|
|
|
|
AU HASARD BALTHAZAR (1966)
Sunday, Apr 8, 2012 7:00 PM
Widely considered to be Bresson’s masterpiece, AU HASARD BALTHAZAR charts the adverse lives of a donkey named Balthazar and Marie, the young girl who named him. While refusing to manipulate the audience into feelings of pity for the animal or the girl, Bresson illuminates the different ways in which we can respond to basic truths. Though typical of Bresson's earlier themes of grace and humility in the face of adversity, the overarching tone of the film signals an essential shift towards what some consider a more pessimistic world view, but which Bresson ultimately referred to simply as lucidity. Others maintain that AU HASARD BALTHAZAR, with its themes of burden and sacrifice, holds a place among the most deeply spiritual films ever made—providing the Belcourt’s series with a fitting close on Easter Sunday.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Event Date Passed
This spring, we celebrate the work of French director Robert Bresson, one of the most perceptive and fiercely independent film artists of all time, with this nine-film series of touring 35mm prints, many of them recently struck and/or imported from Europe.
Robert Bresson was unshakable in his pursuit to develop an entirely new language through film. In doing so, he created a cinema entirely his own. His films serve as both an exploration and exorcism of his thoughts on spirituality, humanity and the cinema, while combing emotional depths rarely seen in the medium. Through meditative direction an exactness and simplicity of style—and the sparse emotional presence of characters, typically portrayed by non-professional actors—Bresson has become one of cinema history’s most integral figures. From his first feature, LES ANGES DU PÉCHÉ, to his final film, 1983's L'ARGENT, he honed his theories with razor-sharp precision, never faltering in his personal search for truth. Today, Robert Bresson’s films are as important and fresh as ever.
External Links: Video: Bresson On Cinema The Last Filmmaker by Jonathan Rosenbaum (Chicago Reader)
Note: All films are in French with English subtitles.
A MAN ESCAPED (1956)
Fri, March 9, 7:00pm
Sat, March 10, 2:45pm
Sun, March 11, 6:05pm
New 35mm print. Arising jointly from André Devigny's memoirs of his time as a prisoner of war held at the German Fort Montluc and Bresson's own experience of imprisonment for his involvement with the French resistance, A MAN ESCAPED is the story of Lieutenant Fontaine and his painstaking escape from the Lyon prison in 1943. After one unsuccessful attempt, Fontaine makes it his goal to avoid his ultimate fate no matter what the cost. Bresson's signature attention to detail and the routines of his protagonist’s plight elevate the mundane to sublime, resulting in a climax that leaves both Fontaine and the audience exultant and exhausted. (99min)
LES ANGES DU PÉCHÉ (1943)
Sat, March 10 at 12:45pm, 7:00pm
New 35mm print. Ever-pious Anne-Marie Lamaury, the daughter of a wealthy French family, joins a Dominican convent intent on helping with the Sisterhood's prison ministry. When she meets Thérèse, a woman falsely accused of theft, Anne-Marie makes the troubled woman her personal project. While the film's elegant noir sensibilities were atypical of the director's later work, Bresson's debut feature was indispensable in the formation of the aesthetics and thematic obsessions that Bresson would explore and rework throughout his career. (96min)
External Links: Les Anges du Péché by Erik Ulman (Senses of Cinema essay)
PICKPOCKET (1959)
Sun, March 11 at 1:45pm, 8:10pm
Through his writings and narration, young and destitute pickpocket Michel explores the morality of his crimes and introduces the audience to his world of petty thievery. After being picked up on suspicion of theft by the local police inspector, Michel refuses the financial assistance of his friend Jacques and his dying mother's neighbor Jeanne. Michel continues to steal until one day he returns from the police station to find his apartment has been broken into and searched. After spending two years abroad to escape the eye of the law, Michel returns home to find Jeanne alone with Jacques's child. Determined to do whatever he can to help Jeanne, he returns to his old vocation with disastrous consequences. (75min)
External Links: PICKPOCKET Trailer
THE DEVIL, PROBABLY (1977)
Tue, March 13 at 7:00pm, 9:00pm
New 35mm print. Disenchanted 20-something Charles faces the ultimate existential dilemma as he is confronted by the political, cultural and spiritual pollution of 1970s France. Charles's solution to the problem is simple—he chooses to die instead of living on in a world not for him. Shot from Bresson's first solo screenplay at the age of 76 and described by rocker Richard Hell as "the most punk movie ever made," the film’s acerbic wit and subtle criticisms of a world beyond salvation make it one of Bresson’s more austere and bitingly insightful films. (95min)
External Links: Review: THE DEVIL PROBABLY (1977) Bresson Takes Stock by Vincent Canby (The New York Times) Consuming Passion: BRESSON by Richard Hell (Mojo Collection, UK)
