Bresson. I have two big masterpieces for Bresson (A Man Escaped, Pickpocket) that show well in my top 500 but that’s it for Bresson there. I’ve yet to have a 3rd (or 4th or 5th) film from him emerge. Until then, it’s unlikely I’ll have Bresson move up my list. Two interesting quotes here I found on Bresson from great sources. “Bresson is perhaps the only man in the cinema to have achieved the perfect fusion of the finished work with a concept theoretically formulated beforehand”- Tarkovsky. “He is a great director, even if no other great director seems less intrigued by cinema itself.”- David Thompson.
Best film: A Man Escaped. The best of Bresson- wonderful ascetic style. It’s largely about a man in a room. We have Bresson’s heavy voice-over inner monologue, reoccurring shots of hands and feet and stark background.
total archiveable films: 10
top 100 films: 1 (A Man Escaped)
top 500 films: 2 (A Man Escaped, Pickpocket)
top 100 films of the decade: 5 (A Man Escaped, Pickpocket, Au Hasard Balthazar, Mouchette. Diary of a Country Priest)
most overrated: Au hasard Balthazar– I tried it in 2010 and again 2014. I’m due again. I appreciate the meticulous editing and Bresson’s deeper parable and work with his actor/model here (a donkey in this case). Certainly I’m not done with this film but I can’t get behind TSPDT having as #32 all-time.
most underrated: A Gentle Woman. I have it as Bresson’s 5th best and yet it’s not one of the 9 films on the TSPDT consensus top 1000.
gem I want to spotlight: Pickpocket. I’d start either here or with A Man Escaped if you are looking for one Bresson film or to start a study. The Paul Schrader intro on it for Criterion is excellent (and the film clearly had a profound impact on him and all of his work- particularly Light Sleeper and First Reformed). The existential spiritual prison, obviously more reoccurring shots of hands (sometimes stealing things here), inner monologue voice-over, diary writing, shots of man in prison or caged.
stylistic innovations/traits: Bresson’s films are made with tremendous care; very deliberate and detailed. I love the beautiful elliptical editing in most of his work. I love the voice-over in some films (A Man Escaped) and feel totally bogged down by it in others (Diary of a Country Priest). Certainly he is a Christian artist and much has been written about his achievement of transcendence through style. I certainly can appreciate his work in this area. One think I also appreciate is how he consistently drained his “models” (he called his actors “models” instead) completely of emotion. There’s nothing like it in cinema history from what I’ve seen (ok—Dreyer’s work is there, too) but it formally matches the stark mise-en-scene, elliptical editing, and formal structure.
top 10
- A Man Escaped
- Pickpocket
- Au Hasard Balthazar
- Mouchette
- A Gentle Woman
- Diary of a Country Priest
- L’argent
- Lancelot of the Lake
- Les Dames du bois de Boulogne
- The Trial of Joan of Arc
By year and grades
| 1945- Les Dames du Bois de Boulogne- | R |
| 1951- Diary of a Country Priest | HR |
| 1956- A Man Escaped | MP |
| 1959- Pickpocket | MP |
| 1962- The Trial of Joan of Arc | R |
| 1966- Au Hasard, Balthazar | HR |
| 1967- Mouchette | HR |
| 1969- A Gentle Woman | HR |
| 1974- Lancelot of the Lake | |
| 1983- L’Argent |
*MP is Masterpiece- top 1-3 quality of the year film
MS is Must-see- top 5-6 quality of the year film
HR is Highly Recommend- top 10 quality of the year film
R is Recommend- outside the top 10 of the year quality film but still in the archives
I think you underrate spiritual cinema. You came around to Ozu and I hope the same will happen with Bresson. To me, he is the greatest director to ever live, and it’s not even close. His theory was to eliminate falsehood and manipulation from cinema by removing theatric emotionalism. And to capture something like the presence of god with his camera. The result was maybe the most haunting body of work by any director. Au Hasard Balthazar makes a captivating protagonist out of an expressionless donkey, sparing us the falsehood of an actor. It is a film that influenced Tarkovsky, but to me, is better than Tarkovsky because it doesn’t rely on ambiguity to seem profound, it answers the questions that Tarkovsky is called profound for merely asking. I’d be happy to discuss this with anyone. I also think Bresson is the greatest formal master in history.