Robert Bresson: A Cinema of Grace, Purity and Transcendence

Started by Seraphim, February 19, 2004, 03:50:41 PM

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polanski's illegitimate baby

I actually got into Bresson through Tarkovsky which made me quit filmschool shortly after. LOL I love all of his films except the ones i haven't been able to find including A Gentle Woman, The Devil Probably and the Angels of the Streets. It is baffling to consider the time-frame in which he was making these films. If you watch them today, you will still get pleasantly stunned at the freedom of interpretation the film yields to the viewer. It's not dramatic, yet moving. The actors are amateurs conditioned through a series of repetitive movements into expressing their nature hence every nature is different and every film is made with a different cast. It's really liberal, i mean, the film is like a blank slate on which you superimpose your emotions. The pacing is what gives life to it. As Bresson said, his film dies twice in the process, once on paper another on film. The pacing is like the second coming of the story. It gives you an impression of watching a narrative (unlike a documentary) with a really intimate closeness yet, because it is shot on film, it doesn't make you feel like a voyer and all the beauty of this great medium puts you in a comforting trance at 24fps. Mouchette, Balthazar, Pickpocket and Joan of Arc are his best no doubt. One character that reminds me of Bresson is Synechdoche's Caden. Does anyone have any info of whether he may have been one of Kaufman's influences? I do know that Bresson could not go through with some project with animals in order to achieve that next level honesty--either he couldn't or was not allowed.
every time you find yourself reading this, think of other great things you could be doing... :)

jenkins

my conversational goal for today (if one could even imagine a better result from yesterday's franzen) involved bresson's the devil, probably

maybe there's no one here who's interested in this conversation? i continue to be astonished and delighted by the expansive range of philosophical value seeking that took place during the late-middle period of the 20th century. certain movies address questions that remain questions. bresson's four nights of a dreamer is a big example, and today's topic was to be the devil, probably. godard has a whole decade's worth of inquiry into the state of modern living, and my lingering affection is 2 or 3 things i know about her. godard's philosophy more often overtakes his cinema, compared to bresson. bresson hits the center. the 70s were four nights of a dreamer, lancelot of the lake, and the devil probably. one of those is not modern set, won't say which one

i tried to freely upload videos taken from my phone while watching the devil probably, but my internet is too slow it seems. i'm giving up. they were two videos of a man's hand tapping another man's shoulder. to me it's interesting that the man keeps tapping the other man. has anyone seen the devil, probably? i won't mention why that's interesting, but the movie's ending will tell you. in summary: how do you, as a person, win a battle with another person over a set of established values? that's fucking tricky. still tricky. a dual summary: how do you, as a person, form a set of established values? tricky, tricky

the problem of converting philosophy into life was known to people who lived through the 60s, when philosophical revolutions took place globally, without all the desired adjustments. you can think it, but how do you make it? a simple question, but the answer is difficult enough that people remain curious. the devil, probably nails the problem. nails it. has anyone seen it?