. (James Redd and the Blecchs), Saturday, 14 December 2019 03:11 (four years ago) link
lol nvm The Devil Probably is a nonpareil masterpiece
― flappy bird, Friday, 7 August 2020 07:07 (three years ago) link