Robert Bresson

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ellipsis7
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Re: Robert Bresson

#101 Post by ellipsis7 » Tue Jun 12, 2018 6:01 am

QUATRE NUITS DU UN REVEUR screens next month as part of a full Bresson retrospective @ Cinematheque Francaise in Paris, presumably in a decent print.... The previous screening @ CF was in October 2008, so ten years have elapsed in the meantime... Details here....

The complete retrospective unfolds like so...
Les films
Affaires publiques (Les) Robert Bresson / France / 1934 CM Di 8 juil 19h00 Di 15 juil 21h00 Me 25 juil 17h30
Anges du péché (Les) Robert Bresson / France / 1943 Di 8 juil 19h00 Di 15 juil 21h00 Me 25 juil 17h30
Argent (L') Robert Bresson / France-Suisse / 1982 Je 5 juil 21h45 Ve 13 juil 19h00 Di 29 juil 21h30
Au hasard, Balthazar Robert Bresson / France-Suède / 1965 Ve 6 juil 21h15 Ve 20 juil 21h00 Ve 27 juil 21h30
Dames du bois de Boulogne (Les) Robert Bresson / France / 1944 Me 4 juil 20h00 Me 18 juil 17h00 Me 25 juil 19h45
Diable probablement (Le) Robert Bresson / France / 1976 Sa 14 juil 19h30 Sa 21 juil 17h00 Di 29 juil 19h30
Journal d'un curé de campagne Robert Bresson / France / 1950 Di 8 juil 21h30 Me 18 juil 19h30 Me 25 juil 21h45
Lancelot du lac Robert Bresson / France, Italie / 1974 Sa 14 juil 21h30 Di 22 juil 21h00 Di 29 juil 17h00
Mouchette Robert Bresson / France / 1966 Ve 20 juil 19h00 Di 22 juil 17h00 Sa 28 juil 17h15
Pickpocket Robert Bresson / France / 1959 Sa 7 juil 19h00 Je 19 juil 21h00 Ve 27 juil 16h30
Procès de Jeanne d'Arc Robert Bresson / France / 1961 Ve 6 juil 19h15 Sa 21 juil 19h00 Ve 27 juil 19h30
Quatre nuits d'un rêveur Robert Bresson / France, Italie / 1970 Ve 13 juil 21h15 Di 22 juil 19h00 Sa 28 juil 21h45
Un condamné à mort s'est échappé Robert Bresson / France / 1956 Sa 7 juil 21h30 Je 19 juil 19h00 Je 26 juil 16h30
Une femme douce Robert Bresson / France / 1968 Di 15 juil 19h00 Sa 21 juil 21h00 Sa 28 juil 19h30
Autour de Robert Bresson
Chemin vers Bresson (Le) Leo De Boer, Jurriën Rood / Pays-Bas / 1984 Me 11 juil 21h30
Cinéastes de notre temps : Robert Bresson, ni vu ni connu François Weyergans / France / 1965 Me 11 juil 19h30
Rencontres et conférences
Robert Bresson et la chose venue de l'intérieur. Conférence d'Émilie Cauquy Je 5 juil 19h00

GoodOldNeon
Joined: Tue Dec 05, 2017 5:58 am

Re: Robert Bresson

#102 Post by GoodOldNeon » Fri Aug 24, 2018 5:05 am

A Blu-ray of Les Dames du Bois de Boulogne is coming out in France next month. It seems like the only subtitle option is French HOH. Hopefully this means a Criterion upgrade is coming.

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domino harvey
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Re: Robert Bresson

#103 Post by domino harvey » Mon Mar 25, 2019 9:37 pm

Finally topped off Bresson’s oeuvre tonight, to mixed results:

Unfortunately I saved the worst for last, Quatre nuits d'un rêveur, an embarrassing detour from Bresson completely removed from the pleasures of his best films. Forgoing the obvious detriment of we already had Le notti bianche so we didn’t need this, Bresson’s approach is beyond silly— Bresson’s specific stylistic approaches in his later films are so bold that they always teeter on the edge of being ludicrous, but stuff like the protagonist blasting his tape recorder (playing his own voice, no less, mantra-ing his crush’s name like he’s the protagonist in Joyce’s Araby) on the bus is cringe-inducing.

