The Road to Bresson (1984) - full transcript
Bresson has been able in his work
to raise cinematography to the level
of comparable older art forms and genres.
Bresson is very intolerant.
He is very scornful of any filmmaking
that is not his own
and he regards himself
as the only filmmaker that matters.
l feel as if l've learned
to be picky about everything.
l think l already had that in me
but l feel as if Bresson revealed it to me.
The Road To Bresson
A Man Escaped
Could you please sit down?
We have to stop or he won't come back.
lt's simple.
Did you hear me, sir?
l'm sorry, but that's the way it is.
The Cannes Film Festival.
The 81-year-old French film director,
Robert Bresson,
gives a press conference for his new film.
The director usually avoids publicity.
Now, for the first time in years,
he lets himself be filmed and photographed.
We're starting the press conference
for the film you have just seen - Money.
Who is that question for?
l didn't understand why, either.
l said l didn't understand why, either.
Neither did the wife. No one understood it.
Mr Bresson, l didn't find your film
very pleasant but it was interesting.
Your very specific style has been described
as being frustrating for the spectators.
Do you agree with that adjective?
What do you think?
And why do you make films
that are frustrating for the spectators?
Why do you make films that are what?
- Films that are what?
- Frustrating for the spectators.
Frustrating.
Bresson is not known to a large audience.
But in film circles he is regarded
as a great master
because of the unique style of his films.
He calls this style ''cinematographe'',
to distinguish it from usual film styles -
the ''cinema''.
For us as film students,
Bresson's films were a shock.
They dimered from everything
we had learned.
His style is characterised
by great sparsity.
The Devil Probably
- Do you know where you're going?
-Yes.
- Where?
- His place.
- He hasn't got one.
- He's got a room.
- You'll break you parents' hearts.
- l can't help that.
Do you love him that much?
You're the one l love, Michel.
With him it's something else,
not true love.
What then?
l don't know.
He asked me to be here at five, so here l am.
He might not come at all.
Here he is.
We recognised this style
in Bresson's old black-and-white films,
but also in his most recent one
about our generation.
We decided to investigate it.
But Bresson doesn't want to be filmed.
He has refused it for years,
he tells us by phone.
THE FILM-MAKER
Not much is known about Bresson.
Born in 1901, although he claims
six years later.
After a classical education, he works
as a painter and fashion photographer.
ln the thirties he switches to film.
He writes a few scenarios
and directs a short comedy
that has never been recovered.
As a prisoner of war,
he gets the idea
for his first feature,
which he makes in 1943.
1945.
1951 .
1956.
l remember seeing him work
and it seemed to be both very simple
and completely incomprehensible.
No one on set seemed to understand
what he was doing.
For example, he would reshoot
a very simple shot 50 times.
And no one really knew
why he reshot it 50 times.
But l understand it very well
now that l make films myself
because it happens to me, too.
Sometimes when l'm directing
the crew look at me as if l'm mad
because l'm looking for something
and l'm not really sure what.
And then it happens and l say, ''That's it.''
''That's what l was looking for,
l just didn't know it.''
And l think Bresson's method
is about searching.
l don't think he knows
exactly what he's doing when he's working.
l think that's why he's often criticised
for overspending on his films,
for going over budget.
lt's because he's searching,
and he's searching on his own.
And he finds it, he ends up finding it,
but it's always very mysterious
and l don't think it's something
he himself can know in advance.
With Pickpocket Bresson has found it
He had a big influence on us
because he was our model.
He set an example as someone who refused
to make any concessions to commerce,
who made pure cinema
and who, of all the French directors,
was the one who made arthouse films.
He pictured his films in their entirety.
He was the sole and total master of his work.
And in that sense, we all really admired him.
l cannot say that Trumaut,
Godard, Chabrol or even Rohmer
ever really had...
Their films are very dimerent to Bresson's,
as are mine, l imagine,
even though l could be said
to have been the most influenced by Bresson.
But he was definitely our beacon.
Bresson was the man we admired
and we all wanted to be him.
1959.
1962.
ln Moscow we studied films from the West.
But l was interested in other problems,
in films which l selected from our archives
in our film library.
l was fascinated by Joan Of Arc,
by it's absolute independence
from the audience watching the film.
Absolute independence
in the sense that
the film didn't come across
as a spectacle
but as a piece of nature,
a piece of life
You could watch it or not.
