Robert Bresson

[Stefan]

Has anybody else gotten the sensation from a film that they have been given some secret type of knowledge? It's only happened to me several times and the last time was after watching McCabe and Miss Miller for the first time several years ago. My best attempt at a description is waking up the next morning after viewing the film, you've processed it in your subconscious and somehow you now have knowledge that assists you in making better sense of the world around you. Anyone?

I watched Four Nights of a Dreamer last night on youtube and I had that sensation this morning. Amazing film. Thanks to dvdbeaver for reminding me that this film was on my to-watch list.

Are you kidding us? Please specify. The differences between those two films by Altman and Bresson and ludicrously big, so you should give us some clue(s) as towards your inner experience.

[Matt]

I was going to reply to Petty Bourgeoisie’s post with my similar experience of watching Four Nights of a Dreamer during a Bresson retrospective and having a similar reaction. And I also don’t really know how to describe that reaction. I know it is not Bresson’s best film (just historically one of the most difficult to see), but it had an effect of circumventing my rational mind and appealing directly to my emotions and my aesthetic sensibilities. And it was not necessarily a spiritual reaction like I might have had after Balthasar, the recognition of and identification with suffering, the bestowal of grace, etc. Perhaps more of a simple and humane identification with a good but fundamentally flawed hero.

That was a very long time ago, and I have not watched the film since, so I have nothing more than that to contribute. I would say that the experience of having just watched the film was similar to how I felt after the first time I saw a 35mm print of McCabe and Mrs. Miller and after seeing several other deeply affecting (but otherwise quite different) films like All That Jazz, Margot at the Wedding, and Claire Denis’s L’intrus that seem to reveal deep truths about human nature and human relationships purely through motion, gesture, facial expressions, cutting, cinematography, and music. These truths maybe can’t be expressed well by language, or maybe neither the filmmaker nor the viewer are able to find those right words.

Maybe I’m just getting old and soft, but maybe also we don’t need to demand that everyone who posts here post long, reasoned critique as if it were the norm. Sometimes it’s enough to say that you loved a film because it was beautiful or because it made you feel things you can’t quite express.

[Michael Kerpan]

Sometimes it’s enough to say that you loved a film because it was beautiful or because it made you feel things you can’t quite express.

Maybe it is because I am also growing so old, but I rarely feel able to do much more than this. Lots of feelings, that I can't reduce to reasonable sounding words.

[domino harvey]

As Claude Chabrol once said, you can’t always do justice to a film in words— “That’s why films cost so much!”

(I’m glad you guys enjoyed the film so much, but I think it’s one of his worst— and I can put it in words why and did so a few pages back!)

[DeprongMori]

Glad to get confirmation that the feature film in the recent Gaumont release of Lancelot du Lac has English subtitles, as the FNAC listing omits that fact while confirming English subtitles for Le Diable probablement. Can anyone confirm either way whether the supplements have English subtitles available?

[jheez]

There are no subtitles on the supplements of either

[knives]

Next week lecinemackub is streaming Four Nights.

[eatandoph]

Next week lecinemackub is streaming Four Nights.

Popping in here to say thanks for mentioning this — I had wanted to see this for years, but it wasn't accessible in a clean, subtitled version. It was a real pleasure!

[knives]

Yeah, it was real fun and I didn’t realize how clear a progenitor it was for Carax.

[beamish14]

Next week lecinemackub is streaming Four Nights.

Popping in here to say thanks for mentioning this — I had wanted to see this for years, but it wasn't accessible in a clean, subtitled version. It was a real pleasure!

It’s still on YouTube in case you miss the window

[Stefan Andersson]

Bresson interview, 1979:
https://www.filmcomment.com/blog/to-try ... h-bresson/

[Matt]

Robert Bresson’s ‘Four Nights of a Dreamer’ to Be Restored in 4K by MK2 Films