I just came across this interview with Bergman. It seems he's not really a fan of this film.

Ha! That is hilarious.

'Do you like animals in general?

No, not very much. I have a completely natural aversion for them. '

Intentional or not, it is hilarious.

It's a parable, you cunt! Like Aesop's fables and shit.


Yes. Do you like animals in general?


Wha... eh? What the hell does that mean? That doesn't mean you can't empathise with their - with our - suffering.


Haven't you read Schopenhauer?


Then you should damn well know what I'm talking about!


Oh, for fuck's sake.

David, has this been published anywhere?

"Publish" is too strong a term. I posted an appreciation of Balthazar at a_film_by during a discussion there on "classical" music in film. To paraphrase - helps if you know the music - I simply find the Schubert slow movement and the movie inseparable. It feels to me the placement of grabs from the Sonata and Bresson's interruptions of them for soundtrack (birth of the donkey, etc) seem to me to determine or anticipate or parallel the structure of the film, or if you like its emotional landscape into a similar ternary form, but with the unexpected chromatic shifts, the major/minor/major key shifts, and the outburst of anguish in the middle of the development section from nowehere. The very aspects of Schubert's sublime music that are completely unique. For instance the music plays through the early rapidly montaged sequences of the children, the death of their friend, and the incredibly moving love between them, trhough to the names cut into the wood, all accompanied by Schubert, with major/minor/major/minor!!!!

I simply can't separate music from movie any more. They have precisely the same (ovewhelmingly sad and resigned) emotional impact on me either in isolation or together. I didn't save the post but I was astonished (and delighted) to read a completely unrelated but similarly themed post from someone else on the beaverlistserv earlier this year.

Sigh... I've tried really hard, and apologies in advance, but I still don't get this film, or Mouchette either. I find his "modelled" performances absolutely deadening - I find the blankness on everyone's expressions flatly monotonous. I suppose I just enjoy people doing things with their faces too much.

Well, screw you guys.

Actually, I found this a pretty tough Bresson to love, and I'm surprised that there's generally so much gushing over it. The film is beyond subtle and almost seems to require the rewatchings that home video allows (something that obviously wasn't available when people started singing its praises originally).

How are you on Pickpocket? This seems to me more accessible for its Dostoyevskyisms and bravura sequence shots in the station scene. It's also, I think, quite funny (intentionally or no) for exactly the same reason you find Balthazar so dull. Martin La Salle is the Buster Keaton of Bresson films.

I agree with this. I watched it three times and was at a lost. And then on the fourth time, it suddenly became the greatest thing I've ever seen.

The only Bresson films that have had an immediate impact on me are A Man Escaped and L'Argent. And I have no idea why. All the others have required multiple viewings before hitting me like a ton of bricks.

But they've all hit me like a ton of bricks eventually.

I've seen it once, and felt similarly about it. Enjoyed it, but nowhere near the level of some others.

Can you divulge any further, how it worked you the fourth time Langlois?

It doesn't surprise me that some people have trouble with this film. Bresson's approach to "acting" is itself very challenging, and keeps me from ever suggesting his films to people who aren't ready to wrestle with films. By wrestle I mean, watch films several times, seek out commentaries and discussion, and figure out exactly why the films have the reputation they have.

I don't in any way mean to suggest that jcelwin or Narshty aren't "getting it" because they aren't doing this. There's little point being on this board if you're not willing to make the effort toward the films. Liking a film isn't an objective question.

I put this film in the same category that I put Andrei Rublev. The camera work and pacing put me into a kind of trance. It's a highly personal and probably inexplicable reaction that I don't expect others to have. The film's story is neither about the donkey nor the people, but about the total experience of the film itself. Taken alone, the donkey is utterly manipulative. Likewise, so many details are omitted in the human stories that the viewer is taken out of them almost entirely. This ellipsis is what demands repeated viewings, though by the end of his career he'd perfected it so that despite ellipsis L'Argent is perfectly clear the first run through. No simple thing.

This was the first Bresson that really hit me. I watched Diary, Man Escaped, and Pickpocket multiple times without appreciating the Bresson method. But when I saw this, it suddenly came together, and looking back at the earlier films I understand and appreciate them much more. Perhaps it's because of this film's keystone role in my appreciation for Bresson that I rate it so highly.