You could regard the film as art.
Or not.
Such independence of someone's work
from the opinion of the audience
or critics
became forever the symbol for me
of a director's attitude
towards his audience.
l feel very close to Bresson.
Of all the artists seeking simplicity
and depth
he is one of the few to achieve this
in his work.
That is essential.
We all seek simplicity.
All serious artists seek simplicity
but only a few achieve it.
Bresson is one of the few who succeeded.
1966.
196T.
1969.
When l worked with Bresson,
there were things which...
which l remember well
and which seemed e_raordinary.
First there was
the tone of voice you had to use.
What he does to your voice
and what he does to your being.
He seems to be searching.
Later l decided it was like
when you want to lose your balance
and you spin round, for example,
several times in each direction,
as if you were dancing.
Then you start to lose consciousness
and it's as if a weight has dropped om you.
Working with Bresson was a bit like that.
Every time, every day was like that.
You really feel
as if he has managed to get you
to empty yourself of any thoughts -
''Should l do this? Should l do that?''
''How on earth do l do this?''
All those questions.
l saw the emect, for example,
when l had to speak to someone.
Usually when l speak,
l look people in the eye.
Every day, systematically,
he asked me to look at the person's ear.
Always at their ear.
Whatever happened,
l had to look at the person's ear.
And obviously that completely changes things.
It feels so strange.
Every thing Bresson does is calculated
down to the tiniest detail
Once you've worked with Bresson,
it's hard to really act afteM/ards,
in other words, to show om...
You end up playing down the pe_ormance
so that when you come to make other films...
As a rule, actors are asked
not to play down the pe_ormance
but, on the contrary, to exaggerate it.
So, like everything in life,
in gaining something,
you lose something else.
19T1.
19T4.
19TT.
1983.
Bresson has only made 13 films
in 40 years.
His films have won lots of prizes
but attracted only small audiences
and some even bankrupted the producer.
Hello, is that the Majestic?
Good evening. Can you put me
through to Mr Bresson's room, please?
OK, l'll call back later.
Thank you. Goodbye.
THE STYLE
Bresson doesn't like talking
about his films.
But a few years ago
a book by him appeared
with notes on his style,
accumulated over the years.
Notes on the Cinematographer
Getting rid of accumulated mistakes
and falsehoods.
Knowing and securing my powers.
The cinema didn't come from nowhere.
Everything must be challenged.
CAMERA
Lancelot of the Lake
Lancelot.
Lancelot.
Bresson's camera does not show much.
We often only see parts of
a greater whole.
Here a tournament is represented
by just a few shots
of a flag, horses' legs, a lance.
We never see the whole track.
The shots only show what is needed,
the essential.
Applying myself to insignificant images
(not significant ones)
Teaching the audience to imagine the whole
when you are only giving them a part.
Making them imagine. Making them want to.
ACTING
Lancelot of the Lake
Lancelot.
Guinevere.
You are alive and you are here.
Nothing shall ever take you
away from me again.
All is lost for us here in Brittany.
l can wait no longer.
Say it.
l love you.
Again. Say it once more.
l love you. You must believe me.
l believe you.
But what is the matter?
Give me your hand.
The one you are hiding from me.
Your finger is bare.
You have taken om my ring.
Speak. You are frightening me.
l saw the Grail.
The Grail?
One night l sought refuge
in a ruined chapel.
A voice challenged me,
accusing me of deceit and treachery.
l can still hear that voice
ringing in my ears.
You dreamt it.
l can no longer be your lover, Guinevere.
l swore to God with my sword drawn.
You did that?
l did.
For God to hear you,
you must be absolved of another vow.
l ask you to absolve me of that vow,
Guinevere.
l gave myself wholly to you,
and you took me.
ln Bresson's films
there is no traditional acting.
Even the most emotional things
are spoken in a monotone
with a blank facial expression.
These people seem to be
talking to themselves.
Bresson never works with
professional actors
They belong in the theatre in his view.
He only uses novices.
He calls them ''models''.
He often rehearses them at great length
in speaking their te_s
without any intonations.
No actors.
(No directing actors).
No roles.
(No studying roles).
No pe_ormance.
But the use of models, taken from real life.
BEING (models) instead of SEEMING (actors).
Completely suppress the intentions
of your models
Move your camera across faces
as long as no grimace
(intended or otheM/ise) intervenes.
