Robert Bresson | |
|---|---|
 Bressonc. 1960 | |
| Born | (1901-09-25)25 September 1901 Bromont-Lamothe, France |
| Died | 18 December 1999(1999-12-18) (aged 98) Droue-sur-Drouette, France |
| Occupation(s) | Film director, screenwriter |
| Years active | 1933–1983 |
| Spouse(s) | Leidia van der Zee (m. 1926) Marie-Madeleine van der Mersch |
Robert Bresson (French:[ʁɔbɛʁbʁɛsɔ̃]; 25 September 1901 – 18 December 1999)[1] was a Frenchfilm director. Known for his ascetic approach, Bresson made a notable contribution to the art of cinema; his non-professional actors,ellipses, and sparse use of scoring have led his works to be regarded as preeminent examples ofminimalist film. Much of his work is known for beingtragic in story and nature.
Bresson is among the most highly regarded filmmakers of all time. He has the highest number of films (seven) that made the 2012Sight & Sound critics' poll of the 250 greatest films ever made.[2][3][4] His worksA Man Escaped (1956),[5]Pickpocket (1959)[6] andAu hasard Balthazar (1966)[7] were ranked among the top 100, and other films likeMouchette (1967) andL'Argent (1983) also received many votes.[8]Jean-Luc Godard once wrote, "He is the French cinema, asDostoevsky is the Russian novel andMozart is German music."[9]
Bresson was born atBromont-Lamothe,Puy-de-Dôme, the son of Marie-Élisabeth (née Clausels) and Léon Bresson.[10] Little is known of his early life. He was educated atLycée Lakanal inSceaux, Hauts-de-Seine, close to Paris, and turned to painting after graduating.[11] Three formative influences in his early life are evident in his films:Catholicism, art, and his experiences as aprisoner of war. Robert Bresson lived inParis, France, in theÎle Saint-Louis.[12]
Initially a photographer, Bresson made his first short film,Les affaires publiques (Public Affairs) in 1934. He enlisted in theFrench Army on the onset ofWorld War II and was captured by the Germans in 1940 and held as aprisoner of war for more than a year,[13] an experience which informedA Man Escaped. In a career that spanned fifty years, Bresson made only 13 feature-length films. This reflects his painstaking approach to the filmmaking process and his non-commercial preoccupations. Difficulty finding funding for his projects was also a factor.
Bresson was sometimes accused of an uncompromising "ivory tower existence" outside of mainstream cinema.[14] Later in his life, he said that he had stopped watching other filmmakers' movies in theaters,[15] although he later praised the James Bond filmFor Your Eyes Only (1981), saying that "It filled me with wonder ... if I could have seen it twice in a row and again the next day, I would have."[16] CriticJonathan Rosenbaum, an admirer of Bresson's work, argued that the filmmaker was "a mysterious, aloof figure", and wrote that on the set ofFour Nights of a Dreamer (1971), where Rosenbaum was an extra, the director "seemed more isolated from his crew than any other filmmaker I've seen at work; his widow and onetime assistant director, Mylene van der Mersch, often conveyed his instructions."[17]
Bresson died on 18 December 1999, at his home inDroue-sur-Drouette, southwest of Paris. He was 98. He made his last film,L'Argent(Money), in 1983 and had been unwell for some time.[18]
Bresson publishedNotes on the Cinematographer in 1975, in which he argues for a unique sense of the term "cinematography". For him, cinematography is the higher function of cinema. While a movie is in essence "only" filmed theatre, Bresson defines cinematography as an attempt to create a new language of moving images and sounds.[19] His early artistic focus was to separate the language of cinema from that of the theater, which often relies heavily upon the actor's performance to drive the work. Film scholar Tony Pipolo writes that "Bresson opposed not just professional actors, but acting itself,"[20] preferring to think of his actors as 'models'. InNotes on the Cinematographer (French:Notes sur le cinématographe; also published in English asNotes on the Cinematograph), a collection of aphorisms written by Bresson, the director succinctly defines the difference between the two:
HUMAN MODELS: movement from the exterior to the interior. [...]
