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
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.
This love story follows the maneuverings of a society lady as she connives to initiate a scandalous affair between her aristocratic ex-lover and a prostitute.
Countess: Love is stronger than death. Your scriptures say so.
Curé d’Ambricourt: We did not invent love. It has its order, its law.
Countess: God is its master.
In 1943, Lieutenant Fontaine is arrested by the Gestapo for involvement with the French Resistance and incarcerated at Montluc prison in Lyons. Immediately, Fontaine becomes obsessed with the idea of escape. He has nothing to lose.
Jeanne: You’re not in the real world. You share no interests with others.
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.
“The world in an hour and a half.”
Jean-Luc Godard
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.
« 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.
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.
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.
Charles, Michel and a few of their friends form a small environmentalist group, concerned about famine, pollution and the future of the world.
“Is it for singing always the same song that the nightingale is so admired?”
Robert Bresson, Notes on the Cinematographer1