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Notes on the Cinematographer
Robert Bresson makes some quite radical distinctions between what he terms "cinematography" and something quite different: "cinema"—which is for him nothing but an attempt to photograph theater and use it for the screen.
Director of The Trial of Joan of Arc, Pickpocket, A Prisoner Escapes, Diary of a Country Priest, Money, and many other classic films, Robert Bresson is, quite simply, one of the most brilliant cinematographers in the history of film.
Director of The Trial of Joan of Arc, Pickpocket, A Prisoner Escapes, Diary of a Country Priest, Money, and many other classic films, Robert Bresson is, quite simply, one of the most brilliant cinematographers in the history of film.
136 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1975
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8659 people want to read
About the author
Robert Bresson
19 books135 followersRobert Bresson (French: [ʁɔbɛʁ bʁɛsɔ̃]; 25 September 1901 – 18 December 1999) was a French film director known for his spiritual, ascetic and aesthetic style. He contributed notably to the art of film and influenced the rise of French New Wave cinema. He is often referred to as the most highly regarded French filmmaker since Jean Renoir. Bresson's influence on French cinema was once described by Jean-Luc Godard, quoting "Robert Bresson is French cinema, as Dostoevsky is the Russian novel and Mozart is the German music.
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November 16, 2010
Robert Bresson Notes on the Cinematographer is my philosophy book or self-help book for putting things together in what I feel, or need, to be real in stories, images, moments. I'm sure it's one hell of a book for creative people. I don't make things so much as try to get by and live better by living elsewhere (as in outside of me). I'm not the right person to ask about that... Anyway, I'd assimilate this instead of The Little Book of Calm (as seen on the brilliant Black Books series when Manny accidentally ingests that ridiculous book and starts spouting out advice from it. "Pretend you're an orange and laugh at it." I love that show. I'd love to live in that book shop with Manny and Bernard). These are notes that Bresson jotted down to himself, pretty much. Like someone else's train of thought that would cross stations with what I think about a lot. (One thing I am not is a clear thinker.) I hope for inspiration from someone so inspired. I feel inspired watching his films. (Unfortunately, I think like pulling from the toppermost of my mental soils, seldom going down to the roots or allowing for future harvests. As in, speaking out of my ass. Got plenty of fiber, at least.)
Between them and me: telepathic exchanges, divination.
This is one of the reasons why I watch so many movies. It's also why I have such a bad staring problem. I'm probably hoping for something... I wanna feel affirmed, probably. Find some kind of beauty. At least something not cold. (*Note I probably don't understand a fraction of most things. I'm probably like Good Charlotte when they name their brilliant beyond brilliant influences. Like they haven't ever listened to themselves! The least fat of the two did get Hilary Duff into The Smiths. Maybe when the fattest one is tired of Nicole Ritchie beating up on him he could tell me about all that I'm missing!) (What's this? A mysterious note in the margins of my book for me to get some self-esteem.)
Cinematography is writing with images in movement and with sounds.
I love that. I so agree! I liked what he said about it working when the models (Bresson doesn't call his actors "actors") and it works out right when they get his secret wishes. This is something I've thought about from time to time, whether all the other people involved in films (not just screenwriter and director. How come Charlie Kaufman is one of the only screenwriters given credit? It's like people really think that all these directors came on these scripts out of nowhere!) are also writers. I love this wavelength, "secret desires" idea of Bresson's. Maybe it really is like that. How neat. Others become arms to reach...
Respect man's nature without wishing it was more palpable than it is.
I try to remember this one. Communication is really hard for me. I try and remember that the flavor of other people's feelings aren't always going to be that strong for me to pick up. (Or palatable.)
A system does not regulate everything. It is a bait for something.
An unsoul crushingly way to look at that. I need to have some sort of organization up there (thumping my noggin right now).
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."
Hm.
Doing the same action twenty times in rehearsals will lead to doing them without thinking about them. That's not a direct quote. He says stuff about that a lot. John Frusciante made six records in 2004. After spending lots of efforts on different takes to get everything as perfect as can be he decided to try just one take for his singing. (People could sing his er tune now, what with the surge of auto-tune...) Does it kill spontaneity? I liked that idea of it coming about again just by getting used to it and no longer thinking about what you are doing.
(It is going to get tiresome to keep quoting so much...)
I'm not sure if I agree with Bresson on true and false, or on music.
In a mixture of true and false, the true brings out the false, the false hinders belief in the true. An actor simulating fear of shipwreck on the deck of a real ship battered by a real storm - we believe neither in the actor, nor in the storm."
There could be something wrong with my brain wiring. I believe that something can be both true and false. I find it difficult to believe that any thing is all true or all false, if it is emotions. I tend to act more upset when things aren't that bad than I do when things are really, really bad. You can't always tell on the surface. I like to look for little signs, read between the lines...
Bresson wrote that there should be no music at all, unless instruments seen in the film. Lars Von Trier and his cronies based their Dogme95 theories on an essay by Bresson's fellow Frenchie Truffaut. I guess Bresson would have seen eye to eye with them on the music, at least. Pretty useless restrictions, I thought (what did any of it have to do with telling a good story?). (I really liked Rosetta, even if it wasn't "officially" dogme, and love Breaking the Waves.) I think it's a case by case thing. Some might rely on what comes from elsewhere (cool soundtracks). It's just that I think most of us make our own life soundtracks of what we hear that it becomes a part of us, and not "slipping off elsewhere". (I wanna go elsewhere.) Music. It isolates your film from the life of your film (music delectation). It is a powerful modifier and even destroyer of the real, like alcohol or dope. Oops.
Two types of film: those that employ the resources of the theatre (actors, direction, etc.) and use the camera in order to reproduce; those that employ the resources of cinematography to create.
I'd never been able to put into words the difference between theatre and cinema. (Usually what I read/hear from others is against cinema and in favor of theatre.)
I see it like real life versus stories. Memories versus stories. Perspectives versus reality. The closest we can get to seeing how something really happened, not just how we colored it. The closest we'll ever get to seeing in someone else's brains. I love actors (ahem or models) 'cause even though they can't totally be someone else, it is still like that Robert Bresson secret desires catching on. Of someone else. Even if they aren't real. I don't care if they are playing someone real or fake. I wanna know those secret wishes too.
Don't run after poetry. It penetrates unaided through the joins (ellipses).
I just thought this one was awesome.
A sound must never come to the rescue of an image, nor an image to the rescue of a sound.
Avoid paroxysms (anger, terror, etc.) which one is obliged to simulate, and which everybody is alike.