ACTORS: movement from the interior to the exterior.[19]
Bresson further elaborates on his disdain for acting by appropriating a remarkChateaubriand had made about 19th century poets and applying it to actors: "what they lack is not naturalness, but Nature." For Bresson, "to think it's more natural for a movement to be made or a phrase to be said likethis than likethat" is "absurd", and "nothing rings more false in film [...] than the overstudied sentiments" of theater.[19]
With his 'model' technique, Bresson's actors were required to repeat multiple takes of each scene until all semblances of 'performance' were stripped away, leaving a stark effect that registers as both subtle and raw. This, as well as Bresson's restraint in musical scoring, would have a significant influence on minimalist cinema. In the academic journalCrossCurrents, Shmuel Ben-gad wrote:
There is a credibility in Bresson's models: They are like people we meet in life, more or less opaque creatures who speak, move, and gesture [...] Acting, on the other hand, no matter how naturalistic, actively deforms or invents by putting an overlay or filter over the person, presenting a simplification of a human being and not allowing the camera to capture the actor's human depths. Thus what Bresson sees as the essence of filmic art, the achievement of the creative transformation involved in all art through the interplay of images of real things, is destroyed by the artifice of acting. For Bresson, then, acting is, like mood music and expressive camera work, just one more way of deforming reality or inventing that has to be avoided.[21]
Film criticRoger Ebert wrote that Bresson's directorial style resulted in films "of great passion: Because the actors didn't act out the emotions, the audience could internalize them."[22] InAgainst Interpretation,Susan Sontag wrote that "Some art aims directly at arousing the feelings; some art appeals to the feelings through the route of the intelligence ... art that detaches, that provokes reflection. In the film, the master of the reflective mode is Robert Bresson." Sontag said that "the form of Bresson's films is designed (like Ozu's) to discipline the emotions at the same time that it arouses them: to induce a certain tranquility in the spectator, a state of spiritual balance that is itself the subject of the film."[23]
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Bresson was a Catholic, although he disagreed with some points of Catholic theology, explaining that he was not sure of theresurrection of the body and "would rather be aJansenist thanJesuit" due to his belief inpredestination.[15] In his later life he stopped attending church services due to his dissatisfaction with theSecond Vatican Council's transition to theMass of Paul VI, explaining that while he still felt a sense of transcendence sitting in a cathedral, Vatican II's changes to the Mass made it harder for him to feel the presence of God.[15] Although several writers claim that Bresson described himself as a "Christian atheist", it is not known in what context he made that statement (if he ever did).[24][25]
In 1973, Bresson explained:
There is the feeling that God is everywhere, and the more I live, the more I see that in nature, in the country. When I see a tree, I see that God exists. I try to catch and to convey the idea that we have a soul and that the soul is in contact with God. That's the first thing I want to get in my films.[26]
In a 1976 interview withPaul Schrader, Bresson said that he was concerned by what he saw as "the collapse of the Catholic religion" in France. He did not believe the post-Vatican II Church was capable of responding to this challenge.The Devil Probably incorporates some of his criticisms of the post-Vatican II Church. Bresson explained that his youthful protagonist "is looking for something on top of life, but he doesn't find it. He goes to Church to seek it, and he doesn't find it."[15] In addition, an early scene in the film shows a young Catholic complaining that the post-Vatican II Church "run[s] after Protestants."[27]
