Robert Bresson

Birthday: September 25, 1901 in Bromont-Lamothe, Puy-de-Dôme, France

Height: 178 cm

Robert Bresson trained as a painter before moving into films as a screenwriter, making a short film (atypically a comedy), Affaires publiques (1934) in 1934. After spending more than a year as a German POW during World War II, he made his debut with Les anges du péché (1943) in 1943. His next film, Les dames du Bois de Boulogne (1945) would be the last time he would work with professional actors. From Journal d'un cure de campagne (1951) (aka "Diary of a Country Priest") onwards, he created a unique minimalist style in which all but the barest essentials are omitted from the film (often, crucial details are only given in the soundtrack), with the actors (he calls them "models") giving deliberately flat, expressionless performances. It's a demanding and difficult, intensely personal style, which means that his films never achieved great popularity (it was rare for him to make more than one film every five years), but he has a fanatical following among critics, who rate him as one of the greatest artists in the history of the cinema. He retired in the 1980s, after failing to raise the money for a long-planned adaptation of the Book of Genesis. Show less «

I'd rather people feel a film before understanding it. I'd rather feelings arise before intellect.

For me, film-making is combining images and sounds of real things in an order that makes them effect...Show more »

For me, film-making is combining images and sounds of real things in an order that makes them effective. What I disapprove of is photographing things that are not real. Sets and actors are not real. Show less «

Cinematography: a new way of writing, therefore of feeling.

Painting taught me to make not beautiful images but necessary ones.

There are so many things our eyes don't see. But the camera sees everything. We are too clever, and ...Show more »

There are so many things our eyes don't see. But the camera sees everything. We are too clever, and our cleverness plays us false. We should trust mainly our feelings and those senses that never lie to us. Our intelligence disturbs our proper vision of things. Show less «

Cinema is interior movement.

I think that in other films' actors speak as if they were on stage. As a result, the audience is use...Show more »

I think that in other films' actors speak as if they were on stage. As a result, the audience is used to theatrical inflections. That makes my non-actors appear unique, and thus, they seem to be speaking in a single new way. I want the essence of my films to be not the words my people say or even the gestures they perform, but what these words and gestures provoke in them. What I tell them to do or say must bring to light something they had not realized they contained. The camera catches it; neither they nor I really know it before it happens. Show less «

There is the feeling that God is everywhere, and the more I live, the more I see that in nature, in ...Show more »

There is the feeling that God is everywhere, and the more I live, the more I see that in nature, in the country. When I see a tree, I see that God exists. I try to catch and to convey the idea that we have a soul and that the soul is in contact with God. That's the first thing I want to get in my films. Show less «

In my opinion, it's clear that music is one element that transforms a film. Let me back up a bit: I ...Show more »

In my opinion, it's clear that music is one element that transforms a film. Let me back up a bit: I believe all the elements: image, sound - and "sound" includes sound effects, dialogue, and music - should affect and transform each other. Without transformation, it isn't art. That's why I consider today's cinema a reproduction, not a true art, because it's just a copy of another art: theater. If we want cinema to be a true, independent art, there must be transformation. An image or a sound on its own is nothing. It takes on meaning only in relationship to what transforms it. An image only matters in relation to other images, or a sound to other sound or to the image it accompanies. In my opinion - though I too made this mistake at first - music should't be used to underscore or emphasize but to transform. Therefore in Mouchette, the music used, sacred music, probably certain wonderful passages from Monteverdi's Magnificat, will be used during the hunting scene that I added. I wanted to establish a connection between the prey and Mouchette. With sacred music played during the hunting scene, you'll see an extraordinary transformation of the wild animals through Montiverdi's Music. Show less «

I always shoot on the dangerous line between showing too much and not showing enough. I try to work ...Show more »

I always shoot on the dangerous line between showing too much and not showing enough. I try to work as if I were on a tightrope with a precipice at either side. Show less «

I never use the same person twice, because the second time he would try deliberately to give me what...Show more »

I never use the same person twice, because the second time he would try deliberately to give me what he thought I wanted. I don't even permit the husband of a non-actress to see rushes because he would evaluate her performance and then she would try to improve it. Anyway, mechanics are essential. Our gestures, nine times out of ten, are automatic. The ways you are crossing your legs and holding your head are not voluntary gestures. Montaigne has a marvelous chapter on hands in which he says that hands go where their owner does not send them. I don't want my non-actors to think of what they do. Years ago, without realizing any program, I told my non-actors, "Don't think of what you are saying or doing," and that moment was the beginning of my style. Show less «

[When asked if he could summarize Mouchette as he saw it] No. It can't be summarized. If it could, i...Show more »

[When asked if he could summarize Mouchette as he saw it] No. It can't be summarized. If it could, it'd be awful. Show less «

Two types of films: those that employ the resources of the theater; those that employ the resources ...Show more »

Two types of films: those that employ the resources of the theater; those that employ the resources of cinematography Show less «

A film is not a spectacle; it is preeminently a style.

Robert Bresson

Robert Bresson's FILMOGRAPHY

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