1950s List Discussion and Suggestions (Lists Project Vol. 3)

[swo17]

A Man Escaped will be airing on TCM this Sunday, for those with no other way of seeing it. Extremely highly recommended.

[puxzkkx]

A Man Escaped is a bona fide masterpiece and will be near the very top of my list.

I recently saw Grand Illusion, Le trou and A Man Escaped in quick succession and wondered what people thought of this French prison break trifecta?

[zedz]

A Man Escaped is a bona fide masterpiece and will be near the very top of my list.

I haven't thought that hard about it, but A Man Escaped will presumably be the top of my list too. I can't think of anything that could beat it off the top of my head. So, yes, essential viewing for this project and also probably the ideal gateway drug for people new to Bresson.

[domino harvey]

Pickpocket will probably be the second-highest charting non-American title for me, behind Les cousins. I like the film, but I've never understood the cult behind A Man Escaped, especially next to something as life-changing as Pickpocket

[swo17]

I may have to cheat and give one of my top spots to A Pickpocket Escaped.

[Mr Sausage]

...something as life-changing as Pickpocket

I'd be really interested to hear what about it is life-changing. I ask this as someone who was left unchanged after seeing it (I seem to be somewhat unmoved by Bresson in general for whatever reason) and is curious about what I missed or missed out on.

[domino harvey]

...something as life-changing as Pickpocket

I'd be really interested to hear what about it is life-changing. I ask this as someone who was left unchanged after seeing it (I seem to be somewhat unmoved by Bresson in general for whatever reason) and is curious about what I missed or missed out on.

I was completely nonplussed on first viewing too (I may have literally shrugged upon finishing), but it's a slow-burner. After a couple days, the totality of its vision of redemption had fully crept into my head and the effect was overwhelming. Once the film is looked at as ending with a miracle, the action leading up to it becomes not just procedural but penitent, and while I'm not religious, it had and still has a profound effect on me

[HerrSchreck]

Count me as a Bresson fan who places ESCAPED light years beyond PICKPOCKET. There is a lot to admire in PICKPOCKET, but there is also an awful lot upon repeated viewings that simply just doesn't hold up. I could go into some detail if anyone would like, but rather than shit on another person's passion, I would much rather hear a rhapsody for PICKPOCKET as the better film of the two.

EDIT: I see you went into some detail there, but I was looking for something a little bit more comparative and in depth. No big deal.

[Tommaso]

Very strange. I've seen a lot from Bresson, and I've never managed to get further than a stage that might be best described as a sort of cold admiration as opposed to a real love and immersion. Strange in so far as Bresson has sometimes been grouped together with Dreyer, Ozu and Tarkovsky as being an exponent of a 'transcendental' cinema, and while with those three others I generally have a deep feeling of attachment (in the case of Dreyer's "Ordet" and with all of Tarkovsky it's actually a sense of being completely overwhelmed and deeply moved), so far I haven't found the same resonance if it comes to Bresson. Perhaps I'm doing something wrong, but given that the 50s are such a strong period of filmmaking, I probably have to leave Bresson off my list. At least for this round; perhaps I have a different approach five years further on...

[Mr Sausage]

I've seen a lot from Bresson, and I've never managed to get further than a stage that might be best described as a sort of cold admiration as opposed to a real love and immersion.

This is exactly how I feel as well (with the exception of Balthazar, which I had a very strong reaction to). Ozu, Tarkovsky, and Dreyer, on the other hand, moved me immediately with the first film of theirs I saw and haven't let up yet. I absolutely adore Dreyer's Gertrude, for instance, the first of Dreyer's talkies I was exposed to. I saw it sometime in highschool, and it just ravished my heart away. Been a favourite of mine ever since. Yet Bresson left me unmoved. Weird.

[Michael Kerpan]

Tommaso -- I think Ozu is mis-grouped with this bunch, simply because almost all his work has roots in comedy (and, so far as I can tell, this is not true with the others). He got associated with the "transcendentalists" by critics who (almost entirely) missed Ozu's comic side. Not being as expert on the other directors sharing this label, I don't know whether others are equally mis-associated.

"Cold admiration" is the strongest feeling I can work up towards Bresson myself. Just not my kind of director, I suspect.

[zedz]

Count me as a Bresson fan who places ESCAPED light years beyond PICKPOCKET. There is a lot to admire in PICKPOCKET, but there is also an awful lot upon repeated viewings that simply just doesn't hold up. I could go into some detail if anyone would like, but rather than shit on another person's passion, I would much rather hear a rhapsody for PICKPOCKET as the better film of the two.