Some feel that Bresson'sCatholic upbringing and belief system lie behind the thematic structures of most of his films.[28] Recurring themes under this interpretation includesalvation,redemption, defining and revealing the humansoul, and metaphysical transcendence of a limiting and materialistic world. An example isA Man Escaped (1956), where a seemingly simple plot of aprisoner of war's escape can be read as ametaphor for the mysterious process of salvation. However, Bresson's films are also critiques of French society and the wider world, with each revealing the director's sympathetic, if unsentimental, view of society's victims. That the main characters of Bresson's most contemporary films,The Devil, Probably (1977) andL'Argent (1983), reach similarly unsettling conclusions about life indicates the director's feelings towards the culpability of modern society in the dissolution of individuals. Of an earlier protagonist, he said, "Mouchette offers evidence of misery and cruelty. She is found everywhere: wars, concentration camps, tortures, assassinations."[29] Film historianMark Cousins argues that "IfBergman andFellini filmed life as if it was a theatre and a circus, respectively, Bresson's microcosm was that of a prison", describing Bresson's characters as "psychologically imprisoned".[30]
Bresson explained that his films often address secular themes because he believed that a secular film with religious undercurrents was more likely to resonate with modern filmgoers than an explicitly religious theme.[15]Susan Sontag wrote that in his films, while a "religious vocation supplies one setting for ideas about gravity, lucidity, and martyrdom, ... the drastically secular subjects of crime, the revenge of betrayed love, and solitary imprisonment also yield the same themes."[23] Bresson worried that the new French generation was too materialistic to harbor true religious belief, saying that "every religion is poverty and poverty is the way of having contact with mystery and with God. When Catholicism wants to be materialistic, God is not there." He tried to reach modern audiences indirectly, explaining, "the more life is what it is—ordinary, simple—without pronouncing the word 'God,' the more I see the presence of God in that. ... I don't want to shoot something in which God would be too transparent." In his work, "there is a presence of something which I call God, but I don't want to show it too much. I prefer to make people feel it."[15]
Furthermore, in a 1983 interview forTSR'sSpécial Cinéma, Bresson declared that he had been interested in making a film based on theBook of Genesis, although he believed such a production would be too costly and time-consuming.[31]
Bresson is often referred to as a "patron saint" of cinema, not only for the strong Catholic themes found throughout his oeuvre, but also for his notable contributions to the art of film. His style can be detected through his use of sound, associating selected sounds with images or characters; paring dramatic form to its essentials by the spare use of music; and through his infamous 'actor-model' methods of directing his almost exclusively non-professional actors.Mark Cousins writes:[30]
So complete was Bresson's rejection of cinema norms that he has a tendency to fall outside film history. However, his uncompromising stance has been extremely influential in some quarters.
Bresson's bookNotes on the Cinematographer (1975) is one of the most respected books on film theory and criticism. His theories about film greatly influenced other filmmakers, particularly theFrench New Wave directors.
Opposing the established pre-war French cinema (known asTradition de la Qualité ["tradition of quality"]) by offering his own personal responses to the question "what is cinema?",[32] and by formulating his ascetic style, Bresson gained a high reputation with the founders of theFrench New Wave. He is often listed (along withAlexandre Astruc andAndré Bazin) as one of the main figures who influenced them. New Wave pioneers praised Bresson and posited him as a prototype for or precursor to the movement. However, Bresson was neither as overtly experimental nor as outwardly political as the New Wave filmmakers, and his religious views (Catholicism andJansenism) were not attractive to most of the filmmakers associated with the movement.[32]
In his development ofauteur theory,François Truffaut lists Bresson among the few directors to whom the term "auteur" can genuinely be applied, and later names him as one of the only examples of directors who could approach even the so-called "unfilmable" scenes, using the film narrative at its disposal.[33]Jean-Luc Godard also looked upon Bresson with high admiration ("Robert Bresson is French cinema, as Dostoevsky is the Russian novel and Mozart is the German music."[34]) Screenwriter and directorAlain Cavalier describes Bresson's role as pivotal not only in the New Wave movement, but for French cinema in general, writing, "In French cinema you have a father and a mother: the father is Bresson and the mother isRenoir, with Bresson representing the strictness of the law and Renoir warmth and generosity. All the better French cinema has and will have to connect to Bresson in some way."[3]
