Xixax Film Forum

Film Discussion => Digital Streams & Criterion Dreams => Topic started by: Ernie on January 03, 2004, 04:08:30 PM

Title: Diary of a Country Priest?
Post by: Ernie on January 03, 2004, 04:08:30 PM
I wanna blind buy this, I don't have the money or anything but I still want to, I think it looks really cool. Tell me what you think of it or if you think it's a good blind buy. I love Truffaut, Godard, and De Sica and I'm getting into Herzog as well so foreign stuff doesn't scare me. I heard something about there being absolutely no music in this film though and that does scare me, I heard Bresson stripped it of any music whatsoever, is this true? Cause I'll definitely rent it if that's the case, music is like the only essential element of a film.

Anyway, tell me what you think.
Title: Re: Diary of a Country Priest?
Post by: godardian on January 03, 2004, 08:20:01 PM
Quote from: ebeamanI wanna blind buy this, I don't have the money or anything but I still want to, I think it looks really cool. Tell me what you think of it or if you think it's a good blind buy. I love Truffaut, Godard, and De Sica and I'm getting into Herzog as well so foreign stuff doesn't scare me. I heard something about there being absolutely no music in this film though and that does scare me, I heard Bresson stripped it of any music whatsoever, is this true? Cause I'll definitely rent it if that's the case, music is like the only essential element of a film.

Anyway, tell me what you think.

I love this movie, but it is very ascetic. Don't expect it to get your heart rate up or grab you by the lapels, or anything. What it gives is a sense of calm and contemplation and stillness. You need to be in the right mood to watch a Bresson film, and that mood is really similar to a Dreyer mood or a Tarkovsky mood, maybe a Bergman mood, definitely NOT a PTA or QT mood. Think of the sense of silence and space in a Bergman film; that's close to what a Bresson film feels like, and where the very spare use of music comes in. I think the use of music depends on what the filmmaker is going for; I can think of at LEAST as many instances of too much/too crappy music bringing a film down than the opposite.

Anyway, Country Priest is probably the most accessible of Bresson's really "Bressonian" films, of which it's the first.
Title: Re: Diary of a Country Priest?
Post by: Pubrick on January 03, 2004, 08:27:35 PM
Quote from: ebeamanI wanna blind buy this, I don't have the money or anything but I still want to,
that hasn't stopped u before.

bresson is like kubrick without the music, actors, money, fame, and _|_. he did do sum ekzellent things with sound tho. his films are really the meditative sort. not really "exciting".
Title: Diary of a Country Priest?
Post by: Ernie on January 04, 2004, 01:42:19 AM
Hmmm, you know I think I am going to rent this, thanks for the info you two. I'm not very familiar at all with Bergman, Tarkovsky, and Dreyer's work so I think I wanna wait on this one. I'm still interested in it, and Dreyer and Bergman too, I just don't want to take any big chances. Thanks for giving me a reason to go against my initial choice, maybe I'll have just enough money for the rest of Feb 3rd now, lol.
Title: Diary of a Country Priest?
Post by: SoNowThen on January 05, 2004, 09:21:17 AM
Buy it. It's fucking class all the way.
Title: Diary of a Country Priest?
Post by: Ravi on August 05, 2005, 01:33:19 AM
Just finished watching it.  "Meditative" is the right word.  This is a film you have to pay a little extra attention to while watching, though.