Filmmaking made from internal movements
which can be seen.
MODELS: inward movement.
(Actors: outward movement.)
ACTlON # TENSlON
A Man Escaped
After three weeks,
working as quietly as possible,
l managed to separate three planks,
Iengthwise.
But they were still attached
at the top and bottom,
fastened by joints
which bent my spoon.
ln order to dislodge them from the frame
l n_ed another spoon
so l could apply enough pressure.
The Bible?
l'm lucky.
lt's a miracle.
Everything has changed since yesterday.
Silence. No talking.
l'm lucky too.
l'd splintered the frame
but over a wider area than l'd intended.
l managed to put the piece back
and hold it in place.
lt seems as if Bresson
deliberately removes tension.
The title of this film gives the end away.
There is little action
and no spectacular events.
There is a lot of repetition.
A rhythm of evenness dominates.
The prisoner often describes
what can already be seen.
Nor is music used to create tension.
This bare style often seems cool
and distant.
Tension is suppressed,
emotions are restrained.
Yet tension and emotion are palpable.
You have to say things mechanically,
but while you are saying things mechanically,
a change takes place inside you
and there is a turnabout
that makes the mechanical come alive.
lt's very similar to the way
one great pianist plays the piano -
not a virtuoso, but a great pianist -
namely Lipatti.
Lipatti conveyed emotion
with restraint and regularity.
lt was by holding back his emotion,
trying to suppress it even,
and regulating it as much as possible
that he managed to convey an emotion
that no virtuoso ever achieved.
Well, this is similar.
By both holding back
and speaking mechanically,
something suddenly sticks.
Create emotion by resisting emotion.
Empty the pond to get the fish.
Hello. Could you put me through
to Mr Robert Bresson's room, please?
- Bresson?
- Yes.
A THEORY
The American director and scriptwriter,
Paul Schrader
wrote, at the age of 26,
Transcendental Style In Film,
in which he analysed Bresson's films.
THE STORIES
A young country priest
is consumed by holy sumering.
He finds peace in accepting death.
A condemned man tries to escape.
He succeeds
thanks to perseverance and chance.
Joan of Arc resists enormous pressure,
convinced that God sent her.
Death at the stake is her relief.
They are stories of sumering
and purification.
The main characters
eventually find deliverance.
Accepting their fate provides liberation.
ln Bresson's later films
something changes.
A young girl finds no response
from a heartless world
and chooses to die.
A man wants to know
if he is to blame
for his wife's suicide.
ln a world without humanity,
Lancelot has no choice but death.
A schoolboy finds no reason
to stay alive
and eventually has himself shot.
The tone seems more sombre.
The films always end in death
or suicide.
The Devil, Probably
Where are we going?
Wherever you like. Here or there?
l thought at a time like this
l'd have sublime thoughts.
Shall l tell you...?
THE QUESTlON
Good evening.
Is that Mr Bresson?
lt's Jurri?n Rood, the Dutchman.
l'm sorry to call you at this hour.
l wanted to ask you whether you might have
a bit of time for us tomorrow,
as we discussed when we met in Paris.
Oh, no, l saw the film this morning.
Yes. So for us...
Right.
Yes, to come
with two or three short questions,
as we discussed.
OK, just one. Right.
Here comes the Monty Python team.
Meanwhile, to the right of the steps
the festival is revealing its charms.
lt is an honour
to present
the award for Best Director
to Robert Bresson
for Money.
Mr Bresson,
when l watch your films,
l get the feeling that they contain a moral -
a rather dark, pessimistic moral -
and that in your later films,
the moral gets even darker.
So there there seems to be
almost a contradiction
between this pessimism
and the beauty of the form.
Let me tell you something.
You are confusing pessimism with lucidity.
Being lucid is not the same
as being pessimistic.
As for the moral, that's a bigger issue.
The moral hasn't...
l don't have...
There's nothing dark about the moral.
There are two things.
ls Greek tragedy pessimistic?
So it's lucid instead?
To me it seems more lucid than pessimistic.
l never say what's going to happen.
l simply record what l see.
l find it dimicult now
to tackle subjects from another era.
l have to stay within our times.
There are very serious threats
around the world
and that it is better to be lucid
than pessimistic.
So you don't regard yourself as a pessimist?