That's what makes the best writing (in any medium) for me. That something that is wholly another, even if it is alike. The different edges of those things are what I look for. Right-on!
From the beings and things of nature, washed clean of all art and especially the art of drama, you will make an art.
Your genius is not in the counterfeiting of nature (actors, sets), but in your way of choosing and co-coordinating bits taken directly from it by machines.
I want those parts.
To communicate impressions, sensations.
Agony of making sure not to let slip any part of what I merely glimpse, of what I perhaps do not yet see and shall only later be able to see.
Displaying everything condemns cinema to cliche, obliges it to display things as everyone is in the habit of seeing them. Failing which, they would appear false or sham.
The real is not dramatic. Drama will be born of a certain march of non-dramatic elements.
Yes! The BIG moments in life are usually hand in hand with the most dull. Any constant fear can become sameness boring. Any Oprah memoirist might be jealous of fodder from my family history, but it is really same old.
Your film is not made for a stroll with eyes, but for going right into, for being totally absorbed in.
The crude real will not by itself yield truth.
And that's where the writing comes in. And the acting and the pretending and the making stuff out of everything and out of nothing. That's what I live for, probably...
The most ordinary word, when put in its place, suddenly acquires brilliance. That is the brilliance with which your images must shine.
What he said.
I wish that I could speak French. This book is probably even better. (Not to mention Serge Gainsbourg would be like sex after just masturbating.)
Truth and lies aren't things I really grasp in my hands. It's more like a taste on the tongue. I've gotta do it myself to get it sometimes. Try on how someone says something to me, repeat it for between the lines stuff, if they are making fun of me or not. (My favorite actresses are the ones who remind me of those I've known best in my life. I can recognize and get into the patterns. That's why Samantha Morton and Liv Ullmann types are my favorites.)
Between them and me: telepathic exchanges, divination.
This is one of the reasons why I watch so many movies. It's also why I have such a bad staring problem. I'm probably hoping for something... I wanna feel affirmed, probably. Find some kind of beauty. At least something not cold. (*Note I probably don't understand a fraction of most things. I'm probably like Good Charlotte when they name their brilliant beyond brilliant influences. Like they haven't ever listened to themselves! The least fat of the two did get Hilary Duff into The Smiths. Maybe when the fattest one is tired of Nicole Ritchie beating up on him he could tell me about all that I'm missing!) (What's this? A mysterious note in the margins of my book for me to get some self-esteem.)
Cinematography is writing with images in movement and with sounds.
I love that. I so agree! I liked what he said about it working when the models (Bresson doesn't call his actors "actors") and it works out right when they get his secret wishes. This is something I've thought about from time to time, whether all the other people involved in films (not just screenwriter and director. How come Charlie Kaufman is one of the only screenwriters given credit? It's like people really think that all these directors came on these scripts out of nowhere!) are also writers. I love this wavelength, "secret desires" idea of Bresson's. Maybe it really is like that. How neat. Others become arms to reach...
Respect man's nature without wishing it was more palpable than it is.
I try to remember this one. Communication is really hard for me. I try and remember that the flavor of other people's feelings aren't always going to be that strong for me to pick up. (Or palatable.)
A system does not regulate everything. It is a bait for something.
An unsoul crushingly way to look at that. I need to have some sort of organization up there (thumping my noggin right now).
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."
Hm.
Doing the same action twenty times in rehearsals will lead to doing them without thinking about them. That's not a direct quote. He says stuff about that a lot. John Frusciante made six records in 2004. After spending lots of efforts on different takes to get everything as perfect as can be he decided to try just one take for his singing. (People could sing his er tune now, what with the surge of auto-tune...) Does it kill spontaneity? I liked that idea of it coming about again just by getting used to it and no longer thinking about what you are doing.
(It is going to get tiresome to keep quoting so much...)
I'm not sure if I agree with Bresson on true and false, or on music.
In a mixture of true and false, the true brings out the false, the false hinders belief in the true. An actor simulating fear of shipwreck on the deck of a real ship battered by a real storm - we believe neither in the actor, nor in the storm."
There could be something wrong with my brain wiring. I believe that something can be both true and false. I find it difficult to believe that any thing is all true or all false, if it is emotions. I tend to act more upset when things aren't that bad than I do when things are really, really bad. You can't always tell on the surface. I like to look for little signs, read between the lines...
Bresson wrote that there should be no music at all, unless instruments seen in the film. Lars Von Trier and his cronies based their Dogme95 theories on an essay by Bresson's fellow Frenchie Truffaut. I guess Bresson would have seen eye to eye with them on the music, at least. Pretty useless restrictions, I thought (what did any of it have to do with telling a good story?). (I really liked Rosetta, even if it wasn't "officially" dogme, and love Breaking the Waves.) I think it's a case by case thing. Some might rely on what comes from elsewhere (cool soundtracks). It's just that I think most of us make our own life soundtracks of what we hear that it becomes a part of us, and not "slipping off elsewhere". (I wanna go elsewhere.) Music. It isolates your film from the life of your film (music delectation). It is a powerful modifier and even destroyer of the real, like alcohol or dope. Oops.
Two types of film: those that employ the resources of the theatre (actors, direction, etc.) and use the camera in order to reproduce; those that employ the resources of cinematography to create.
I'd never been able to put into words the difference between theatre and cinema. (Usually what I read/hear from others is against cinema and in favor of theatre.)
I see it like real life versus stories. Memories versus stories. Perspectives versus reality. The closest we can get to seeing how something really happened, not just how we colored it. The closest we'll ever get to seeing in someone else's brains. I love actors (ahem or models) 'cause even though they can't totally be someone else, it is still like that Robert Bresson secret desires catching on. Of someone else. Even if they aren't real. I don't care if they are playing someone real or fake. I wanna know those secret wishes too.
Don't run after poetry. It penetrates unaided through the joins (ellipses).
I just thought this one was awesome.
A sound must never come to the rescue of an image, nor an image to the rescue of a sound.
Avoid paroxysms (anger, terror, etc.) which one is obliged to simulate, and which everybody is alike.
That's what makes the best writing (in any medium) for me. That something that is wholly another, even if it is alike. The different edges of those things are what I look for. Right-on!
From the beings and things of nature, washed clean of all art and especially the art of drama, you will make an art.
Your genius is not in the counterfeiting of nature (actors, sets), but in your way of choosing and co-coordinating bits taken directly from it by machines.
I want those parts.
To communicate impressions, sensations.
Agony of making sure not to let slip any part of what I merely glimpse, of what I perhaps do not yet see and shall only later be able to see.