Bresson has also influenced a number of other filmmakers, includingAndrei Tarkovsky,Chantal Akerman,[35]Jean Eustache,[35]Abel Ferrara,[36]Philippe Garrel,[35]Hal Hartley,[35]Monte Hellman,[35]Jim Jarmusch,[37]Louis Malle,[38]Michael Haneke,Olivier Assayas,Atom Egoyan, theDardenne brothers,Aki Kaurismäki,[35] andPaul Schrader, whose bookTranscendental Style in Film: Ozu, Bresson, Dreyer includes a detailed critical analysis. The Swedish filmmakerIngmar Bergman praised and admired Bresson's films such asMouchette andDiary of a Country Priest—the latter cited as an influence on his filmWinter Light—although he dislikedAu hasard Balthazar.[39][40][41] The French filmmakerJean Cocteau held Bresson in high regard.[42] The French filmmakerAlain Resnais was a strong admirer of Bresson and his work.[43] The French filmmakerJean-Pierre Melville was also fond of Bresson and his work.[44] The French filmmakerJacques Rivette has acknowledged Bresson's influence on his films.[45] The Polish filmmakerKrzysztof Kieślowski was also influenced by him and ranked Bresson's film,A Man Escaped as one of the top ten films that "affected" him the most.[46] The Italian filmmakerMichelangelo Antonioni was influenced by Bresson's filmLes Dames du Bois de Boulogne.[47] The German filmmakerWerner Herzog praised Bresson's films such asPickpocket andAu hasard Balthazar.[48] The Hungarian filmmakerBéla Tarr was influenced by Bresson and listed Bresson filmAu hasard Balthazar on his top ten films of all time.[49][50][51] The Iranian filmmakerAbbas Kiarostami was highly influenced by Bresson and mentioned the personal importance of Bresson's book,Notes on the Cinematographer.[52][53] The Greek filmmakerTheo Angelopoulos listed Bresson's filmPickpocket on his top ten films of all time.[54] The German directorWim Wenders praised and admired Bresson's films such asAu Hasard Balthazar andMouchette, which were influential to his film career.[55][56] The American directorStan Brakhage admired, analyzed, and gave lectures on Bresson's films, such asPickpocket,Diary of a Country Priest, andAu hasard Balthazar.[57]
The German filmmakerRainer Werner Fassbinder was influenced by Bresson and championed and paid homage to Bresson's filmThe Devil Probably with his filmThe Third Generation.[58][51] When Fassbinder was a member of the jury in the 1977Berlin Film Festival, he even went so far as to threaten to leave the jury (when his enthusiasm was not shared by his peers) unless his appreciation for Bresson's film was made known to the public.[59] TheDardenne brothers's filmL'Enfant was influenced by Bresson's filmPickpocket.[60] The German directorMargarethe von Trotta lists Bresson as one of her favorite directors.[61] The American filmmakerWes Anderson listedAu hasard Balthazar as one of his favorite films inthe Criterion Collection library and called Bresson's filmMouchette, "terrific".[62] The American filmmakerRichard Linklater was influenced by Bresson's work and listedAu hasard Balthazar andPickpocket in his top 10 film list from the Criterion Collection.[63][64] The British-American filmmakerChristopher Nolan was influenced by Bresson's films (specificallyPickpocket andA Man Escaped) for his film,Dunkirk.[65] The Greek filmmakerYorgos Lanthimos listed Bresson as one of his favorite filmmakers and pickedPickpocket as "the most moving film I've ever seen".[66]Benny Safdie named the Bresson's filmA Man Escaped as his favorite film of all time.[67]Martin Scorsese praised Bresson as "one of the cinema's greatest artists" and an influence on his films such asTaxi Driver.[68][69]Andrei Tarkovsky held Bresson in very high regard,[70] noting him andIngmar Bergman as his two favourite filmmakers, and stating: "I am only interested in the views of two people: one is called Bresson and one called Bergman."[71] In his bookSculpting in Time, Tarkovsky describes Bresson as "perhaps the only artist in cinema, who achieved the perfect fusion of the finished work with a concept theoretically formulated beforehand."[34]
Although the number of films listed in the decennialSight and Sound poll has changed over time, Bresson has normally been well-represented in these polls. The following table represents the critics' poll, not the related directors' poll. Only rankings above #250 are listed.[72][73]
| Film (English title) | 1952 | 1962 | 1972 | 1982 | 1992 | 2002 | 2012 | 2022 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| The Ladies of the Bois de Boulogne | 21 | 47 | 87 | 80 | 217 | 131 | ||
| Balthazar, at Random | 32 | 131 | 62 | 20 | 16 | 25 | ||
| Pickpocket | 26 | 155 | 217 | 31 | 131 | 63 | 136 | |