I'm hesitant to use the analogy -- because the critical approach has fallen out of favor and the unfortunately ignorant Gary Indiana liner notes for Pickpocket has installed a new one -- but I feel you have to approach this film as a Christian would God: without any expectation at all. When I watched it the fourth time, I had given up any hope that it could touch me- I merely wanted to confirm that it was inferior. That's when it hit me.

To paraphrase Godard-- Bresson didn't make Christian films, but he made films "Christian-ly." His models only affect you if you leave your own expectations and sense of self at the door. It's a fucking donkey, after all- how much are you supposed to relate to it?

Langlois I relate far FAR more to the Donkey/s in Balthazar than I do to practically every American actor currently working in films. They're only fucking pathetic humans.

I don't think the blank slate of Bresson's films are properly "Christian" simply because they are blank. And I don't think the viewer is supposed to leave anything at the door - it's the opposite: the viewer has to bring all that he or she is into the theater but experience the film as its own document. There's a major distinction to be drawn between dropping assumptions and dropping philosophies, and that's the distinction that Bresson relies upon.

I guess people relate to Bresson in wildly different ways. I found Balthazar emotionally shattering on first viewing and the experience only gets deeper with time (and I'm definitely not coming at it from a religious perspective). And that reaction is not just about the sufferings of the donkey, but the experiences of the humans on the margins of the film, and the sheer inexorability of time passing, doors of opportunity closing, etc.

For me, the lack of expressiveness in the performances (human and animal) acts as a magnet for my own emotions, dragging me in. The same applies to several other great, emotional filmmakers, such as Dreyer and Ozu. In fact, histrionics tend to shut down emotional identification for me.

As I've mentioned before, in my experience Bresson is not necessarily a 'tough' director for audiences. I've seen A Man Escaped with non-cinephile friends, completely unaware of Bresson's reputation and with only a nodding familiarity with subtitled films, who have been enthralled from start to finish, blithely unaware of anything unusual in the film's grammar.

Which is why Tooze should stop celebrating the Hoberman quote on the splash page of his site, which might be the most absurd critical comment in the entire history of film criticism which is already the most breathtakingly embarassing genre of literary waste paper: it goes essentially along the lines "To not 'get' Bresson is to not get the whole of cinema, to have missed that train that pulled into the station nearly a century ago.." (meaning Porters' famous early train shot which sent Victorian audiences leaping out of their seats in the cinema in fear of being runover).

There you have it-- everything that's wrong in the mind of the critic who breast feeds on the idea that he is more rarified than a simple fan. If he is simply a man who gets paid a relatively small amount of money To Write About The Film Fan Experiece, to help others who have healthier, more variegated lives, then he's just like everyone else, only less so as he's not a filmmaker either (half-kidding). So he therefore proceeds to take the work of the most most notoriously difficult filmmaker who, before the age of home video, was deeply appreciated primarily by a few dozen industry folks from city to city... and turn him into a Blanket Cinema Cool People Test, where those who do "understand" Bresson get club cards and those who don't either pretend they do because they don't want to be relegated to the RAMBO bin admitting they didn't catch sight of this alleged supergigantic blaring orgasmic parade that is supposed to have roared cinematically by in the form of any Bresson film-- or they simply lift their heads up from the Voice after reading Hoberman and recalling Bresson & say, "You fucking people are nuts" and add it to their checklist of beefs against a media which now seems because of such douche bag columns yet more confirmed to be composed smarmy, insulting, sushi-eating nitwits.

Fact is I adore Bresson and always have, but fact is for me some Bresson really really is just silly as he didn't know where Overboard lay. It seems because nobody truly can say what the hell is actually going on in Bresson that they don't have the wherewithal to indicate which films of his may be failures.. or that the man even has any failures on his list, as all filmmakers do. Even Murnau & Dreyer, his two Holy Fathers have utter failures. MOUCHETTE to me-- in my opinion-- is a complete waste of my time. PROCESS JOAN D'ARC: there's no other word for it. It is a waste of my time in the truest sense of the phrase. There's not even anything interesting in it-- the man has gone out of his way to remove each & every possible compelling Reason To Watch The Film from his film and has succeeded 100%. There's no reason to watch it. This is not Ozu, where the inessential elements have been stripped away by a wise veteran director who once played the game with all the whistles & bells but has aged & understood the power and poetry of nothingness, of the act of backing off so that the viewer may come forward to inhabit certain zones of the mise en scene.