Displaying everything condemns cinema to cliche, obliges it to display things as everyone is in the habit of seeing them. Failing which, they would appear false or sham.
The real is not dramatic. Drama will be born of a certain march of non-dramatic elements.
Yes! The BIG moments in life are usually hand in hand with the most dull. Any constant fear can become sameness boring. Any Oprah memoirist might be jealous of fodder from my family history, but it is really same old.
Your film is not made for a stroll with eyes, but for going right into, for being totally absorbed in.
The crude real will not by itself yield truth.
And that's where the writing comes in. And the acting and the pretending and the making stuff out of everything and out of nothing. That's what I live for, probably...
The most ordinary word, when put in its place, suddenly acquires brilliance. That is the brilliance with which your images must shine.
What he said.
I wish that I could speak French. This book is probably even better. (Not to mention Serge Gainsbourg would be like sex after just masturbating.)
Truth and lies aren't things I really grasp in my hands. It's more like a taste on the tongue. I've gotta do it myself to get it sometimes. Try on how someone says something to me, repeat it for between the lines stuff, if they are making fun of me or not. (My favorite actresses are the ones who remind me of those I've known best in my life. I can recognize and get into the patterns. That's why Samantha Morton and Liv Ullmann types are my favorites.)
October 12, 2022
"An actor in cinematography might as well be in a
foreign country. He does not speak its language"
"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 onto a screen,
come to life again like flowers in water"
"Cinematography: new way of writing,
therefore of feeling"
"Someone who can work with the minimum can
work with the most. One who can with the most
cannot, inevitably, with the minimum"
"When a sound can replace an image, cut the image
or neutralize it. The ear goes more towards the within,
the eye towards the outer"
"Your film will have the beauty, or the sadness,
or what have you, that one finds in a town, in a
countryside, in a house, and not the beauty,
sadness, etc. that one finds in the photograph
of a town, of a countryside, or a house"
"Displaying everything condemns cinema to cliché,
obliges it to display things as everyone is in the habit
of seeing them. Failing which, they would appear
false or sham"
"Your film's beauty will not be in the images
(postcardism) but in the ineffable that they
will emanate"
"Build your film on white, on silence, and on stillness"
"I have dreamed of my film making itself as it
goes along under my gaze, like a painter's eternally
fresh canvas"
January 26, 2016
Some nice interviews on youtube with this great genius:
https://youtu.be/FRAztry-ZoI
https://youtu.be/DVODh2lkVdc
"The mixture of true and false yields falsity (photographed theater or cinema). The false when it is homogeneous can yield truth (theater).
In a mixture of true and false, the true brings out the false, the false hinders belief in the true. An actor simulating fear of shipwreck on the deck of a real ship battered by a real storm–we believe neither the actor, nor in the ship, nor in the storm."
" The truth of cinematography cannot be the truth of theater, nor the truth of the novel, nor the truth of painting. (What the cinematographer captures with his or her own resources cannot be what the theater, the novel, painting capture with theirs.)
—————————————–
An image must be transformed by contact with other images, as is a color by contact with other colors. A blue is not the same blue beside a green, a yellow, a red. No art without transformation."
"“The eye solicited alone makes the ear impatient, the ear solicited alone makes the eye impatient. Use these impatiences. Power of the cinematographer who appeals to the two senses in a governable way.
Against the tactics of speed, of noise, set tactics of slowness, of silence.”
https://youtu.be/FRAztry-ZoI
https://youtu.be/DVODh2lkVdc
"The mixture of true and false yields falsity (photographed theater or cinema). The false when it is homogeneous can yield truth (theater).
In a mixture of true and false, the true brings out the false, the false hinders belief in the true. An actor simulating fear of shipwreck on the deck of a real ship battered by a real storm–we believe neither the actor, nor in the ship, nor in the storm."
" The truth of cinematography cannot be the truth of theater, nor the truth of the novel, nor the truth of painting. (What the cinematographer captures with his or her own resources cannot be what the theater, the novel, painting capture with theirs.)
—————————————–
An image must be transformed by contact with other images, as is a color by contact with other colors. A blue is not the same blue beside a green, a yellow, a red. No art without transformation."
"“The eye solicited alone makes the ear impatient, the ear solicited alone makes the eye impatient. Use these impatiences. Power of the cinematographer who appeals to the two senses in a governable way.
Against the tactics of speed, of noise, set tactics of slowness, of silence.”
May 5, 2024
ეს ძალიან პატარა წიგნია, პატარ-პარარა ჩანაწერებით. ეს პატარ პატარა ჩანაწერები ძენ ბუდიზმია.
ლიტერატურაში, მხატვრობაში, მუსიკაში ყველგან მეგულებოდა, თითო თითო ძენ ბუდისტი ხელოვანი. მაგრამ კინოში არავინ. აქა იქ თუ შემიმჩნევია ძენ ბუდისტური რამეები ფილმებში, მაგრამ მნიშვნელოვანი არაფერი. ბრესონის ფილმები აქამდეც ნანახი მქონდა და რავი მღვდლის დღიური არ მომწონს დანარჩენი ფილმები მევასებოდა, მაგრამ ეხლა კიდევ ერთხელ გადავავლე თვალი რამოდენიმე ფილმს.
ბრესონიც ძენ ბუდისტი ყოფილა, არ ვიცი ეს მან რამდენად იცოდა მაგრამ მისი მეთოდები ნამდვილად ძენ ბუდისტურია. ეს წიგნიც პატარ პატარა ჩანაწერებია. ერთი ხელის მოსმით ჩანიშნულები. ფილმებსაც რამოდენიმე დუბლით იღებდა, მართლაც და რა საჭიროა 100 დუბლი თუ პროფესიონალი ხარ და იცი ფილმის გადაღება, ეგ იგივეა მხატვარი 80 ტილოს აფუჭებდეს. კინოც ერთი ხელის მოსმით უნდა გაკეთდეს. ის თეატრალური დრამატურგია.
ჰოკუსაიც მასე ხატავდა, ვანგოგიც. თან უფრო მეტი სიცარიელეთი ვიდრე რაღაცეებით გატენილი. ეს ტექსტიც პატარ პატარა ჩანაწერებია უფრო დიდი სიცარიელეებით, რომელ��ც მერე თავისთავად შეივსო.