| A Man Escaped | 155 | 131 | 217 | 131 | 69 | 95 | ||
| Mouchette | 18 | 80 | 118 | 243 | ||||
| Money | 217 | 62 | 62 | 109 | 169 | |||
| Diary of a Country Priest | 47 | 87 | 80 | 131 | 227 | 144 | ||
| The Devil Probably | 201 | |||||||
| A Gentle Woman | 217 |
| Year | Film | English Title | Director | Writer | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1933 | C'était un musicien | He Was a Musician | No | Yes | |
| 1934 | Les Affaires publiques | Public Affairs | Yes | Yes | Short film; also editor |
| 1936 | Les Jumeaux de Brighton | The Brighton Twins | No | Yes | |
| 1937 | Courier sud | Southern Mail | No | Yes | |
| 1938 | La Vierge folle | The Foolish Virgin | No | No | Assistant director |
| 1943 | Les Anges du péché | Angels of Sin | Yes | Yes | |
| 1945 | Les Dames du Bois de Boulogne | The Ladies of the Bois de Boulogne | Yes | Yes | |
| 1951 | Journal d'un curé de campagne | Diary of a Country Priest | Yes | Yes | |
| 1956 | Un condamné à mort s'est échappé ou Le vent souffle où il veut | A Man Escaped a literal translation is, "a man condemned to death has escaped, or, the wind blows where it will" | Yes | Yes | |
| 1959 | Pickpocket | – | Yes | Yes | |
| 1962 | Procès de Jeanne d'Arc | The Trial of Joan of Arc | Yes | Yes | |
| 1966 | Au hasard Balthazar | Balthazar, at random | Yes | Yes | |
| 1967 | Mouchette | – | Yes | Yes | |
| 1969 | Une femme douce | A Gentle Woman | Yes | Yes | |
| 1971 | Quatre Nuits d'un rêveur | Four Nights of a Dreamer | Yes | Yes | |
| 1974 | Lancelot du Lac | Lancelot of the Lake | Yes | Yes | |
| 1977 | Le Diable probablement | The Devil Probably | Yes | Yes | |
| 1983 | L'Argent | Money | Yes | Yes |
| Year | Category | Nominated work | Result | Ref. |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1957 | Palme d'Or | A Man Escaped | Nominated | [74] |
| Best Director | Won | |||
| 1962 | Palme d'Or | The Trial of Joan of Arc | Nominated | |
| Jury Special Prize | Won | |||
| OCIC Award | Nominated | |||
| 1967 | Palme d'Or | Mouchette | Nominated | |
| OCIC Award | Won | |||
| Special Distinction | Won | |||
| 1974 | FIPRESCI Prize | Lancelot du Lac | Nominated | |
| 1983 | Palme d'Or | L'Argent | Nominated | |
| Best Director | Won |
| Year | Category | Nominated work | Result | Ref. |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1960 | Golden Bear | Pickpocket | Nominated | [74] |
| 1971 | Four Nights of a Dreamer | Nominated | ||
| OCIC Award | Won | |||
| 1977 | Golden Bear | The Devil Probably | Nominated | |
| Silver Bear Grand Jury Prize | Won | |||
| OCIC Award | Won | |||
| Interfilm Award | Won |
| Year | Category | Nominated work | Result | Ref. |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1951 | Golden Lion | Diary of a Country Priest | Nominated | [74] |
| OCIC Award | Won | |||
| International Award | Won | |||
| Italian Film Critics Award | Won | |||
| 1966 | Golden Lion | Au hasard Balthazar | Nominated | |
| OCIC Award | Won | |||
| San Giorgio Prize | Won | |||
| New Cinema Award | Won | |||
| Jury Homage | Won | |||
| Cineforum 66 Award | Won | |||
| 1967 | Pasinetti Award | Mouchette | Won | |
| 1989 | Career Golden Lion Award | — | Won |
Around the time of 'Lancelot du Lac' (1974), Bresson was said to have declared himself "a Christian atheist."
A deeply devout man—one who paradoxically described himself as a "Christian atheist" – Bresson, in his attempt in a relatively timeless manner to address good and evil, redemption, the power of love and self-sacrifice, and other such subjects, may seem to us, and perhaps was, something of a retrogression.
Malle even suggests that he was unconsciously influenced by the Bresson film in his casting of Blaise.
Ingmar Bergman: "Jag är också oerhört förtjust i En prästmans dagbok, som är ett av de märkligaste verk som någonsin gjordes. Nattvardsgästerna är ganska influerad av den."
John Simon: "What about Bresson? How do you feel about him?" Ingmar Bergman: "Oh, Mouchette! I loved it, I loved it! But Balthazar was so boring, I slept through it." John Simon: "I liked Les Dames du Bois de Boulogne and A Man Escaped, but I would say The Diary of a Country Priest is the best one." Ingmar Bergman: "I have seen it four or five times and could see it again... and Mouchette... really..."
Contemporaries such as Andrei Tarkovsky, Jean Cocteau and Marguerite Duras and the critic-filmmakers of the French New Wave held him in very high regard.
Resnais is a shy, rather nerv- ... eclectic. He admires Bresson tremendously,
Melville was fond of Hollywood cinema as well as of many of the contemporary French auteurs, such as Jean Renoir, Jean Cocteau, and Robert Bresson.