EDIT: I see you went into some detail there, but I was looking for something a little bit more comparative and in depth. No big deal.

I think I'm in the same boat as you, Schreck. There are passages in Pickpocket, like the erotic ballet of thieving hands, that are among the greatest things ever committed to film, but the overtly Dostoevskian back-and-forth with the detective seems plodding and banal to me.

What really works for me about A Man Escaped is that it strips out all of that kind of thematic exposition and distils its story to pure action, making it probably the purest expression of what I like best about Bresson's filmmaking.

[puxzkkx]

I think it was David Thomson who compared Bresson's films to primitive art. I totally agree with him - there's a feeling I get when watching something like Au hasard Balthazar, for instance, of seeing something ancient and in tune with a primal energy that is unknown to modern society. Like seeing a piece of art and being surprised that it even had a creator instead of just an organic or perhaps geological development.

[matrixschmatrix]

For me the greatest pleasure of the Bresson I've seen is in remembering the films afterwards and in contemplating certain snatches from them, rather than the actual experience of watching them, which is completely dissimilar from how I experience Dreyer or Ozu. If I had to compare it to anyone, it would actually be Herzog- in both cases, watching their films is something like a ritual journey whose reward is imagery or experiences unique to their film world, and while I sometimes experience boredom or disinterest while actually watching the movies (especially for the first time) it more or less always seems worth it.

[Tommaso]

I think Ozu is mis-grouped with this bunch, simply because almost all his work has roots in comedy (and, so far as I can tell, this is not true with the others). He got associated with the "transcendentalists" by critics who (almost entirely) missed Ozu's comic side.

That may well be, but for me Ozu's comic side - which also took me a while to discover, in fact - isn't something that is opposed to 'transcendental' interpretations (which probably stem from the 'meaningless' shots of teapots and the like in the first place). The humour only adds to the 'wisdom' that seems to exude from Ozu's late works for some people, to the idea of 'buddhist acceptance' of the world in the end.

[Michael Kerpan]

Ozu's comic sde IS opposed to the tanscendental readings initially (and for a long time after) that predominated in the West. I will grant the possibility of an entirely different sort of "transcendence" however.

Have you ever seen a statue of Buddha where is not (gently) smiling?

(OT -- my favorite cinematic evocation of "Buddha's smile" occurs at the end of the climax of "Barking Dogs Never Bite" -- provided by BAE Doona).

[Tommaso]

Exactly, I thought of the Buddha statues, or the constant gentle laughter of John Cage. Quite a difference to the grim symbolism of some other belief systems

[Mr Sausage]

Ozu's comic sde IS opposed to the tanscendental readings initially (and for a long time after) that predominated in the West.

How so?

[Michael Kerpan]

Ozu's comic sde IS opposed to the tanscendental readings initially (and for a long time after) that predominated in the West.

How so?

I don't recall any extended discussion of Ozu's humor (and no acknowledgment at all of the more robust and rowdy sort of humor one finds in Ozu) in any of the "transcendentalist" readings of Ozu -- but lots of discussion of restraint, stillness, etc. Am I forgetting something (I read this stuff ages ago -- and feel little urge to track any of it down an re-read it now). I also recall Hasumi's comments (in French) on how the western "transcendentalists" missed the boat.

[puxzkkx]

Save "Ohayo", I'd say that most of the comedy in Ozu's later work is a kind of 'sad comedy'.

[knives]

What does sad comedy mean? I really do agree with Michael here that everything about Ozu is drastically different from the westerners he's compared to. Even in something like Tokyo Twilight the most purely dramatic film from him I've seen the style and personal outlook has more in common with classical Hollywood directors like Vidor or Borzage than Dreyer or Bresson. The only serious point of comparison I see is between Bresson with the dead pan acting style and even there I think it is being done for slightly different reasons.

[Mr Sausage]

What does sad comedy mean?

Laughing and joking, but as a cover for sadness. "I laugh so I don't have to cry" type deal.

[knives]

Okay, but isn't that than very broad. I could apply that same sort of thing to Wes Anderson or most comedic art house types actually. It seems by your definition a fairly broad thing to acknowledge as a comparison.

[zedz]

Personally, I don't see the acting style in Ozu's films as 'deadpan'. It can be more restrained than in the Hollywood equivalents of the time (which is one reason his films play so well today) but hardly inexpressive, and it can also be very broad, and effectively so, in more comic or character parts. Fine and versatile as she was, I don't think I can imagine Haruko Sugimura giving a deadpan performance.

[knives]

You got me there. Very expressive actress she was.