კინოზე ჩემი პარადიგმა სრულად შეცვალა. უკვე რა ხანია ფილმის გადაღება მინდა და კლიშეებზე ფიქრით ვერ ვიღებდი. და აი ბრესონმა ამ კლიშეებისგან გამანთავისუფლა და გამამხნევა. ბრესონმა, ძიგა ვერტოვის კინო არჩია. და მართლაც რამდენი ხანია კინო ერთ და იგივე ენაზე ლაპარაკობს? მე უკვე მოწყენილი მაქვს ფილმები, ემპათიას ვეღარ განვიცდი ფილმების მიმართ. მართლაც სულ თეატრია ეგ და არა კინო, აი თეატრისგან დამოუკიდებელი კინოს ქმნიდა ძიგა ვერტოვიც, და რაღაცნაირად ბრესონიც იგივეს ცდილობდა.
და ეს ძალიან მომწონს რადგან უკვე რახანია კინო ერთ და იგივე ენაზე ლაპრაკობს, შექმნის დღიდან არ შეცვლილა, სულ ერთი და იგივე ენაზე ლაპარაკობს, და მგონი საჭიროა შეიცვალოს. და ძიგა ვერტოვსაც მივაგოთ ამით პატივი და ბრესონსაც. ბრესონმა მართლაც ყველაფერი ამოაყირავა ჩემში, საოცრად გაამარტივა ყველაფერი. საოცრად ფილოსოფიური ტექსტია. ძალიან შემიყვარდა ეს წიგნი, კიდევ ბევრჯერ წავიკითხავ. მაჩუქეს და ბრწყინვალე საჩუქარია, მიხარია მეგობრები ესე კარგად რომ მიცნობენ და ესეთ წიგნებს მჩუქნიან <3
Update:
მიყვარს რა ვქნა. კიდე ბევრჯერ წავიკითხავ <3
ლიტერატურაში, მხატვრობაში, მუსიკაში ყველგან მეგულებოდა, თითო თითო ძენ ბუდისტი ხელოვანი. მაგრამ კინოში არავინ. აქა იქ თუ შემიმჩნევია ძენ ბუდისტური რამეები ფილმებში, მაგრამ მნიშვნელოვანი არაფერი. ბრესონის ფილმები აქამდეც ნანახი მქონდა და რავი მღვდლის დღიური არ მომწონს დანარჩენი ფილმები მევასებოდა, მაგრამ ეხლა კიდევ ერთხელ გადავავლე თვალი რამოდენიმე ფილმს.
ბრესონიც ძენ ბუდისტი ყოფილა, არ ვიცი ეს მან რამდენად იცოდა მაგრამ მისი მეთოდები ნამდვილად ძენ ბუდისტურია. ეს წიგნიც პატარ პატარა ჩანაწერებია. ერთი ხელის მოსმით ჩანიშნულები. ფილმებსაც რამოდენიმე დუბლით იღებდა, მართლაც და რა საჭიროა 100 დუბლი თუ პროფესიონალი ხარ და იცი ფილმის გადაღება, ეგ იგივეა მხატვარი 80 ტილოს აფუჭებდეს. კინოც ერთი ხელის მოსმით უნდა გაკეთდეს. ის თეატრალური დრამატურგია.
ჰოკუსაიც მასე ხატავდა, ვანგოგიც. თან უფრო მეტი სიცარიელეთი ვიდრე რაღაცეებით გატენილი. ეს ტექსტიც პატარ პატარა ჩანაწერებია უფრო დიდი სიცარიელეებით, რომელ��ც მერე თავისთავად შეივსო.
კინოზე ჩემი პარადიგმა სრულად შეცვალა. უკვე რა ხანია ფილმის გადაღება მინდა და კლიშეებზე ფიქრით ვერ ვიღებდი. და აი ბრესონმა ამ კლიშეებისგან გამანთავისუფლა და გამამხნევა. ბრესონმა, ძიგა ვერტოვის კინო არჩია. და მართლაც რამდენი ხანია კინო ერთ და იგივე ენაზე ლაპარაკობს? მე უკვე მოწყენილი მაქვს ფილმები, ემპათიას ვეღარ განვიცდი ფილმების მიმართ. მართლაც სულ თეატრია ეგ და არა კინო, აი თეატრისგან დამოუკიდებელი კინოს ქმნიდა ძიგა ვერტოვიც, და რაღაცნაირად ბრესონიც იგივეს ცდილობდა.
და ეს ძალიან მომწონს რადგან უკვე რახანია კინო ერთ და იგივე ენაზე ლაპრაკობს, შექმნის დღიდან არ შეცვლილა, სულ ერთი და იგივე ენაზე ლაპარაკობს, და მგონი საჭიროა შეიცვალოს. და ძიგა ვერტოვსაც მივაგოთ ამით პატივი და ბრესონსაც. ბრესონმა მართლაც ყველაფერი ამოაყირავა ჩემში, საოცრად გაამარტივა ყველაფერი. საოცრად ფილოსოფიური ტექსტია. ძალიან შემიყვარდა ეს წიგნი, კიდევ ბევრჯერ წავიკითხავ. მაჩუქეს და ბრწყინვალე საჩუქარია, მიხარია მეგობრები ესე კარგად რომ მიცნობენ და ესეთ წიგნებს მჩუქნიან <3
Update:
მიყვარს რა ვქნა. კიდე ბევრჯერ წავიკითხავ <3
January 27, 2016
Dennis Cooper (charming author of Frisk) once wrote this rather beautiful appreciation of Bresson:
http://www.dennis-cooper.net/bio_bres...
' Instead of flaunting their difference, or feigning modesty by deferring to the conventions of Hollywood film, they offer up an art so unimpeachably fair, so lacking in ulterior motivation that the effect is a kind of mimicry of what perception might be like were one capable of simultaneously perceiving clearly and appreciating the process by which perception occurs. The only thing these films ask is that one share a fraction of Bresson's single-minded concern for the souls of young people whose innocence causes them to fail at the cruel, irrevocable task of adulthood.'
The affinity might not seem obvious at first; Cooper writes transgressive punk pornography. Bresson's favorite authors were Pascal and Dostoevsky. I don't think he ever listened to much music later than Bach. None of his movies can remotely be described as gay pornography. Yet what Cooper learned from Bresson is profound. They share a certain asceticism, a commitment to let the void speak directly through the bodies/faces of their young protagonists.