...Jacques Rivette have repeatedly acknowledged their debt to Bresson.
Interviewer: "Are there any painters who have particularly influenced you?" Antonioni: "Well, I do like painting, but I can honestly say that I haven't been influenced by any one painter in particular. The same goes for the cinema too. Perhaps, at a certain time, I was influenced by one of Robert Bresson's films, though just one – Les Dames du Bois de Boulogne – but not by any others."
Herzog: "...Robert Bresson's Pickpocket. This is phenomenal; it just make me ache. So intense and so beautiful... It makes you ache, it's so beautiful. And we also watched his Au hasard Balthazar about the donkey Balthazar. It's an incredible film."
Interviewer: "Béla Tarr, is your work influenced by other filmmakers?" Béla Tarr: "I remember some movies from my young years, it was the time when I saw many movies. Now I have no time, and I don't like to go and watch movies as I used to. But people like Robert Bresson, Ozu. I like some Fassbinder movies very much. Cassavettes. Hungarian films too."
Kiarostami's greatest cinematic inspiration, Robert Bresson, was also convinced that the importance of the image is in its relationship to what comes before and after.
The next day he gave a press conference, talking about the personal importance of Bresson's book Notes on the Cinematographer for him...
Das Kino des Deutschen Filmmuseums ehrt Wim Wenders im Oktober 2018 mit einer Carte Blanche. Einen Monat lang präsentiert der Regisseur jene Werke aus der Filmgeschichte, die ihn besonders geprägt und beeinflusst haben.
Like Godard, Fassbinder flaunted his influences through homage and citation – to Jean-Pierre Melville, Bertolt Brecht and Godard in his early crime films, to Bresson and Andrei Tarkovsky in The Third Generation (1979), to many American directors throughout his career.
Fassbinder threatened to leave the jury unless his support for the film, which was entirely unappreciated by his colleagues, was made public.
"The Child," a Belgian film directed by Jean-Pierre Dardenne and Luc Dardenne, won thePalme d'Or as best film at the 58th Cannes Film Festival on Saturday night. The film, which follows a young petty thief as he struggles with the moral dilemmas of fatherhood, was inspired by Dostoyevsky's "Crime and Punishment" and influenced by the classic French film "Pickpocket," by Robert Bresson.
Interestingly, von Trotta's favorite directors, even today, are men: Ingmar Bergman, Carlos Saura, Robert Bresson.
"We watched 'Au Hasard Balthazar' last night and loved it", Anderson told The Criterion Collection when naming his favorite films in the library. "You hate to see that poor donkey die. He takes a beating and presses on, and your heart goes out to him". Directed by Robert Bresson, the 1966 French drama follows a donkey and his various owners over the years. Anderson says he is also a fan of Bresson's "terrific" companion film "Mouchette", released in 1967.
"I spent a lot of time reviewing the silent films for crowd scenes –the way extras move, evolve, how the space is staged and how the cameras capture it, the views used", Nolan tells Premiere Magazine. The director revealed that he brushed up on silent films such as Intolerance, Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans, and Greed, as well as the films of Robert Bresson (notably Pickpocket and A Man Escaped, to dissect the process of creating suspense through details), Wages of Fear, and, of course, Saving Private Ryan.
Benny Safdie: "Then the second one – and let's say, this was in no particular order – but A Man Escaped, the [Robert] Bresson movie. That has to be my favorite movie of all time, just because it always makes me cry at the end, because I feel like I've achieved something that the character achieves. And it tells you what happens in the title, and it makes it no less suspenseful the entire way. You're literally feeling the sound of the gravel as he puts his foot down – those shots of the foot or the spoon going into the slot. All of these things, the editing of it, the character, the way he's using these actors who you don't really know, they just – you feel like they're real people. It's just so perfectly put together, and it's something where I kind of feel like I'm going along with the escape in a way that's just done by a master. In a weird way, I feel like Bresson is the Fontaine character in that movie. But what's weird is I've watched it again recently, and I had a totally different feeling of it, where it was more about society and how people are talking to each other. And then you realize Bresson is just kind of making the same movie every time, just with different [settings and characters]. One's World War II, one's Lancelot."
"We are still coming to terms with Robert Bresson, and the peculiar power and beauty of his films", Martin Scorsese said in the 2010 book "A Passion For Film", describing the often overlooked French filmmaker as "one of the cinema's greatest artists".
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