But rather than getting deep into the Bresson I think succeeds in redacting the right material leaving just the right amount for poetry (COUNTRY PRIEST, DAMES DU BOIS, MAN ESCAPED, BALTHAZAR, A GENTLE WOMAN is merely so so for me), I just want to reiterate how silly this whole Bresson-bullying routine is on the part of critics, where a guy like Narshty feels like he's got to apologize (not that he's all broken up about it, but it takes some guts to come oout & say such a thing in on a board like this because Bresson is ridiculously 'sacred' for some reason among critics & the 'serious' media, and the newer crop of cineastes take this up and are intimidated of stepping forward to say Okay this is just Nothing-- why are we watching this???).

HerrShreck, I think your point is highly valid and I've made similar statements here in other threads (most of them infused with too much drink). But it's unwise to paint all the "newbie cineastes" with the same weary brush that one paints the habitual critics. It's unlikely that the newbie cineaste is exposed to the full range of critical debate about Bresson. And it's also likely that he or she is approaching his work alone, at home, with nothing else to inform the experience than the film itself. Simply rejecting the newbie's reaction to the film at first blush completely ignores the value of the "beginner's mind" for the more well informed or experienced.

It may be hard to express an opinion that goes against the norm, but I think that's far more a problem of the social environment. There's nothing sacred here, unless it's Ozu . . . and honestly, if Tokyo Story is the best Ozu can deliver, why should I care about him?

Dude I have NO IDEA WHAT YOU'RE TALKING ABOUT. Help me out! With all respect & regards, what "newbie cineaste" reaction did I dismiss or reject? What I'm trying to do is clear the plate for a genuine uninhibited reaction on the part of the newbie.


This I think I understand and I couldn't disagree more. I think most "newbies" (not my term) are approaching Bresson for the first time because they heard about him either through CC or MK2 blind-buying, or through a professor or through a critic. They should definitely be "into" film. I would go so far as to say I can guarantee you that the typical kid is not some Minnesota teen looking for the latest DVD who decides to take a chance on COUNTRY PRIEST or BALTHAZAR, rather than say XMEN or WEDDING CRASHERS or even-- getting adventurous-- CRASH. I'd say most young people approaching Bresson are doing so because they've heard him described in awesome terms, like some western Buddah.. they may even have a sense that he is "difficult" and want to 'join the club', because they Want To Be The Kind Of Guy Who Knows and Understands when they grow up.

I really really really have a hard time picturing a young person coming to Bresson in a vaccuum..

That aside, I still need you to explain what it was about their reactions you thought I was rejecting. My only point about them was that if they don't like them along the lines of Narshty (not that he's a 'newbie') or even myself with some films, they will in some cases exhibit pangs of discomfort or do so faux-apologetically for not liking the cinematic sacred saint.

Wrong thread -- and I'm never speaking to yopu again!!!!!!!!!!!

;~}

OK, sure, that run-on sentence is pure poetry, but hey, I like sushi, and do you really want to open up the can o'worms that is anti-intellectualizing vs. intellectualizing cinema? It seems like that's where you're heading. There's a thin line between bullying and discussion (some people could even see your post as bullying, or at least a dare to disagree). There's no defence for Hoberman though, that quote is ridiculous. But doesn't posturing have it merits? Just because some critic makes a wild statement (which you're prone to yourself, y'know), or postures himself or a filmmaker as a holy grail of filmdom, maybe it should be viewed as another tool of human expression that gets people interested in a specific filmmaker or film. Maybe somebody read that and picked up Pickpocket and loved it (as many have). And even if that last point was BS, there's no fighting hipstery posturing rubbish... it always wins.