I'm inclined to agree Bresson was the greatest film director of all time, maybe the one true auteur in the history of cinema. His black-and-white movies of religious transfiguration have deservedly become classics. However, to me his later color films are his most astonishing achievements - chiefly A Gentle Creature, Lancelot of the Lake, and above all the Devil, Probably. These are bracing, brutal works. It's unclear if Bresson lost his Chrisitan faith as he got older. He used to say his vision hadn't become bleaker, just more 'lucid.' Simone Weil would say that while she embraced the crucifixion she couldn't accept the resurrection. This was one major reason why she couldn't bring herself to convert near the end of life. She wanted nothing to do with Christianity if it was merely a superstitious form of comfort. In his masterful films, perhaps Bresson offers this same vision of Christianity before or even without the resurrection.
http://www.dennis-cooper.net/bio_bres...
' Instead of flaunting their difference, or feigning modesty by deferring to the conventions of Hollywood film, they offer up an art so unimpeachably fair, so lacking in ulterior motivation that the effect is a kind of mimicry of what perception might be like were one capable of simultaneously perceiving clearly and appreciating the process by which perception occurs. The only thing these films ask is that one share a fraction of Bresson's single-minded concern for the souls of young people whose innocence causes them to fail at the cruel, irrevocable task of adulthood.'
The affinity might not seem obvious at first; Cooper writes transgressive punk pornography. Bresson's favorite authors were Pascal and Dostoevsky. I don't think he ever listened to much music later than Bach. None of his movies can remotely be described as gay pornography. Yet what Cooper learned from Bresson is profound. They share a certain asceticism, a commitment to let the void speak directly through the bodies/faces of their young protagonists.
I'm inclined to agree Bresson was the greatest film director of all time, maybe the one true auteur in the history of cinema. His black-and-white movies of religious transfiguration have deservedly become classics. However, to me his later color films are his most astonishing achievements - chiefly A Gentle Creature, Lancelot of the Lake, and above all the Devil, Probably. These are bracing, brutal works. It's unclear if Bresson lost his Chrisitan faith as he got older. He used to say his vision hadn't become bleaker, just more 'lucid.' Simone Weil would say that while she embraced the crucifixion she couldn't accept the resurrection. This was one major reason why she couldn't bring herself to convert near the end of life. She wanted nothing to do with Christianity if it was merely a superstitious form of comfort. In his masterful films, perhaps Bresson offers this same vision of Christianity before or even without the resurrection.
July 25, 2019
Por incrível que pareça é a primeira vez que leio esse livro, apesar de ser admiradora do cinema de Bresson desde tempos imemoriais, livro tal que também poderia se chamar Manual zen-budista do diretor de cinema e tal como toda religião e filosofia direcionada peca por um dogmatismo irritante.
Não me entenda mal, amo as escolhas específicas que fazem do cinema de Bresson singular, mas ler sobre isso enquanto ele diminuiu todas as outras formas de fazer cinema é deveras enfadonho, não à toa o movimento mais chinfrim do cinema, o Dogma 95, nasceu justamente daqui.
É por escrever coisas como essa que até hoje diretores de cinema de gênero não são levados à sério em suas artes, eles que não devem nada à maestria de um Bresson da vida.
Não me entenda mal, amo as escolhas específicas que fazem do cinema de Bresson singular, mas ler sobre isso enquanto ele diminuiu todas as outras formas de fazer cinema é deveras enfadonho, não à toa o movimento mais chinfrim do cinema, o Dogma 95, nasceu justamente daqui.
É por escrever coisas como essa que até hoje diretores de cinema de gênero não são levados à sério em suas artes, eles que não devem nada à maestria de um Bresson da vida.
April 11, 2020
Voltar a mergulhar nestas notas permitiu-me reforçar a ligação que tenho a Robert Bresson, um dos meus realizadores favoritos. Esta obra é curiosa, não se trata de uma autobiografia, de uma descrição do método ou de técnicas, está mais próximo da filosofia, de um livro de aforismos e de máximas... e surpreende-me sempre ler e reler estas notas, fico fascinada por encontrar os pensamentos mais íntimos de um artista que, de facto, na sua arte, consegue fazer uma aplicação daquilo que defende ser justo (nem sempre, há que atender ao facto da própria obra/do artista sofrer uma evolução e maturação).
***
"É preciso que uma imagem se transforme no contacto com outras imagens como uma cor no contacto com outras cores. Um azul não é o mesmo azul ao lado de um verde, de um amarelo, de um vermelho. Não há arte sem transformação."
***
"É preciso que uma imagem se transforme no contacto com outras imagens como uma cor no contacto com outras cores. Um azul não é o mesmo azul ao lado de um verde, de um amarelo, de um vermelho. Não há arte sem transformação."
May 29, 2008
Robert Bresson is one of my all-time favorite filmmakers - and this book doesn't take away the man's mysterious powers of the cinema. It adds to it. Bresson's film notes are poetic and beautiful. He is truly an essential figure in the arts, and one can't help to think that the cinema was made for artists like Bresson.
July 7, 2025
When I first encountered Robert Bresson’s Notes on the Cinematographer, I wasn’t expecting a book. I was expecting a manual, maybe a treatise. What I got was scripture. Short, aphoristic, often no longer than a single sentence, Bresson’s “notes” felt like koans for filmmakers—cryptic, essential, maddeningly precise.
I studied this slim, thunderous volume while teaching an online film studies course as a last-minute replacement teacher. Most of the students had only heard of Bresson in passing—some had seen Pickpocket, fewer had ventured into Au hasard Balthazar. But Notes didn’t require prior filmography—it demanded presence. Attention. It was a call to see, not just to look.
Bresson strips cinema down to its bones. “Your film must resemble what you see on shutting your eyes.” “No music as accompaniment, support or reinforcement. No music at all.” “Hide the ideas, but so that people find them. The most important will be the most hidden.” These weren’t instructions. They were revelations. Or riddles. And teaching them felt like holding up prisms to light—each student saw something different refracted.
In a world saturated with cinema that screams for attention, Bresson whispers. Notes on the Cinematographer is a radical act of quiet. It insists on minimalism not as aesthetic, but as ethic. It teaches that the most profound gestures are the smallest ones—the twitch of a hand, the breath between edits, the silence between sounds.
For me, this book became more than a teaching aid. It became a counterweight to the spectacle-driven chaos of modern media. In the virtual classroom, it sparked the most interesting conversations—what does it mean to “not direct the actors,” but to let them become “models”? What does it mean to reject performance in favor of presence?
By the end of the course, we weren’t just discussing Bresson. We were channeling him. The students made short films where the camera didn’t chase drama but waited for it. Where silence was allowed to speak. Where the edit wasn’t just a technical cut, but a metaphysical question.
Notes on the Cinematographer is not a book for everyone. It is elliptical, austere, and radically unsentimental. But for those willing to read between the lines—and sit with the silence—it offers a vision of cinema that is stripped, sacred, and utterly alive.
