While Bresson has not bred copycat enthusiasts, he has most
certainly had a major impact on the direction of cinema, such as Chantal
Akerman, Jim Jarmusch, Michael Haneke, the Dardennes Brothers, Béla Tarr, Gus
Van Sant, and the whole movement of minimalist filmmakers of today, which
has even veered into minimalist comedy, something Bresson may actually have
sneered at. On another note, many filmmakers adore Bresson, over and
above all others, often called the patron saint of cinema, including big names
like Fassbinder, Bergman, or Tarkovsky, simply because of his brilliant economy
of means, how he reduced film to its bare essence, how they could watch his
film construction all day long and still find something new to admire in
it. Fassbinder as a budding talent actually learned how to be a filmmaker
from watching Bresson films, though he immersed himself in practically
everyone, routinely watching several films a day, even finding time to watch
movies during his own film shoots. More common among directors is before
filming a particular scene with an intent on creating a certain impression,
they may take a glance through cinema history to see how others did it.
Bresson was ardently convinced in his own perfectionist
style of filmmaking due to his faith in Catholicism, where his belief in God
was absolute, so his depiction of the world was imprinted with his idea of
faith, where the world was filled with transgressors, where they are defined by
how they see the world around them. Even Balthazar is defined in
this manner, as we see him being passed from person to person. Through a series
of extended scenes shown with meticulous detail, the viewers begin to
identify with the world as the Bressonian character does, where it becomes
recognizable and familiar to us, so when a particular moment occurs that
does not fit the pattern, this creates an identifiable tension, perhaps a
transcendent moment, where everything that came before must be re-evaluated in
this new light. Bresson, like Dreyer before him, was more concerned with
the spirituality of how one viewed the world, where these
"significant" moments provided meaning, where creating cinematic
acts of perfection was as sacred an act in his eyes as prayer, where
renouncing the superficialities of the material world, which is what he
did in his films, was how one communicated with God. Bresson
felt challenged by his faith, and as his life progressed, became less and less
certain about the existence of God, which is reflected in the dour outlook
in the films following Balthazar, and like so many of those great Irish
Catholic writers, was most likely an atheist by the end of his life.
The following films are reviewed:
Au
Hasard Balthazar (1966)
Mouchette
(1967)
Une
Femme Douce (1969)
Lancelot
du Lac (1974)
L'Argent
(1983)
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