Bresson’s first film, Les affaires publiques, sticks out like a sore thumb, even among the more “traditional” early Bresson films, but given his own high rankings of Chaplin in that Cahiers list, it’s perhaps not as surprising that he’d write some jokes in the same vein. However, while there are some funny bits and sight gags, such a regiment of soldiers being told to rest “at ease” and immediately falling backwards into a line of waiting lawnchairs, the film is ineptly constructed and composed and rather incoherent on the whole.

But luckily I quite enjoyed Une femme douce, which I’d rank in the upper tiers of Bresson’s work. Stylistically and money motif-wise this seems a sister film to L’argent, and I loved Bresson’s idea of a pawn shop here: sellers wordlessly approach the buyer, who slides their item towards himself and then hands over an unspecified amount of money without the two parties ever exchanging words. Shades of the bizarre yet mutually understood system of the bookshop in One Plus One. And, unlike the movie scene in Quatre nuits d'un rêveur, which I’m reasonably certain is a Bresson creation, the pic the central couple attends here is a real film, Michel Deville’s Benjamin. And of course the context in which it is used by Bresson is a perfect thematic fit (and further indication that, as Cahiers' private detective attested, Bresson was actually quite well-versed in modern film), as Deville’s film is about the burgeoning carnal knowledge of its central figure, and here Bresson uses events occurring during the viewing of the film to signal the first instance of the husband’s mistrust and awareness of sexual threat from others towards his wife, a different brand of sexual awakening!

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Rayon Vert
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Re: Robert Bresson

#104 Post by Rayon Vert » Mon Mar 25, 2019 11:42 pm

Une femme douce was the one Bresson that left me cold, finding it obtuse and dull. I remember wondering if the pretty flat color photography (especially in contrast to the wonderfully atmospheric B&W's in the preceding films) played a role. But I've only seen it once and hopefully it'll get a quality release at some point and I'll revisit it then. Re: Quatre nuits I felt the Bresson style veered towards self-parody at some points, with the non-actor performances a bit stiff at times, but at the same time that it had moments of compelling beauty and power. I'd also like to see that one again in good quality if that's eventually possible (?).

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Big Ben
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Re: Robert Bresson

#105 Post by Big Ben » Tue Mar 26, 2019 12:43 am

If y'all don't mind me asking what's the deal with the two missing Bresson films? I've tried for years to see Un femme douche and Quatre Nuits and I...can't find them anywhere. I think it was David Ehrenstein who told me that it Mme Bresson had some sway, perhaps not legally over how the films screened but I'm not sure about the veracity of those statements? I imagine Bresson fans would eat them up regardless of what they thought of them. It's just weird that someone so beloved has these two films unavailable.

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Rayon Vert
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Re: Robert Bresson

#106 Post by Rayon Vert » Tue Mar 26, 2019 1:00 am

I saw Quatre Nuits from the quite mediocre internet file, from a really rough print, that was floating around some years back, the other one I don't remember. Just checked and Youtube has Quatre Nuits up in an apparently better looking version, but without subtitles. A Gentle Woman is also up.

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dda1996a
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Re: Robert Bresson

#107 Post by dda1996a » Tue Mar 26, 2019 2:42 am

They are easily available through back channels (pm me), the only one in horrendous condition is A Public Affair

GoodOldNeon
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Re: Robert Bresson

#108 Post by GoodOldNeon » Tue Mar 26, 2019 2:58 am

Quatre nuits has a Japanese Blu-ray release which is perfectly adequate, except that it doesn't have English subtitles. I grabbed some English subs I found online and synced them up with the film myself, so if your player is capable of playing external .srt subtitles that is one option.

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senseabove
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Re: Robert Bresson

#109 Post by senseabove » Tue Mar 26, 2019 1:40 pm

I may have watched everything out of order to reach Domino's conclusions... I saw Un femme douce before L'argent and found the former mostly uninteresting and uninvolving, but perhaps now knowing how some of those themes were later developed in L'Argent will help when I see it again. And I saw Quatre nuits... before I saw the Visconti, and quite liked it (though it didn't evoke the giddy headiness I felt on seeing the Visconti the first time last year). Quatres... felt like splitting the difference between the desperate need of Mouchette and the desperate antipathy of Le diable..., and in that sense I think that both of those moods are better handled in more specificity in the other films, but I liked the blend and I never got the sense that Bresson was caught out by his own intentions. It's been two years and too long for me to get very specific about my thoughts, but I've been looking forward to the chance to revisit Quatre Nuits..., which I can't say for Un femme douce.