The search for beauty
and the search for lucidity
are in no way contradictory.
l don't see any contradiction.
But beauty in filmmaking
has to be new.
l mean,
cinematography is an art form
because all art has its beauty.
You have to make the most
of two e_raordinary appliances -
the camera and the tape recorder combined -
to write something on the screen.
And it has to be new
because the appliances are new.
They are heaven-sent and brand new.
You have to make something new
with new equipment.
And this newness must be beautiful
if we aspire to an ideal of beauty
for things and people in general.
Do you think you have changed
over the course of your career?
l certainly hope l have evolved.
This last film has something new about it.
At least for me it has.
lt came both from a determination
to make something concentrated
and fast and new
and from a sense of freedom -
great spontaneity and freedom.
l do it because l feel it so l do it.
Never mind if it's no good.
lf it is good, great.
But that's how l work.
Unfortunately there's the audience,
the cinemagoers,
or moviegoers as they're known,
who just expect to see
theatre photographed.
They want to see the whole person
and not just their hands or their face
or their elbow or their leg.
When l cross a street,
l see legs walking,
so l don't hesitate to show legs in motion.
That is what a Parisian boulevard is for me.
People didn't see that there was beauty
in the character who arrived in the midst
of these legs as a pair of legs himself,
and who suddenly sat down
so that we could see all of him, in full view.
They didn't see it.
Or rather, they didn't feel it.
They wait for explanatory dialogue
and there isn't any.
The explanation comes from the image
combined with the sound.
- Do the audience understand your style?
- No, they don't understand.
They watch films
that are photographed plays all the time
so they can't understand.
They want to see actors acting
by the way they speak,
by the modulation in their voices,
the narrative.
That's all they're looking for.
lf there is no pe_ormance
and no famous actors,
they see a void.
l understand them well.
But the cinema must evolve.
It can't stay like this forever.
The cinema could be huge.
lt has to evolve. l'll end on that.
Can l ask what your advice
to young filmmakers would be?
That's my last question.
l'll end with a wonde_ul line from Stendhal
that l am sure you know -
''The other arts taught me the art of writing.''
And Andrej Tarkovsky for Nostalghia.
Silence.
You have to admit, it's an exceptional line-up.
Thank you very much.
to raise cinematography to the level
of comparable older art forms and genres.
Bresson is very intolerant.
He is very scornful of any filmmaking
that is not his own
and he regards himself
as the only filmmaker that matters.
l feel as if l've learned
to be picky about everything.
l think l already had that in me
but l feel as if Bresson revealed it to me.
The Road To Bresson
A Man Escaped
Could you please sit down?
We have to stop or he won't come back.
lt's simple.
Did you hear me, sir?
l'm sorry, but that's the way it is.
The Cannes Film Festival.
The 81-year-old French film director,
Robert Bresson,
gives a press conference for his new film.
The director usually avoids publicity.
Now, for the first time in years,
he lets himself be filmed and photographed.
We're starting the press conference
for the film you have just seen - Money.
Who is that question for?
l didn't understand why, either.
l said l didn't understand why, either.
Neither did the wife. No one understood it.
Mr Bresson, l didn't find your film
very pleasant but it was interesting.
Your very specific style has been described
as being frustrating for the spectators.
Do you agree with that adjective?
What do you think?
And why do you make films
that are frustrating for the spectators?
Why do you make films that are what?
- Films that are what?
- Frustrating for the spectators.
Frustrating.
Bresson is not known to a large audience.
But in film circles he is regarded
as a great master
because of the unique style of his films.
He calls this style ''cinematographe'',
to distinguish it from usual film styles -
the ''cinema''.
For us as film students,
Bresson's films were a shock.
They dimered from everything
we had learned.
His style is characterised
by great sparsity.
The Devil Probably
- Do you know where you're going?
-Yes.
- Where?
- His place.
- He hasn't got one.
- He's got a room.
- You'll break you parents' hearts.
- l can't help that.
Do you love him that much?
You're the one l love, Michel.
With him it's something else,
not true love.
What then?
l don't know.
He asked me to be here at five, so here l am.
He might not come at all.
Here he is.
We recognised this style
in Bresson's old black-and-white films,
but also in his most recent one
about our generation.
We decided to investigate it.
But Bresson doesn't want to be filmed.
He has refused it for years,
he tells us by phone.
