Editing Robert Bresson (section)

==Themes and style==

=== Artistic minimalism ===
Bresson published ''Notes on the Cinematographer'' in 1975, in which he argues for a unique sense of the term "[[cinematography]]". For him, cinematography is the higher function of cinema. While a movie is in essence "only" filmed theatre, Bresson defines cinematography as an attempt to create a new language of moving images and sounds.<ref name="notes">{{cite book |author=Bresson, Robert |title=Notes on the Cinematographer |publisher=Green Integer |year=1997 |isbn=978-1-55713-365-6}}</ref> His early artistic focus was to separate the language of cinema from that of the theater, which often relies heavily upon the actor's performance to drive the work. Film scholar Tony Pipolo writes that "Bresson opposed not just professional actors, but acting itself,"<ref>{{cite book |author=Pipolo, Tony |title=Robert Bresson: A Passion for Film |publisher=Oxford University Press |year=2010 |isbn=978-0-19-531979-8}}</ref> preferring to think of his actors as 'models'. In ''[[Notes on the Cinematographer]]'' ({{Langx|fr|Notes sur le cinématographe}}; also published in English as ''Notes on the Cinematograph''), a collection of aphorisms written by Bresson, the director succinctly defines the difference between the two:

<blockquote>HUMAN MODELS: movement from the exterior to the interior. [...]<br />
ACTORS: movement from the interior to the exterior.<ref name="notes" /></blockquote>

Bresson further elaborates on his disdain for acting by appropriating a remark [[Chateaubriand]] had made about 19th century poets and applying it to actors: "what they lack is not naturalness, but Nature." For Bresson, "to think it's more natural for a movement to be made or a phrase to be said like ''this'' than like ''that''" is "absurd", and "nothing rings more false in film [...] than the overstudied sentiments" of theater.<ref name="notes" />

With his 'model' technique, Bresson's actors were required to repeat multiple takes of each scene until all semblances of 'performance' were stripped away, leaving a stark effect that registers as both subtle and raw. This, as well as Bresson's restraint in musical scoring, would have a significant influence on minimalist cinema. In the academic journal ''[[CrossCurrents]]'', Shmuel Ben-gad wrote:

<blockquote>There is a credibility in Bresson's models: They are like people we meet in life, more or less opaque creatures who speak, move, and gesture [...] Acting, on the other hand, no matter how naturalistic, actively deforms or invents by putting an overlay or filter over the person, presenting a simplification of a human being and not allowing the camera to capture the actor's human depths. Thus what Bresson sees as the essence of filmic art, the achievement of the creative transformation involved in all art through the interplay of images of real things, is destroyed by the artifice of acting. For Bresson, then, acting is, like mood music and expressive camera work, just one more way of deforming reality or inventing that has to be avoided.<ref>{{cite journal |last=Ben-gad |first=Shmuel |date=1997 |title=To See the World Profoundly: The Films of Robert Bresson |url=http://www.crosscurrents.org/bresson.htm |journal=CrossCurrents |access-date=25 September 2015}}</ref>
</blockquote>

Film critic [[Roger Ebert]] wrote that Bresson's directorial style resulted in films "of great passion: Because the actors didn't act out the emotions, the audience could internalize them."<ref>{{cite web |last=Ebert |first=Roger |date=23 December 1999 |title=Robert Bresson was master of understatement |url=https://www.rogerebert.com/interviews/robert-bresson-was-master-of-understatement |access-date=25 September 2015}}</ref> In ''[[Against Interpretation]]'', [[Susan Sontag]] wrote that "Some art aims directly at arousing the feelings; some art appeals to the feelings through the route of the intelligence ... art that detaches, that provokes reflection. In the film, the master of the reflective mode is Robert Bresson." Sontag said that "the form of Bresson’s films is designed (like Ozu's) to discipline the emotions at the same time that it arouses them: to induce a certain tranquility in the spectator, a state of spiritual balance that is itself the subject of the film."<ref name=":1" />
=== Catholicism ===
[[File:Tombe de Robert Bresson (1901–1999) 4.jpg|thumb|alt=Robert Bresson's grave in Droue-sur-Drouette, France.|Bresson's grave in Droue-sur-Drouette, France.]]
Bresson was a Catholic, although he disagreed with some points of Catholic theology, explaining that he was not sure of the [[Universal resurrection#Christianity|resurrection of the body]] and "would rather be a [[Jansenism|Jansenist]] than [[Jesuits|Jesuit]]" due to his belief in [[predestination]].<ref name=":0" /> In his later life he stopped attending church services due to his dissatisfaction with the [[Second Vatican Council]]'s transition to the [[Mass of Paul VI]], explaining that while he still felt a sense of transcendence sitting in a cathedral, Vatican II's changes to the Mass made it harder for him to feel the presence of God.<ref name=":0" /> Although several writers claim that Bresson described himself as a "Christian atheist", it is not known in what context he made that statement (if he ever did).<ref>{{cite book |author=[[James Quandt]] |title=Robert Bresson |publisher=Cinemathèque Ontario |year=1998 |isbn=978-0-9682969-1-2 |page=411 |quote=Around the time of 'Lancelot du Lac' (1974), Bresson was said to have declared himself "a Christian atheist."}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |author=Bert Cardullo |title=The Films of Robert Bresson: A Casebook |publisher=Anthem Press |year=2009 |isbn=978-1-84331-796-8 |page=xiii |quote=A deeply devout man—one who paradoxically described himself as a "Christian atheist" – Bresson, in his attempt in a relatively timeless manner to address good and evil, redemption, the power of love and self-sacrifice, and other such subjects, may seem to us, and perhaps was, something of a retrogression.}}</ref>

