Artificial Eye / Curzon Film World

[tavernier]

His worst film, but what the hell, I'll bite.

[Macintosh]

His worst film, but what the hell, I'll bite.

Those kind of blanket statements should be frowned upon here. I find it to be one of his best ok? One of the best representations of youth and angst i've ever seen captured on film. So There. ANY special features included with this?

[lubitsch]

His worst film, but what the hell, I'll bite.

Those kind of blanket statements should be frowned upon here. I find it to be one of his best ok? One of the best representations of youth and angst i've ever seen captured on film. So There.

If this film has anything to do with youth, I'm 97 years old. Bresson really dealt with things for which he had no experience. It's an old man's film in the worst way, ranting (in a very austere way, but still) against the decaying world and youth.
Very reasonable choice for the cover though. Putting on the the depressive zombie lead would hardly boost the sales.

[Kinsayder]

Putting on the the depressive zombie lead would hardly boost the sales.

Oh, I don't know.

[domino harvey]

Everyone knows Bresson's worst film is Au hasard Balthazar

[godardslave]

Everyone knows Bresson's worst film is Au hasard Balthazar

#-o

[tavernier]

Putting on the the depressive zombie lead would hardly boost the sales.

Oh, I don't know.

Now it becomes his best film!

[Michael Kerpan]

Putting on the the depressive zombie lead would hardly boost the sales.

Oh, I don't know.

A much more striking design than the real one.

;~}

[HerrSchreck]

Everyone knows Bresson's worst film is Au hasard Balthazar

Blanket statement thingy: Bresson's biggest crap-lump by far is Mouchette. Rampant unadulterated "o the wicked world groan o the wicked world moan o the wicked world". Slept thru half that cinematc stomach cramp.

[tavernier]

Any other nominees? Une Femme Douce anyone?

[Macintosh]

Any other nominees? Une Femme Douce anyone?

Now that I might agree with... =D>

[domino harvey]

Whatever Bresson film is the favorite of the person reading this, that's the one that sucks the most

[zone_resident]

A portion of the interview between Charles Thomas Samuels [S] and Bresson .
The entire script is available here.

B: A book, a painting, or a piece of music - none of these things has an absolute value. The value is what the viewer, the reader, the listener bring to it.

S: There is a difference between value and meaning. We can disagree about the value of a film and still agree on what it means.

B: There are people who when seeing Diary of a Country Priest feel nothing.

S: But that's their fault. That's not the fault of the film. There is a German proverb: "If a jackass stares into a mirror, a philosopher can't look back."

B: Unfortunately, the public is used to easy films. More and more this is true.

S: Then you are suffering from lack of comrades. If there were more directors making suggestive films like yours, the public would be able to understand better.

B: I have always said that the world of cinema ought to be organized like the world of painting during the Renaissance, so that apprentices might learn their craft. Today a man assists now this, now that director, and learns nothing.

S: In Diary of a Country Priest for the first time -

B: You are right; this is the first film in which I started to understand what I was doing.

...

S: I'll give a more recent example. In Une Femme douce the couple comes into the house, and the camera remains on the door. Then they walk upstairs, and the camera holds on the landing. We see the door to their apartment before they open it and after they close it etc. You weren't conscious of this?

B: Of course, I was conscious, but I never remember what I have done later. Let me tell you something about doors. Critics say, " Bresson is impossible: He shows fifty doors opening and closing"; but you must understand that the door of the apartment is where all the drama occurs. The door either says, "I am going away or I am coming to you." When I made Les Dames du Bois de Boulogne, I was also accused of showing too many doors. And Cocteau said I was criticized for being too precise. "In other films you see a door because it just happens to be there," he said, , "whereas in your films it is there on purpose. For that reason each door is seen, whereas in other films the door is scarcely noticed."

S: You say that you first discovered yourself in Diary of a Country Priest. Was part of that discovery the use of commentary?

B: Perhaps. But you know, I shouldn't have used commentary in my next film, A Man Escaped. Since it was virtually a silent film and since it required some rhythm, I depended on commentary.

S: I want to ask some questions about A Man Escaped, which, by the way, seems to me your greatest film. Incidentally, does that judgment upset you?

B: I don't know how to make such comparisons. But there may be something in what you say. When I finished it, I had no idea about its value. Yet I had, for the first time in my life, an impulse to write down everything I felt about the art of filmmaking, and for that reason A Man Escaped is precious to me.

[Barmy]

Bresson's best film is "Four Nights of a Dreamer". Anyone who feels otherwise should kill himself.

Bresson's worst film is that one about that loser who mopes about for 90 minutes then dies. Anyone who feels otherwise should kill himself.

[domino harvey]

Bresson's best film:

[tavernier]

Bresson's best film:

I thought Besson made that one.

[stephan73]

Play has more info on the Satyajit Ray set!

[Barmy]

Putting on the the depressive zombie lead would hardly boost the sales.

Oh, I don't know.

Didn't they already use ass to sell Balthazar?

::rimshot::

[miless]

Putting on the the depressive zombie lead would hardly boost the sales.

Oh, I don't know.

Didn't they already use ass to sell Balthazar?

::rimshot::

::rimjob::

[GringoTex]

Any other nominees? Une Femme Douce anyone?

One of my absolute favorite Bressons, of course.

[miless]

I nominate Les Dames du Bois de Boulogne... simply because it's sort of a strange hybrid of Bresson and Cocteau's sensibilities. The dialogue is wonderful, but the film didn't really have the impact (or cinematic language) of Bresson's latter films.

[Awesome Welles]

Just received an email (as they once distributed the VHS) that AE have no plans to release The Spider's Stratgem.

[MichaelB]

Just received an email (as they once distributed the VHS)

When? My copy's on the Connoisseur label.

[Awesome Welles]

Just received an email (as they once distributed the VHS)

When? My copy's on the Connoisseur label.

Sorry not the VHS, they distributed theatrically (advert in S&S magazine from time of original release).

[Via_Chicago]

I nominate Les Dames du Bois de Boulogne... simply because it's sort of a strange hybrid of Bresson and Cocteau's sensibilities. The dialogue is wonderful, but the film didn't really have the impact (or cinematic language) of Bresson's latter films.

Surprisingly though, it was Bresson's most influential film:

"Along with Les Dames du Bois de Boulogne (1945), it was the key French film for our generation - François, Jean-Luc, Jacques Demy, myself."

- Jacques Rivette on La belle et la bete.

I personally like it more than Mouchette, even if it doesn't display the mature "Bressonian" style that would begin with Diary of a Country Priest.