THE FILM-MAKER
Not much is known about Bresson.
Born in 1901, although he claims
six years later.
After a classical education, he works
as a painter and fashion photographer.
ln the thirties he switches to film.
He writes a few scenarios
and directs a short comedy
that has never been recovered.
As a prisoner of war,
he gets the idea
for his first feature,
which he makes in 1943.
1945.
1951 .
1956.
l remember seeing him work
and it seemed to be both very simple
and completely incomprehensible.
No one on set seemed to understand
what he was doing.
For example, he would reshoot
a very simple shot 50 times.
And no one really knew
why he reshot it 50 times.
But l understand it very well
now that l make films myself
because it happens to me, too.
Sometimes when l'm directing
the crew look at me as if l'm mad
because l'm looking for something
and l'm not really sure what.
And then it happens and l say, ''That's it.''
''That's what l was looking for,
l just didn't know it.''
And l think Bresson's method
is about searching.
l don't think he knows
exactly what he's doing when he's working.
l think that's why he's often criticised
for overspending on his films,
for going over budget.
lt's because he's searching,
and he's searching on his own.
And he finds it, he ends up finding it,
but it's always very mysterious
and l don't think it's something
he himself can know in advance.
With Pickpocket Bresson has found it
He had a big influence on us
because he was our model.
He set an example as someone who refused
to make any concessions to commerce,
who made pure cinema
and who, of all the French directors,
was the one who made arthouse films.
He pictured his films in their entirety.
He was the sole and total master of his work.
And in that sense, we all really admired him.
l cannot say that Trumaut,
Godard, Chabrol or even Rohmer
ever really had...
Their films are very dimerent to Bresson's,
as are mine, l imagine,
even though l could be said
to have been the most influenced by Bresson.
But he was definitely our beacon.
Bresson was the man we admired
and we all wanted to be him.
1959.
1962.
ln Moscow we studied films from the West.
But l was interested in other problems,
in films which l selected from our archives
in our film library.
l was fascinated by Joan Of Arc,
by it's absolute independence
from the audience watching the film.
Absolute independence
in the sense that
the film didn't come across
as a spectacle
but as a piece of nature,
a piece of life
You could watch it or not.
You could regard the film as art.
Or not.
Such independence of someone's work
from the opinion of the audience
or critics
became forever the symbol for me
of a director's attitude
towards his audience.
l feel very close to Bresson.
Of all the artists seeking simplicity
and depth
he is one of the few to achieve this
in his work.
That is essential.
We all seek simplicity.
All serious artists seek simplicity
but only a few achieve it.
Bresson is one of the few who succeeded.
1966.
196T.
1969.
When l worked with Bresson,
there were things which...
which l remember well
and which seemed e_raordinary.
First there was
the tone of voice you had to use.
What he does to your voice
and what he does to your being.
He seems to be searching.
Later l decided it was like
when you want to lose your balance
and you spin round, for example,
several times in each direction,
as if you were dancing.
Then you start to lose consciousness
and it's as if a weight has dropped om you.
Working with Bresson was a bit like that.
Every time, every day was like that.
You really feel
as if he has managed to get you
to empty yourself of any thoughts -
''Should l do this? Should l do that?''
''How on earth do l do this?''
All those questions.
l saw the emect, for example,
when l had to speak to someone.
Usually when l speak,
l look people in the eye.
Every day, systematically,
he asked me to look at the person's ear.
Always at their ear.
Whatever happened,
l had to look at the person's ear.
And obviously that completely changes things.
It feels so strange.
Every thing Bresson does is calculated
down to the tiniest detail
Once you've worked with Bresson,
it's hard to really act afteM/ards,
in other words, to show om...
You end up playing down the pe_ormance
so that when you come to make other films...
As a rule, actors are asked
not to play down the pe_ormance
but, on the contrary, to exaggerate it.
So, like everything in life,
in gaining something,
you lose something else.
19T1.
19T4.
19TT.
1983.
Bresson has only made 13 films
in 40 years.
His films have won lots of prizes
but attracted only small audiences
and some even bankrupted the producer.
Hello, is that the Majestic?
Good evening. Can you put me
through to Mr Bresson's room, please?
OK, l'll call back later.
Thank you. Goodbye.
THE STYLE
Bresson doesn't like talking
about his films.
But a few years ago
a book by him appeared
with notes on his style,
accumulated over the years.
