Robert Bresson (1901–99) was a French film director renowned for his austere intellectual style and meticulous attention to detail.
Born in the Bromont-Lamothe commune in central France, Bresson studied philosophy and painting before becoming a scriptwriter in 1934. During World War II, he spent a year as a prisoner of war but also launched himself as a director with the film Les Anges du péché (1943; Angels of Sin.)
Bresson’s distinctive cinematographic style evolved during the 1950s. He used non-professional actors, natural sound, and restrained emotions and produced austere narratives on the subjects of redemption and salvation influenced by a strong Catholic sensibility.
Bresson’s notable films include Le Journal d’un curé de campagne (1951; Diary of a Country Priest,) Le Procès de Jeanne d’Arc (1962; The Trial of Joan of Arc,) and Le Diable probablement (1977; The Devil, Probably.) His later films explored saintliness, submission, and greed. These include Au hasard, Balthazar (1966; Balthazar,) Une Femmedouce (1969; A Gentle Woman,) and L’Argent (1983, Money.)
Notes sur le cinématographe (1975; Notes on the Cinematographer) collects Bresson’s reflections on cinema written as short aphorisms.
More: Wikipedia • READ: Works by Robert Bresson
Films can only be made by by-passing the will of those who appear in them, using not what they do, but what they are.
—Robert Bresson
My movie is born first in my head, dies on paper; is resuscitated by the living persons and real objects I use, which are killed on film but, placed in a certain order and projected on to a screen, come to life again like flowers in water.
—Robert Bresson
Make visible what, without you, might perhaps never have been seen.
—Robert Bresson
The true is inimitable, the false untransformable.
—Robert Bresson
Topics: Originality
One forgets too easily the difference between a man and his image, and that there is none between the sound of his voice on the screen and in real life.
—Robert Bresson
Topics: Actors, Acting
When you do not know what you are doing and what you are doing is the best — that is inspiration.
—Robert Bresson
An old thing becomes new if you detach it from what usually surrounds it.
—Robert Bresson
Topics: Fashion
Model. Two mobile eyes in a mobile head, itself on a mobile body.
—Robert Bresson
Topics: Fashion
In the nude, all that is not beautiful is obscene.
—Robert Bresson
Cinema, radio, television, magazines are a school of inattention: people look without seeing, listen in without hearing.
—Robert Bresson
Topics: Media
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