FWIW, Quatre Nuits... and Les affaires publiques were the only two films that didn't play in an otherwise complete Bresson retro near me two years ago. (And much to my chagrin, I discovered that I apparently saw Les affaires... years ago, before a screening of Les anges du peche, but had no idea how rare it was and didn't remember that at all until I was trying to look up when I last saw the latter!)
GoodOldNeon wrote:
Tue Mar 26, 2019 2:58 am
Quatre nuits has a Japanese Blu-ray release which is perfectly adequate, except that it doesn't have English subtitles. I grabbed some English subs I found online and synced them up with the film myself, so if your player is capable of playing external .srt subtitles that is one option.
This might be better served in the Technical Question thread, but... What players are capable of side-loading subtitles to sync and play alongside BDs? I'd love to do this for some of the Rohmer box extra features, but while I've heard many rumors of this capability, I've yet to find anyone able to say which BDPs can or how to do it.

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domino harvey
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Re: Robert Bresson

#110 Post by domino harvey » Tue Mar 26, 2019 1:54 pm

I know Oppos could do it, but every other Google search of people asking this returns “advice” to just burn your Blu-ray to an MKV and then add subs to the video file, like that’s an equivalent step to putting an SRT on a USB drive!

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senseabove
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Re: Robert Bresson

#111 Post by senseabove » Tue Mar 26, 2019 2:23 pm

Yeah, I've read mention that Oppos can do it, but I've asked in a few places and never been able to get anyone to confirm which models can or how to actually do it. It would be nice to be able to sideload subs instead of having to rip all those extras.

Stefan Andersson
Joined: Thu Nov 15, 2007 1:02 am

Re: Robert Bresson

#112 Post by Stefan Andersson » Tue Apr 02, 2019 12:33 pm

For the record:

In Colin Burnett´s book "The Invention of Robert Bresson: The Auteur and His Market", I read that, after L´Argent, Bresson was interested in making a film of the short story "La grande vie" (1982) by Jean Marie Le Clézio, "a road story about two girls who save money to travel to Italy".

The story has been translated into English as "The Great Life", in Le Clézio, J. M. G.; Translated by C. Dickson. "The Round and Other Cold Hard Facts." Lincoln, Nebraska,USA: University of Nebraska Press.
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_Grande_Vie_(novella), footnote no. 1

https://www.amazon.com/Round-Other-Cold ... 0803280076

Also:
https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_Grande_Vie_(Le_Clézio)

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dda1996a
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Re: Robert Bresson

#113 Post by dda1996a » Wed May 15, 2019 4:40 pm

While reading Schrader's section on Bresson, he mentions Marvin Zeman's essay "The Suicide of Robert Bresson". Yet I couldn't find said essay anywhere online, not even through my University's library resources. Anyone know where I could find it? Couldn't even find the magazine it was originally published in (Cinema vol. 6, Spring 1971, p. 37-42 if it helps)

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Matt
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Re: Robert Bresson

#114 Post by Matt » Wed May 15, 2019 7:58 pm

As far as I can tell (and I’m a librarian) no online journal database contains this publication. If your university does not have the print issues, you can request a copy of the article through their interlibrary loan or document delivery service. You’ve already got a complete citation, which you’ll need, but the ISSN of the journal, which will help them get the right journal, is 0009-7047. The journal was published by Spectator International Inc. in Beverly Hills, CA, which might also be helpful information to include in your request.

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Matt
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Re: Robert Bresson

#115 Post by Matt » Mon May 20, 2019 10:14 am


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domino harvey
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Re: Robert Bresson

#116 Post by domino harvey » Mon May 20, 2019 12:02 pm

Excellent, thanks Matt!

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dda1996a
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Re: Robert Bresson

#117 Post by dda1996a » Mon May 20, 2019 2:33 pm

Wow, thanks!