In 1973, Bresson explained:

{{blockquote|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.<ref>{{cite journal|last1=Hayman|first1=Ronald|title=Robert Bresson in Conversation|journal=Transatlantic Review|date=Summer 1973|issue=46–47|pages=16–23}}</ref>}}

In a 1976 interview with [[Paul Schrader]], Bresson said that he was concerned by what he saw as "the collapse of the Catholic religion" in France. He did not believe the post-Vatican II Church was capable of responding to this challenge. ''[[The Devil Probably]]'' incorporates some of his criticisms of the post-Vatican II Church. Bresson explained that his youthful protagonist "is looking for something on top of life, but he doesn't find it. He goes to Church to seek it, and he doesn't find it."<ref name=":0" /> In addition, an early scene in the film shows a young Catholic complaining that the post-Vatican II Church "run[s] after Protestants."<ref>{{Cite web |title=The Devil, Probably (1977) Movie Script {{!}} Subs like Script |url=https://subslikescript.com/movie/The_Devil_Probably-75938 |access-date=2024-10-10 |website=subslikescript.com}}</ref>

Some feel that Bresson's [[Catholic Church|Catholic]] upbringing and belief system lie behind the thematic structures of most of his films.<ref>[[James Quandt]], ''Robert Bresson'' (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1998), 9.</ref> Recurring themes under this interpretation include [[salvation]], [[Redemption (religious)|redemption]], defining and revealing the human [[Soul (spirit)|soul]], and metaphysical transcendence of a limiting and materialistic world. An example is ''[[A Man Escaped]]'' (1956), where a seemingly simple plot of a [[prisoner of war]]'s escape can be read as a [[metaphor]] for the mysterious process of salvation. However, Bresson's films are also critiques of French society and the wider world, with each revealing the director's sympathetic, if unsentimental, view of society's victims. That the main characters of Bresson's most contemporary films, ''[[Le diable probablement|The Devil, Probably]]'' (1977) and {{Lang|fr|[[L'Argent (1983 film)|L'Argent]]}} (1983), reach similarly unsettling conclusions about life indicates the director's feelings towards the culpability of modern society in the dissolution of individuals. Of an earlier protagonist he said, "Mouchette offers evidence of misery and cruelty. She is found everywhere: wars, concentration camps, tortures, assassinations."<ref name="Sadoul">{{Cite book |last=Sadoul |first=Georges |url=http://archive.org/details/dictionaryoffil100sado |title=Dictionary of Film Makers |date=1972 |publisher=University of California Press |isbn=978-0-520-01864-8 |location=Berkeley, CA |page=228 |language=English |translator-last=Morris |translator-first=Peter}}</ref> Film historian [[Mark Cousins (film critic)|Mark Cousins]] argues that "If [[Ingmar Bergman|Bergman]] and [[Fellini]] filmed life as if it was a theatre and a circus, respectively, Bresson's microcosm was that of a prison", describing Bresson's characters as "psychologically imprisoned".<ref name="The Story of Film">{{cite book |last=Cousins |first=Mark |title=The Story of Film |date=2011 |publisher=Pavilion |isbn=978-1-86205-942-9}}</ref>

Bresson explained that his films often address secular themes because he believed that a secular film with religious undercurrents was more likely to resonate with modern filmgoers than an explicitly religious theme.<ref name=":0" /> [[Susan Sontag]] wrote that in his films, while a "religious vocation supplies one setting for ideas about gravity, lucidity, and martyrdom, ... the drastically secular subjects of crime, the revenge of betrayed love, and solitary imprisonment also yield the same themes."<ref name=":1">{{Cite web |last=Sontag |first=Susan |title=Spiritual Style in the Films of Robert Bresson |url=https://scrapsfromtheloft.com/movies/spiritual-style-films-robert-bresson-susan-sontag/ |access-date=2024-10-10 |website=Scraps From The Loft}} (This piece was also published in Sontag's 1966 essay collection ''[[Against Interpretation]]'')</ref> Bresson worried that the new French generation was too materialistic to harbor true religious belief, saying that "every religion is poverty and poverty is the way of having contact with mystery and with God. When Catholicism wants to be materialistic, God is not there." He tried to reach modern audiences indirectly, explaining, "the more life is what it is—ordinary, simple—without pronouncing the word 'God,' the more I see the presence of God in that. ... I don't want to shoot something in which God would be too transparent." In his work, "there is a presence of something which I call God, but I don't want to show it too much. I prefer to make people feel it."<ref name=":0" />

Furthermore, in a 1983 interview for [[Télévision Suisse Romande|TSR]]'s ''Spécial Cinéma'', Bresson declared that he had been interested in making a film based on the [[Book of Genesis]], although he believed such a production would be too costly and time-consuming.<ref>{{cite AV media |title=Robert Bresson interview 1 (1983) with english subs |url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EnFqvRVFENs | archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/varchive/youtube/20211211/EnFqvRVFENs| archive-date=2021-12-11 | url-status=live|time=11:17 |via=[[YouTube]] }}{{cbignore}}</ref>