LES DAMES DU BOIS DE BOULOGNE (1945)
Sun, March 18 at 7:00pm*
After a mutually agreed upon break up between Hélène, an affluent society woman, and Jean, her charming but preoccupied lover, Hélène sets out to save her former neighbors Agnès, now a cabaret dancer and prostitute, and her mother from destitution. Once the appreciative and optimistic family has been relocated and removed from the vicious world they had previously inhabited, Hélène, through a series of cunningly subtle and vicious maneuvers, sets the unwitting Jean up with the hesitant but helpless ex-prostitute. Taking class warfare to entirely new levels, Bresson's second feature proves that indeed Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned. (86min)
External Links: The Power of Resistance: Les Dames du Bois de Bouloggne (Senses of Cinema essay)
LANCELOT DU LAC (1974)
Tue, March 20 at 7:00pm
Bresson's take on Arthurian legend, LANCELOT DU LAC focuses on the return of the Knights of the Round Table from their crusade for the Holy Grail—and particularly focuses on the relationship between the heroic Lancelot and Queen Guinevere and the resulting in-fighting that follows the discovery of their forbidden love by the insipid Mordred. With its cast of non-professional actors, sparse sets and defiantly minimal action, this peculiar entry in Bresson's filmography strips bare the fantasy and mythos of the tale and opts instead to focus on the quotidian humanity of these iconic figures at odds with one another. The film's violence, though parodied in MONTY PYTHON AND THE HOLY GRAIL, shows the reality of life for these savage men while also deconstructing the symbology of the era in completely modern terms. (85min)
External Links: Video: Film Essay – Road To Bresson (segment)
L'ARGENT (1983)
Sun, March 25 at 7:00pm*
New 35mm print. In his final film, Bresson adapted Leo Tolstoy’s novella The Forged Coupon, which uses the circulation of counterfeit bill to illustrate the ripple effect that the most minor exchanges can have in the modern world. When a young man acquires a counterfeit 500 franc note in exchange for selling off his watch, he knowingly uses the false bill to purchase a cheap photo frame. The shop owner soon realizes the bill is fake, but decides to use the counterfeit bill to pay the utilities man. The resulting repercussions change the entire trajectory of his life, which careens towards its ultimate cataclysmic climax. (85min)
External Links: L'ARGENT Trailer Robert Bresson Interview (1983 video) Tarkovsky & Bresson in Cannes (1983 video)
DIARY OF A COUNTRY PRIEST (1951)
Sun, April 1 at 7:00pm*
New 35mm print. When an inexperienced priest takes over the small parish of Ambricourt, he is faced with adversity on all fronts from a community that doesn't understand his austere manner and dedication to his charge. The priest's journal entries serve as the prime narrative device, and it becomes clear he is no longer sure of his calling. When he learns he is dying of stomach cancer, the priest must confront his own skepticism and uncertainty while still trying to help those who are least receptive to his message. The priest's unfaltering dedication to his parishioners, despite his own doubts, proves fertile ground for Bresson’s obsession with the loss of faith in the face of unprovoked human cruelty. (115min)
External Links: DIARY OF A COUNTRY PRIEST Trailer
AU HASARD BALTHAZAR (1966)
Sun, April 8 at 7:00pm*
Widely considered to be Bresson’s masterpiece, AU HASARD BALTHAZAR charts the adverse lives of a donkey named Balthazar and Marie, the young girl who named him. While refusing to manipulate the audience into feelings of pity for the animal or the girl, Bresson illuminates the different ways in which we can respond to basic truths. Though typical of Bresson's earlier themes of grace and humility in the face of adversity, the overarching tone of the film signals an essential shift towards what some consider a more pessimistic world view, but which Bresson ultimately referred to simply as lucidity. Others maintain that AU HASARD BALTHAZAR, with its themes of burden and sacrifice, holds a place among the most deeply spiritual films ever made—providing the Belcourt’s series with a fitting close on Easter Sunday.
External Links: AU HASARD BALTHAZAR Trailer
*Additional Sunday matinees of these films may be added as time allows. Updates will be posted on the Mondays prior.
This series was made possible through the generous support of Mimi and Scott Manzler.
The "Robert Bresson" tour has been organized by James Quandt (TIFF Cinematheque), to whom a special thanks is due for his organizational oversight and passion for the project.
Additional thanks to: Delphine Selles (Cultural Services of the French Embassy, NY), Anne-Catherine Louvet (L’Institut Français, Paris), Sarah Finklea, Brian Belovarac (Janus Films), Eric DiBernardo (Rialto Pictures), Jake Perlin (The Film Desk), and Olivia Colbeau (Gaumont, Paris).
Program Notes by Zack Hall
|
|