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dda1996a
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Re: Robert Bresson

#118 Post by dda1996a » Tue May 28, 2019 9:59 am

Just finished watching Four Nights, and as usual I have to vehemently disagree with Domino. This is way better than Visconti's. Where Visconti slavishly adheres to the text, almost suffocating it and not bringing much new to the story, Bresson finds ways to bring out the themes and suit them to his worldview. The only part of the Visconti I found actually good we're the parts that weren't in the novella, which is the dance scene (absolutely brilliant), that help make the ending stick. Bresson in my opinion gets inside the characters a lot better; I love Mastoriani but I didn't really feel his character was believable in the film (not his acting fault, which is fine). But Bresson manages to elicit such deep understanding from his "models" that I was as heartbroken as he is come the ending. And I did like the tape recorder.
This might be Bresson's most hopeful and romantic film (and knowing what I have next sure makes me giddy) until that ending, and even then it is heartbreaking but not depressing like usual. Which isn't a criticism. Loved A Gentle Woman and this as well, so I guess I'm grooving more than others with Bresson's color films.

Calvin
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Re: Robert Bresson

#119 Post by Calvin » Fri Jun 07, 2019 4:16 pm

The restoration of Une Femme Douce is receiving its UK premiere as part of the Cinema Rediscovered festival in Bristol next month. It notes that "after its premiere at Cinema Rediscovered, Une Femme Douce is touring UK venues."

quim_font
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Re: Robert Bresson

#120 Post by quim_font » Thu Aug 08, 2019 6:25 pm

Not sure how many people here are familiar with the great Robert Creeley, but here is one of his poems entitled Bresson’s Movies:

A movie of Robert
Bresson’s showed a yacht,
at evening on the Seine,
all its lights on, watched

by two young, seemingly
poor people, on a bridge adjacent,
the classic boy and girl
of the story, any one

one cares to tell. So
years pass, of course, but
I identified with the young,
embittered Frenchman,

knew his almost complacent
anguish and the distance
he felt from his girl.
Yet another film

of Bresson’s has the
aging Lancelot with his
awkward armor standing
in a woods, of small trees,

dazed, bleeding, both he
and his horse are,
trying to get back to
the castle, itself of

no great size. It
moved me, that
life was after all
like that. You are

in love. You stand
in the woods, with
a horse, bleeding.
The story is true.

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Black Hat
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Re: Robert Bresson

#121 Post by Black Hat » Thu Aug 08, 2019 9:29 pm

Creeley's great.. Mia Hansen Løve memorably used The Rhythm to end her best film.
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FrauBlucher
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Re: Robert Bresson

#122 Post by FrauBlucher » Wed Nov 20, 2019 6:35 pm

I got such a kick from the Bresson: Without a Trace extra from Criterion’s A Man Escaped release where he talks about seeing Goldfinger. Talk about a vision of Bresson sitting in a theater watching Goldfinger makes me chuckle inside. His next film was Au Hasard Baltazar. No inspiration there

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dda1996a
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Re: Robert Bresson

#123 Post by dda1996a » Fri Mar 06, 2020 4:08 am

I recently saw Camilo Restrepo's Los Conductos at the Berlinale, and Darezhan Omirbayev's Student. Both have clearly been influenced greatly by Bresson's minimalism, close-ups and editing style. I also love early Haneke which was clearly influenced by Bresson (glaciation trilogy, Funny Games, The Castle). These are the only ones I know.

I was wondering if there any other similar films that share this style (and I am not looking for transcendental cinema [per say] like Ozu, Dreyer or Tarkovsky, or for films using non-actors like Pedro Costa). I am looking specifically for films using that specific visual style. Much appreciated :)

SomethingWild
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Re: Robert Bresson

#124 Post by SomethingWild » Fri Mar 06, 2020 10:47 am

I think that Hal Hartley has a similar visual style. I especially noticed it in Trust, which is also my favorite film of his I've seen.

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MichaelB
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Re: Robert Bresson

#125 Post by MichaelB » Fri Mar 06, 2020 11:40 am

Aki Kaurismäki has always been cheerfully open about the huge influence that Bresson has had on him - practically any random selection will pay dividends, but I particularly recommend The Match Factory Girl, Take Care of Your Scarf Tatjana and Lights in the Dusk.

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