Notes on the Cinematographer
Getting rid of accumulated mistakes
and falsehoods.
Knowing and securing my powers.
The cinema didn't come from nowhere.
Everything must be challenged.
CAMERA
Lancelot of the Lake
Lancelot.
Lancelot.
Bresson's camera does not show much.
We often only see parts of
a greater whole.
Here a tournament is represented
by just a few shots
of a flag, horses' legs, a lance.
We never see the whole track.
The shots only show what is needed,
the essential.
Applying myself to insignificant images
(not significant ones)
Teaching the audience to imagine the whole
when you are only giving them a part.
Making them imagine. Making them want to.
ACTING
Lancelot of the Lake
Lancelot.
Guinevere.
You are alive and you are here.
Nothing shall ever take you
away from me again.
All is lost for us here in Brittany.
l can wait no longer.
Say it.
l love you.
Again. Say it once more.
l love you. You must believe me.
l believe you.
But what is the matter?
Give me your hand.
The one you are hiding from me.
Your finger is bare.
You have taken om my ring.
Speak. You are frightening me.
l saw the Grail.
The Grail?
One night l sought refuge
in a ruined chapel.
A voice challenged me,
accusing me of deceit and treachery.
l can still hear that voice
ringing in my ears.
You dreamt it.
l can no longer be your lover, Guinevere.
l swore to God with my sword drawn.
You did that?
l did.
For God to hear you,
you must be absolved of another vow.
l ask you to absolve me of that vow,
Guinevere.
l gave myself wholly to you,
and you took me.
ln Bresson's films
there is no traditional acting.
Even the most emotional things
are spoken in a monotone
with a blank facial expression.
These people seem to be
talking to themselves.
Bresson never works with
professional actors
They belong in the theatre in his view.
He only uses novices.
He calls them ''models''.
He often rehearses them at great length
in speaking their te_s
without any intonations.
No actors.
(No directing actors).
No roles.
(No studying roles).
No pe_ormance.
But the use of models, taken from real life.
BEING (models) instead of SEEMING (actors).
Completely suppress the intentions
of your models
Move your camera across faces
as long as no grimace
(intended or otheM/ise) intervenes.
Filmmaking made from internal movements
which can be seen.
MODELS: inward movement.
(Actors: outward movement.)
ACTlON # TENSlON
A Man Escaped
After three weeks,
working as quietly as possible,
l managed to separate three planks,
Iengthwise.
But they were still attached
at the top and bottom,
fastened by joints
which bent my spoon.
ln order to dislodge them from the frame
l n_ed another spoon
so l could apply enough pressure.
The Bible?
l'm lucky.
lt's a miracle.
Everything has changed since yesterday.
Silence. No talking.
l'm lucky too.
l'd splintered the frame
but over a wider area than l'd intended.
l managed to put the piece back
and hold it in place.
lt seems as if Bresson
deliberately removes tension.
The title of this film gives the end away.
There is little action
and no spectacular events.
There is a lot of repetition.
A rhythm of evenness dominates.
The prisoner often describes
what can already be seen.
Nor is music used to create tension.
This bare style often seems cool
and distant.
Tension is suppressed,
emotions are restrained.
Yet tension and emotion are palpable.
You have to say things mechanically,
but while you are saying things mechanically,
a change takes place inside you
and there is a turnabout
that makes the mechanical come alive.
lt's very similar to the way
one great pianist plays the piano -
not a virtuoso, but a great pianist -
namely Lipatti.
Lipatti conveyed emotion
with restraint and regularity.
lt was by holding back his emotion,
trying to suppress it even,
and regulating it as much as possible
that he managed to convey an emotion
that no virtuoso ever achieved.
Well, this is similar.
By both holding back
and speaking mechanically,
something suddenly sticks.
Create emotion by resisting emotion.
Empty the pond to get the fish.
Hello. Could you put me through
to Mr Robert Bresson's room, please?
- Bresson?
- Yes.
A THEORY
The American director and scriptwriter,
Paul Schrader
wrote, at the age of 26,
Transcendental Style In Film,
in which he analysed Bresson's films.
THE STORIES
A young country priest
is consumed by holy sumering.
He finds peace in accepting death.
A condemned man tries to escape.
He succeeds
thanks to perseverance and chance.
Joan of Arc resists enormous pressure,
convinced that God sent her.