I studied this slim, thunderous volume while teaching an online film studies course as a last-minute replacement teacher. Most of the students had only heard of Bresson in passing—some had seen Pickpocket, fewer had ventured into Au hasard Balthazar. But Notes didn’t require prior filmography—it demanded presence. Attention. It was a call to see, not just to look.
Bresson strips cinema down to its bones. “Your film must resemble what you see on shutting your eyes.” “No music as accompaniment, support or reinforcement. No music at all.” “Hide the ideas, but so that people find them. The most important will be the most hidden.” These weren’t instructions. They were revelations. Or riddles. And teaching them felt like holding up prisms to light—each student saw something different refracted.
In a world saturated with cinema that screams for attention, Bresson whispers. Notes on the Cinematographer is a radical act of quiet. It insists on minimalism not as aesthetic, but as ethic. It teaches that the most profound gestures are the smallest ones—the twitch of a hand, the breath between edits, the silence between sounds.
For me, this book became more than a teaching aid. It became a counterweight to the spectacle-driven chaos of modern media. In the virtual classroom, it sparked the most interesting conversations—what does it mean to “not direct the actors,” but to let them become “models”? What does it mean to reject performance in favor of presence?
By the end of the course, we weren’t just discussing Bresson. We were channeling him. The students made short films where the camera didn’t chase drama but waited for it. Where silence was allowed to speak. Where the edit wasn’t just a technical cut, but a metaphysical question.
Notes on the Cinematographer is not a book for everyone. It is elliptical, austere, and radically unsentimental. But for those willing to read between the lines—and sit with the silence—it offers a vision of cinema that is stripped, sacred, and utterly alive.
October 8, 2019
ایده های جالبی داره برسون ولی به نظرم خیلی رادیکال و سخت گیرانس اکثرشون.
September 11, 2022
"Debussy himself used to play with the piano's lid down."
"Practice the precept: find without seeking."
"Bach at the organ, admired by a pupil, answered: "It's a matter of striking the notes at exactly the right moment.""
"Practice the precept: find without seeking."
"Bach at the organ, admired by a pupil, answered: "It's a matter of striking the notes at exactly the right moment.""
July 10, 2012
Collection of insights into making movies, an art Bresson calls "cinematography," not to be confused with what's commonly called cinematography or cinema. It's more like the flow of life captured by the director's diving rods of camera and tape recorder. Actors are called "models" -- and they should be unrecognizable conveyors of volitionless expression, or something like that. The whole thing's very French, very Zen, stressing silence, intuition, economy. Metaphorically valuable for those not making movies. Ideal pretentious bathroom book or stocking stuffer for a young aesthete. With that said, it's only pretentious in that it's the work of someone who thinks deeply about artistic prearrangements required to create philosophically ideal effects that stay true to a precise understanding of reality expressed via the knotting of images deemed simple and true. Ideas to keep in mind while watching his films -- I've only seen one a few years ago and now hardly remember it. Read this because Will Oldham mentions it as inspiration for "I Am a Cinematographer."
March 2, 2016
I'm currently constructing my own vade mecum. This is one of The Books.
June 3, 2019
فوق العاده بود، بدون هیچ اغراقی.
May 27, 2017
Brilliant short book on the aesthetics of the film (mostly non-commercial, largely non-American) of the 50s through 70s that speaks to me most deeply (Godard, Bergman, Antonioni to skim the A list). Bresson isn't quite "New Wave"--he began making his pieces a bit earlier and rather than developing an instantly recognizable "style" (like Godard or Fellini), he developed the approach outlined here that resulted in movies that superficially may seem quite different but bear a deeply personal stamp. Among other things, these aphorisms, paragraphs, include an approach to actors (Bresson calls them "models" and would reject "acting" almost entirely as a baleful hangover from the stage.). Rather than try to summarize the lyrical, introspective, improvisationa, near-Zen, vision, I'll include a series of quotes that capture the flavor of the book:
"To create is not to deform, or invent persons and things. It is to tie new relationships between persons and things which are, and as they are." (p. 13)
"The insensible bond, connecting your furthest apart and most different images, is your vision." (p. 20)
"Hid the ideas, but so that people find them. The most important will be the most hidden." (p. 25)
"Not to shoot a film in order to illustrate a thesis, or to display men and women confined to their external aspect, but to discover the matter they are made of. To attain that 'heart of the heart' which does not let itself be caught either by poetry, or by philosophy, or by drama." (p. 27)
"Recognize the unorganized noises (what you think you hear is not what you hear) of a street, a railroad station, an airport....Play them back one by one in silence and adjust the blend." (p. 31)
"Be the first to see what you see as you see it." (p. 33)
"Two simplicities. The bad: simplicity as starting-point, sought too soon. The good: simplicity as end product, recompense for years of effort." (p. 46)
"Extreme complexity. Your films: attempts, trials." (p. 56)
"To create is not to deform, or invent persons and things. It is to tie new relationships between persons and things which are, and as they are." (p. 13)
"The insensible bond, connecting your furthest apart and most different images, is your vision." (p. 20)
"Hid the ideas, but so that people find them. The most important will be the most hidden." (p. 25)
"Not to shoot a film in order to illustrate a thesis, or to display men and women confined to their external aspect, but to discover the matter they are made of. To attain that 'heart of the heart' which does not let itself be caught either by poetry, or by philosophy, or by drama." (p. 27)
"Recognize the unorganized noises (what you think you hear is not what you hear) of a street, a railroad station, an airport....Play them back one by one in silence and adjust the blend." (p. 31)
"Be the first to see what you see as you see it." (p. 33)
"Two simplicities. The bad: simplicity as starting-point, sought too soon. The good: simplicity as end product, recompense for years of effort." (p. 46)
"Extreme complexity. Your films: attempts, trials." (p. 56)
Read
February 2, 2017This is a rather odd book. It's a book about film that doesn't talk about any films. I believe only one actor and film is mentioned by name (Falconetti in The Passion of Joan of Arc). What the book consists of are thoughts about filming -- thoughts that are very different from one one usually thinks about as film, which Bresson associates with "the terrible habit of the theatre."
Robert Bresson is a great film director, so consequently his Notes on the Cinematograph is well worth listening to. Unlike many famous directors, such as Hitchcock, Ford, and Bergman, Bresson never had a stock company of actors he used in film after film. In fact, I can't think of any actor he used more than once. Instead of actors, he talks about models. He avoids imposing a structure on the film in the screenwriting process, yet his films are masterpieces; and the performances he achieves are memorable.