I, and I think a lot of other people would disagree and would say that Bresson *does* fit in nicely with that model of a "wise veteran director... who understood the power of poetry and nothingness". I love both Ozu and Bresson (I know, I'm sure everyone is shocked... take some time to for that to settle in), but we know that Bresson worked in a more constricted studio system as an assistant (or as David Ehrenstein contends, a gigolo), but from what we can tell from very early Ozu, he hasn't changed that much (and as far as bells and whistles are concerned, I can't think of any except for a few trains.)


People slam Bresson all the time. More exposure just means more slamming. It's probably all this bashing that leads critics to make Hobermanish pronouncements in the first place, like kids defending their dad's meatpacking plant job during recess ("he's the best meatpacking plant worker on the planet, jerk!") People on this board slam Bresson less for a couple of reasons: A, they actually like the films, B, they're "anything goes, why should I slam somebody someone else likes, why not just go about my business and talk about the films I enjoy" centrist types. I seriously doubt we're all brainwashed by Hoberman.

I do have to admit to a little bit of guilt though. Usually when I see someone posting dislike for Bresson on this forum (like Narshty did) there's a part of me that snobbishly invalidates the opinion by considering it someone playing the devil's advocate. It can probably be assumed that a lot of people here do this, but the first step is admitting, right?

Something else you said earlier, about coming to Bresson in a Vacuum, I would have to disagree. I just haphazardly borrowed A Man Escaped, on VHS, from a local library a few years ago and loved it. I've given a half a dozen friends Pickpocket to watch who have never heard of Bresson, and they all loved it. My exroommate watched friggin Lancelot du Lac and loved it, all without reading critical appraisals likening Bresson to God.

Actually, neither do I. Odd, but I was sure I was responding to an entirely different idea than the idea that appears before me this morning.

Another idiot post by bunuelian!

At the same time, I'm not sure the social reaction to the film is the important thing. How other cineastes will react to one's opinion of something may not matter at all, because one may have no other cineastes to talk to. I think, if I attempt to reconstruct my brain waves from last night, that this was my point - but it got retranslated and reduced to an inane babblefest about the sweet newbs' smooth brain surfaces.

It's a far more problematic issue trying to get the non-cineaste friend to watch Bresson than it is to say to cineastes that one doesn't like Bresson. I don't understand how a thinking person couldn't understand why someone wouldn't like him. In the rarified air of informed cinematic discourse, one is more likely to be accused of pretention if one attacks Citizen Kane as junk cinema. When it comes to Bresson, it's enough to have heard of him and seen one or two of his films.

Now, the rules of the game may shift in the film school world, where one is judged (from what I can gather) much more strictly on one's subjective opinion, but that world's myopic perespective isn't terribly interesting other than as a point of ridicule, or as a reason why so many former students of film want nothing to do with it.


No question they are coming to the film with some sense of what it is, and not just picking it off the shelf. It's likely that one who isn't interested in cinema will even go near the foreign section of their Blockbuster. In fact, it's probably more likely that those coming to Bresson are only doing so after several intermediate steps. Where we differ is in how we're looking at the problem of the new Bresson viewer: you see it as a problem of her ego versus the egos of others: how others will judge her reaction to Bresson and how she forms her opinions based on what she believes others will feel about her. I was focusing on the individual viewer's reaction regardless of the wider social implications - what did the film say to her? It's that reaction that is less likely to be impacted by what others have said about it. If you read a glowing review of a film and then see it, does the glowing review stop you from hating the film if it doesn't sit well with you?

Feel free to scream at me that it's impossible to do anything without concerrn for it's social dimension. I'm an adult and can handle it.

Your final point goes again back to what I said before: almost no one will actually be cooler for having appreciated Bresson except perhaps in very narrow circles. The pubescent obsession with assigning coolness to the unknown aside, most people are more likely to be disinterested or even poke fun at someone who tries to tell them how much they like a black and white French film from the 60's about a donkey. "Bresson who?" While the tight circle of those "in the know" might have mattered 5 or 10 years ago, we're in the age of Netflix, and most new Bresson viewers won't even be aware of how (un)cool they're becoming when they conclude that it's just a stupid donkey.