Death at the stake is her relief.
They are stories of sumering
and purification.
The main characters
eventually find deliverance.
Accepting their fate provides liberation.
ln Bresson's later films
something changes.
A young girl finds no response
from a heartless world
and chooses to die.
A man wants to know
if he is to blame
for his wife's suicide.
ln a world without humanity,
Lancelot has no choice but death.
A schoolboy finds no reason
to stay alive
and eventually has himself shot.
The tone seems more sombre.
The films always end in death
or suicide.
The Devil, Probably
Where are we going?
Wherever you like. Here or there?
l thought at a time like this
l'd have sublime thoughts.
Shall l tell you...?
THE QUESTlON
Good evening.
Is that Mr Bresson?
lt's Jurri?n Rood, the Dutchman.
l'm sorry to call you at this hour.
l wanted to ask you whether you might have
a bit of time for us tomorrow,
as we discussed when we met in Paris.
Oh, no, l saw the film this morning.
Yes. So for us...
Right.
Yes, to come
with two or three short questions,
as we discussed.
OK, just one. Right.
Here comes the Monty Python team.
Meanwhile, to the right of the steps
the festival is revealing its charms.
lt is an honour
to present
the award for Best Director
to Robert Bresson
for Money.
Mr Bresson,
when l watch your films,
l get the feeling that they contain a moral -
a rather dark, pessimistic moral -
and that in your later films,
the moral gets even darker.
So there there seems to be
almost a contradiction
between this pessimism
and the beauty of the form.
Let me tell you something.
You are confusing pessimism with lucidity.
Being lucid is not the same
as being pessimistic.
As for the moral, that's a bigger issue.
The moral hasn't...
l don't have...
There's nothing dark about the moral.
There are two things.
ls Greek tragedy pessimistic?
So it's lucid instead?
To me it seems more lucid than pessimistic.
l never say what's going to happen.
l simply record what l see.
l find it dimicult now
to tackle subjects from another era.
l have to stay within our times.
There are very serious threats
around the world
and that it is better to be lucid
than pessimistic.
So you don't regard yourself as a pessimist?
The search for beauty
and the search for lucidity
are in no way contradictory.
l don't see any contradiction.
But beauty in filmmaking
has to be new.
l mean,
cinematography is an art form
because all art has its beauty.
You have to make the most
of two e_raordinary appliances -
the camera and the tape recorder combined -
to write something on the screen.
And it has to be new
because the appliances are new.
They are heaven-sent and brand new.
You have to make something new
with new equipment.
And this newness must be beautiful
if we aspire to an ideal of beauty
for things and people in general.
Do you think you have changed
over the course of your career?
l certainly hope l have evolved.
This last film has something new about it.
At least for me it has.
lt came both from a determination
to make something concentrated
and fast and new
and from a sense of freedom -
great spontaneity and freedom.
l do it because l feel it so l do it.
Never mind if it's no good.
lf it is good, great.
But that's how l work.
Unfortunately there's the audience,
the cinemagoers,
or moviegoers as they're known,
who just expect to see
theatre photographed.
They want to see the whole person
and not just their hands or their face
or their elbow or their leg.
When l cross a street,
l see legs walking,
so l don't hesitate to show legs in motion.
That is what a Parisian boulevard is for me.
People didn't see that there was beauty
in the character who arrived in the midst
of these legs as a pair of legs himself,
and who suddenly sat down
so that we could see all of him, in full view.
They didn't see it.
Or rather, they didn't feel it.
They wait for explanatory dialogue
and there isn't any.
The explanation comes from the image
combined with the sound.
- Do the audience understand your style?
- No, they don't understand.
They watch films
that are photographed plays all the time
so they can't understand.
They want to see actors acting
by the way they speak,
by the modulation in their voices,
the narrative.
That's all they're looking for.
lf there is no pe_ormance
and no famous actors,
they see a void.
l understand them well.
But the cinema must evolve.
It can't stay like this forever.
The cinema could be huge.
lt has to evolve. l'll end on that.
Can l ask what your advice
to young filmmakers would be?
That's my last question.
l'll end with a wonde_ul line from Stendhal
that l am sure you know -
''The other arts taught me the art of writing.''
And Andrej Tarkovsky for Nostalghia.
Silence.
You have to admit, it's an exceptional line-up.
Thank you very much.