I think of Maria Casarès in Les Dames du Bois de Boulogne or Martin La Salle in Pickpocket or Nadine Nortier in Mouchette. The films Bresson makes with them end up consuming them as useful for any other picture. Yet he gets great performances, such as Claude Laydu in Journal d'un Curé de Campagne or Anna Wiazemsky in Au Hasard Balthazar.
What Bresson attempts is not easy, which is why in his forty-year career he has completed only thirteen features.
Robert Bresson is a great film director, so consequently his Notes on the Cinematograph is well worth listening to. Unlike many famous directors, such as Hitchcock, Ford, and Bergman, Bresson never had a stock company of actors he used in film after film. In fact, I can't think of any actor he used more than once. Instead of actors, he talks about models. He avoids imposing a structure on the film in the screenwriting process, yet his films are masterpieces; and the performances he achieves are memorable.
I think of Maria Casarès in Les Dames du Bois de Boulogne or Martin La Salle in Pickpocket or Nadine Nortier in Mouchette. The films Bresson makes with them end up consuming them as useful for any other picture. Yet he gets great performances, such as Claude Laydu in Journal d'un Curé de Campagne or Anna Wiazemsky in Au Hasard Balthazar.
What Bresson attempts is not easy, which is why in his forty-year career he has completed only thirteen features.
February 6, 2017
Huge Bresson fan; laud the ethos behind his approach to filmmaking; seen em all; respect the man immensely - I'm going to be the detractor on this one; unfortunately this collection of notes doesn't really do much. Yes, there are some nuggets of greatness buried in here, but the collection is largely repetitive, some of his observations frankly just don't make sense, and yes, I'll say it, it's pretty pretentious. Trudging through this didn't come easy. I really, really, really wanted to glean something more out of this, but alas, no.
July 31, 2023
“Visible parlance” of bodies, objects, houses, roads, trees, fields. Everything blossoms afresh.
March 29, 2013
برسون : ایده تو خالیِ "سینمای هنری" و "فیلمِ هنری". فیلم های هنری، فیلم هایی که بیش از همه عاری از هنرند.
یادداشت ها - جملات - برسون در باب فیلمسازی پیش از هر چیز نشان دهنده طرز تفکر او درباره فیلمسازی است . تاکیدش بر تفاوت سینمای عکاسی شده - که همانند تآتری است که از آن عکس گرفتند - با سینما خلاق ، تاکیدش بر استفاده از نابازیگر به جای بازیگران حرفه ایی ، تاکیدش بر عدم نیاز به موسیقی در سینما . و... همه از سینمای او میگویند . همین طور می توان ردپا و مولقه های واضحی از سینمای - به اصطلاح - مینیمال را در این کتاب جست .
یادداشت ها - جملات - برسون در باب فیلمسازی پیش از هر چیز نشان دهنده طرز تفکر او درباره فیلمسازی است . تاکیدش بر تفاوت سینمای عکاسی شده - که همانند تآتری است که از آن عکس گرفتند - با سینما خلاق ، تاکیدش بر استفاده از نابازیگر به جای بازیگران حرفه ایی ، تاکیدش بر عدم نیاز به موسیقی در سینما . و... همه از سینمای او میگویند . همین طور می توان ردپا و مولقه های واضحی از سینمای - به اصطلاح - مینیمال را در این کتاب جست .
April 11, 2012
يقول عباس كياروستامي عن بريسون أنه أحب كتابته ونظرياته السينمائية أكثر من أفلامه,,أنا حتى اللحظة أشعر بالشيء نفسه بعد مشاهدة محاكمة جان دارك,النشال وموشيت لكن لم أشاهد له بعد لا المال ولا فيلمه الأشهر مذكرات قسّ ريفي..
أجمل ما في بريسون هو إيمانه بالسينما كفن مختلف عن بقية الفنون الأمر الذي لا يزال الكثيرون حتى الآن يخلطون بينها وبين بقية الفنون دون أن يستطيعوا أن يفهموا السينما كفّن قائم بذاته..
"السينماتوغراف"
أجمل ما في بريسون هو إيمانه بالسينما كفن مختلف عن بقية الفنون الأمر الذي لا يزال الكثيرون حتى الآن يخلطون بينها وبين بقية الفنون دون أن يستطيعوا أن يفهموا السينما كفّن قائم بذاته..
"السينماتوغراف"
September 20, 2021
A collection of quotes and short notes that do not really add up to anything but some vague commentary/suggestion on filming. I am more than a bit puzzled as to the constant appearance of this book on every list of film books ... Those who have more experience with his films (and his distinctive style in cinematography) may appreciate this tiny book more.
August 20, 2023
Notes on the Cinematograph is sometimes published as Notes on Cinematography or Notes on the Cinematographer, but “Cinematograph” feels best. In these musings, director/author Robert Bresson explores an understanding of film as a contrast between the cinematograph (Bresson’s ultimate aim)—the form in which film achieves its truly unique place among the arts—and other terms for movies, all of which represent a kind of film that merely replicates theater. By “theater,” Bresson means a particular way of portrayal on stage that becomes artificial or inauthentic on film. So Bresson refers to his film performers as “models” rather than “actors,” to maintain the distinction that is very clear in his mind and perhaps less clear to anyone else. His goal for filmmaking is a truly collaborative endeavor in which director and models discover unexpected things about themselves and the film process by allowing a naturalness and truthfulness.
The book is a collection of short journal entries Bresson wrote during his career in the second half of the twentieth century. Though headings indicate general themes, the entries don’t exactly follow those themes in an obvious way. For me, it made an interesting journey, contemplating sometimes cryptic thoughts and intuiting, as best I could, what Bresson was thinking about that led him to that thought just then. I think the book will feel different every time I read it, and I can easily understand why it often appears on filmmakers’ lists of “favorite books on cinema.” I don’t recall if I’ve heard that David Lynch enjoys this book, but I found a lot of resonance between Bresson’s perspective and what I know of Lynch’s perspective on the art life.
In a review, I think it’s best to share just a small selection of Bresson’s musings which particularly intrigued me on this read-through:
The book is a collection of short journal entries Bresson wrote during his career in the second half of the twentieth century. Though headings indicate general themes, the entries don’t exactly follow those themes in an obvious way. For me, it made an interesting journey, contemplating sometimes cryptic thoughts and intuiting, as best I could, what Bresson was thinking about that led him to that thought just then. I think the book will feel different every time I read it, and I can easily understand why it often appears on filmmakers’ lists of “favorite books on cinema.” I don’t recall if I’ve heard that David Lynch enjoys this book, but I found a lot of resonance between Bresson’s perspective and what I know of Lynch’s perspective on the art life.