A little "peer pressure" to like a fim isn't going to do any harm to anyone. I don't understand how anyone could like watching petulent British children whining in their luxury in The River but the high praise the film gets here suggests to me that there might be something I'm missing. I don't have any issues telling people to their face that I didn't like The River, but all the years of having a different opinion than others has made me strong like Chuck Norris.


Dude! Slap fight in the yard! Right now!

The first time I saw this, it was hours after watching "Grizzly Man." Big mistake. Everytime Bresson cut to the donkey, I thought of Herzog talking over close-ups of a grizzly's eyes, talking about the indifference and lack of emotion there.

No way --

Sumo match.

;~}

Henrietta-Mildred! Grab me my slippers; I think I'm heading somewhere!
Stephen H! Why do you think that's where I'm heading? I was talking about Narshty-- a dude who has seen a few films in his life-- feeling amusedly uncomfortable admitting he doesn't like Bresson. I help up the monstro absurdity of the Hoberman quote as a good at-hand example of the gases seeping into the public convo leading Narshty & others to preface this sentiment the way he did.

Lend me your ear because it's happening again, the words-put-in-my-mouth thing. I am not "anti-intellectualizing" cinema ferchrissakes! I am de-dramatizing the words of the critic. I am trying to puncture the dooface pronouncements of a man who is giving himself a hell of an imaginary job description. Imagine saying "Those who do not enjoy the paintings of Dali do not understand the whole of fine art," or "Those who do not understand the presidency of Carter do not understand any american presidency."


Man this is a bumpy ride!

Can one be a bully while imploring folks to make up their own mind? Can one be a bully when saying that someone is bullying folks into not being bullied? Henrietta-Millicent... slippers again..


Senor, please stay with me-- again with the words in my mouth. I'll say it again and I'll say it slow because this is getting unbelievable: I L.O.V.E. B.R.E.S.S.O.N. Simply because I have a couple films in his canon which I feel go too far, this is Normal People Behavior, not liking every single flick by a director, and it doesn't & shouldn't [DELETE] the part above that and elsehwere, where I wrote I L.O.V.E. B.R.E.S.S.O.N..

As for the library & your friends & that ESCAPED tape, that was great. When I was first introduced to Bresson, it was on a satellite launch (Henrietta?) heading to the outer reaches of the solar system (Millcent? gudent..ag?) on a sunday eating instant beef listening to Stockhausen. So don't tell me kids aren't being turned on to Bresson on Saturnine Lord's Days eating space-food with piped in Musique Concrete. It happens, I assure you!

Narshty has a great sense of humor. For all we know he apologized with both middle fingers fully extended (I actually typed something earlier today with both middle fingers fully extended... it was great, but enough about me.)


I did assume this, maybe incorrectly, but to me it did seem like that's where you were "heading" (as in "not there yet", because I myself am not in the habit of making my own doofaced pronouncements and then sitting in it afterwords uncomfortably.) This is how I percieve the discussion so far. Narshty said he didn't like the movie, some people agreed, some disagreed, but you jumped down the thread's throat when people started arguing why he should like the film, give it another chance, etc. Maybe I should have taken the post at face value that you were only interested in commenting on Narshty's quote (if this is true, then I misunderstood you completely).


Yeah, I know you love Bresson (how can you not? Otherwise you wouldn't understand cinema! HAW!) That time I was just arguing a little semantic argument, from your comparing Ozu to Bresson. That might actually be a relevant discussion to the thread, however, rather than general overblown meta-posts engineered towards ego feeding, so it makes sense there would be a miscommunication.


Bresson is becoming a bible belt day care staple as we speak, actually. They're pitching him and Dreyer as minimalist neo-cons (the Discovery Institute is working on a memo about it right now.) Just so you know, we are now completely in the realm of personal discussion, so unless it's about other people want to read, I'm going to reply in PMs (as entertaining as it is for people who are trying out their scrolling function, testing it to it's limits.)

It's called hilting in the queer community, and deep throating among us psychotic heteros who catch the light just right. It was to to drown out all that terrible terrible arguing. Schlup...


Personal discussion: welcome to internet chatland. Please no PM's, even those crucial ones about other people want to read.. we have Beginners English classes for that. I'm too busy getting uh... *schlup***