Robert Bresson ( in French) (25 September 1901 –
18 December 1999) was a French
film
director known for his spiritual, ascetic style.
Life
Bresson
was born at Bromont-Lamothe
, Puy-de-Dôme
. Little is known of his early life and the
year of his birth, 1901 or 1907 varies depending on the source. He
was educated at Lycée Lakanal à Sceaux, Paris, and turned to
painting after graduating. Three formative influences in his early
life seem to have a mark on his films -
Catholicism, art and his experiences as a
prisoner of war.
Initially also a photographer, Bresson made his first short film,
Les affaires publiques (Public Affairs) in 1934. During
World War II, he spent over a year in a prisoner-of-war camp - an
experience which informs
Un condamné Ã
mort s'est échappé ou Le vent souffle où il veut (
A
Man Escaped). In a career that spanned fifty years, Bresson
made only 13 feature-length films. This reflects his meticulous
approach to the filmmaking process and his non-commercial
preoccupations. Difficulty finding funding for his projects was
also a factor.
Themes
Bresson's early artistic focus was to separate the language of
cinema from the theatre, which often heavily involves the actor's
performance to drive the work. With his 'actor-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, and
one that can only be found in the cinema. Some feel that Bresson's
Catholic upbringing and
Jansenist belief-system lie behind the
thematic structure of most of his films. Recurring themes under
this interpretation include
salvation,
redemption, defining and
revealing the human
soul, and metaphysical
transcendence of a limiting and materialistic world. An example is
his 1956 feature
A Man
Escaped, where a seemingly simple plot of a prisoner of
war's escape can be read as a
metaphor for
the mysterious process of salvation.
Bresson's films can also be understood as critiques of French
society and the wider world, with each revealing the director's
sympathetic if unsentimental view on its victims. That the main
characters of Bresson's most contemporary films,
L'Argent and
The Devil, Probably (1977), reach
similarly unsettling conclusions about life indicates to some the
director's feelings towards the culpability of modern society in
the dissolution of individuals. Indeed, of an earlier protagonist
he said, "Mouchette offers evidence of misery and cruelty. She is
found everywhere: wars, concentration camps, tortures,
assassinations." In 1975, Bresson published
Notes sur le
Cinématographe (most commonly translated as "notes on
cinematography"), in which he argues for a unique sense of the
term, "
cinematography". For Bresson,
cinematography is the higher function of cinema. Whereas a movie is
in essence "only" filmed theatre, cinematography is an attempt to
create a new language of moving images and sounds.
Legacy
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. He has
influenced a number of other filmmakers, including
Andrei Tarkovsky,
Michael Haneke,
Jim
Jarmusch, and
Paul Schrader, whose
book
Transcendental Style in Film: Ozu, Bresson, Dreyer (ISBN 0-306-80335-6)
includes a detailed critical analysis.
Quotes
"My movie is born first in my head, dies on paper; is resuscitated
by the living persons and real objects I use, which are killed on
film but, placed in a certain order and projected on to a screen,
come to life again like flowers in water." - Robert Bresson
Awards and nominations
Robert Bresson was given the
Career Golden Lion in
1989 by the
Venice Film
Festival
Filmography
Feature films
Short films
- Les affaires publiques (1934)
Bibliography
By Robert Bresson
- Notes sur le Cinématographe – translated as Notes
on Cinematography and Notes on the Cinematographer in
different English editions.
About Robert Bresson
- La politique des auteurs, edited by André Bazin.
- Robert Bresson (Cinematheque Ontario Monographs, No.
2), edited by James
Quandt
- Transcendental Style in Film: Bresson, Ozu, Dreyer by
Paul Schrader
- Robert Bresson: A Spiritual Style in Film, by Joseph
Cunneen
- Robert Bresson, by Philippe Arnauld, Cahiers du
cinema, 1986
- The Films of Robert Bresson, Ian Cameron (ed.), New
York: Praeger Publishers, 1969.
- Robert Bresson, by Keith Reader, Manchester University
Press, 2000.
- "Robert Bresson", a poem by Patti Smith from her 1978 book
Babel
- "Spiritual style in the films of Robert Bresson", a chapter in
Susan Sontag's Against Interpretation and other
essays, New York: Picador, 1966.
References
- Robert Bresson (1907-1999)
- Notes sur le cinématographe, Gallimard, Paris 2007,
p.25.
External links
Informational
Interviews
Prix de la mise en scène
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