Films byTexts by Robert Bresson

Robert Bresson (1901-1999) was a French film director and screenwriter. He directed thirteen feature films, including Pickpocket (1959), Au hasard Balthazar (1966), and Mouchette (1967). In 1975, he published Notes sur le cinématographe (1975), an aphoristic collection of his reflections on cinema.

FILM
Robert Bresson, 1934, 25’

Bresson's first film is, totally uncharacteristically, a slapstick comedy, centred around two neighbouring republics, Crogandia and Miremia, and the various disasters that befall the ceremonial unveiling of a statue, the launching of a ship, and the crash-landing of a Miremian pilot in Crogan

FILM
Robert Bresson, 1943, 90’

A well-off young woman decides to become a nun, joining a convent that rehabilitates female prisoners. Through their program, she meets a woman named Thérèse who refuses any help because she says she was innocent of the crime she was convicted for.

FILM
Robert Bresson, 1962, 65’

In 1431 Jeanne, a French peasant girl, is imprisoned for heresy and brought to trial at Rouen. Despite rigorous interrogation by the judges and constant persecution from the jailers, her faith remains unshaken.

FILM
Robert Bresson, 1967, 81’

Robert Bresson’s second Georges Bernanos adaptation, beginning a long engagement with the question of suicide, tells the story of a neglected and impoverished girl hemmed in on all sides by her brutal provincial milieu.

 

FILM
Robert Bresson, 1969, 88’

« Il y a ici un autre principe de base, principe que très peu, sauf les grands comme Chaplin, connaissent : c’est l'économie. Faire une grande chose avec rien, c’est ça le truc. Alors qu’il est de coutume de faire tout le contraire : on montre absolument tout, quoi que ce soit, tout est bon.

FILM
Robert Bresson, 1971, 87’

The “dreamer” is Jacques, a young painter, who by chance runs into Marthe as she's contemplating suicide on the Pont-Neuf in Paris. They talk, and agree to see each other again the next night.

FILM
Robert Bresson, 1974, 88’

King Arthur learns about his wife’s, Queen Guinevere, affair with Lancelot, who at the same time remains loyal to the king, particularly after Arthur's traitorous nephew Mordred commits an attempt on his life.

 

FILM
Robert Bresson, 1977, 95’

Charles, Michel and a few of their friends form a small environmentalist group, concerned about famine, pollution and the future of the world.

FILM
Robert Bresson, 1983, 85’

“Is it for singing always the same song that the nightingale is so admired?”

Robert Bresson, Notes on the Cinematographer1