In a review, I think it’s best to share just a small selection of Bresson’s musings which particularly intrigued me on this read-through:
“An image must be transformed by contact with other images as is a colour by contact with other colours. A blue is not the same blue beside a green, a yellow, a red. No art without transformation.” (9)
“To create is not to deform or invent persons and things. It is to tie new relationships between persons and things which are, and as they are.” (13)
“Be sure of having used to the full all that is communicated by immobility and silence.” (16)
“The real, when it has reached the mind, is already not real anymore. Our too thoughtful, too intelligent eye.” (48)
“Make visible what, without you, might perhaps never have been seen.” (50)
“Your public is not the public for books, stage shows, exhibitions or concerts. Taste in literature, in theatre, in painting or in music is not what you have to satisfy.” (63)
“Let the cause follow the effect, not accompany it or precede it.” (63)
“From the clash and sequence of images and sounds, a harmony of relationships must be born.” (63)
“The most ordinary word, when put into place, suddenly acquires brilliance. That is the brilliance with which your images must shine.” (70)
“Ideas gathered from reading will always be bookish ideas. Go to the persons and objects directly.” (82)
Want to read
September 30, 2019جمله به جمله، اول خودم و بعد برای یک دیگری.
January 16, 2025
Un très joli livre offert pour la Saint-Nicolas par quelqu'un que j'estime beaucoup et qui croit en moi. Il l'a agrémenté de petites notes personnalisées et de conseils, rendant le tout très touchant.
Les notes de Bresson sont intéressantes pour toute personne s'essayant au jeu de cinématographe.
Les notes de Bresson sont intéressantes pour toute personne s'essayant au jeu de cinématographe.
July 14, 2020
“When the public is ready to feel before understanding, what a number of films reveal and explain everything to it!”
Don’t make a film well, make a film with your own eyes and ears. Whatever comes of that will be most exciting and true.
Don’t make a film well, make a film with your own eyes and ears. Whatever comes of that will be most exciting and true.
October 22, 2017
en stor 3'er!
March 8, 2019
I'm definitely my undiagnosed-OCD father's son. When I was a Berkeley undergraduate, I took my visiting father and stepmother to their first Thai food, which in those benighted days was pretty exotic. He really liked it as, of course, he would. Thai food is awesome. He REALLY liked it, though. I would not be exaggerating much at all if I were to say that every subsequent meal out with them for three decades took place at a Thai restaurant. I might be a little more self-aware, but I'm pretty much exactly like my dad. I'm like a dog on a bone with my interests. People have flattered me, as it was fashionable to do not so long ago, by telling me that I'm "passionate" about things . I happen to know that the English adjective is derived from the Greek verb "I suffer - as a Golgotha-bound Jesus could surely attest -but I think most people who congratulate themselves with being passionate imagine it as something grandiose and sexy and benign. My passions are properly Greek - driven and not infrequently a little joyless and even downright uncomfortable in their neurotic comprehensiveness.
Take the films of Robert Bresson, for example. Before this year I had seen Pickpocket, because Mark Cousins rhapsodized about it in his ten-episode opus The Story of Film, and Lancelot du Lac, which is right up my street but not, I should think, Bresson's - making a movie about the most valiant knight of the Round Table and zooming the camrea in on stirrups and hooves during the jousting sequences isn't just bold, it's perverse, in this viewer's opinion. But I digress. Last summer, the art house near me, which puts on revival showings of classic cinema every week, did a small Ozu series. Like Bresson, Ozu is one of those directors that people who are smarter than I am adore and I've been a little baffled. I enjoyed the Noriko films. I found them tasteful and sweet - a little sad, a little funny and, I gotta say it, a little boring. Poking around on the Web for background with a view toward understanding the devotion (look at those Criterion Collection celebrity ten-best-films lists - EVERYONE picks an Ozu), I learned that Paul Schrader wrote his film school dissertation on Ozu, Bresson and Dreyer. I've liked Shrader's movies - some, keenly so - and he was one of the more fascinating characters in Easy Riders, Raging Bulls, so, Jim's son that I am, I had to check it out. It's a good argument, but a little soporifically inclusive and reiterative in the manner of academic prose. But, having started, I had to finish and having finished, I had to watch all the movies (Well, with respect to the Bresson oeuvre, through Au Hasard Balthazar at any rate. More to follow no doubt...) and having wrestled with the work, I had to read the theory.
Which brings us to Notes on the Cinematograph, Bresson's slim collection of aggressive, oracular apothegms about the theory behind his technique. Bresson calls his own fully aware, fully filmic art "cinematograph" so as to contrast it with the mainstream filmmaking that goes by the name of "cinema" and which he despises as the handmaiden of theater. My understanding may be a little colored by my irritation, but I sometimes felt while reading this that Bresson thinks he has made the only worthwhile films. I definitely felt that he is more than a little full of himself. I say this as someone who has become a fan. A Man Escaped and Mouchette are fantastic. Pickpocket is really good. I found Balthazaar periodically moving, but sorta creaky and programmatic. I seriously doubt that I'll ever watch Diary of a Country Priest or Trial of Joan of Arc again. The bracing minimalism, the quirky editing rhythms, and the "automatic" quality of line reading that he gets from his non-professional "models" are aspects of his technique that I think are theoetically well-justified and produce a unique cinematic satisfaction. One of the DVD-extra talking heads said that he thought a Bresson film was like a proper martini - ice cold when you take it in but progressively warming in its aftereffects. I thought that was pretty astute. I would definitely recommend some of the films, but probably not this combative, self-satisfied Hagakure for the pretentious aesthete, which yields limited rewards to a specialized audience. I think we already know who we are.
Take the films of Robert Bresson, for example. Before this year I had seen Pickpocket, because Mark Cousins rhapsodized about it in his ten-episode opus The Story of Film, and Lancelot du Lac, which is right up my street but not, I should think, Bresson's - making a movie about the most valiant knight of the Round Table and zooming the camrea in on stirrups and hooves during the jousting sequences isn't just bold, it's perverse, in this viewer's opinion. But I digress. Last summer, the art house near me, which puts on revival showings of classic cinema every week, did a small Ozu series. Like Bresson, Ozu is one of those directors that people who are smarter than I am adore and I've been a little baffled. I enjoyed the Noriko films. I found them tasteful and sweet - a little sad, a little funny and, I gotta say it, a little boring. Poking around on the Web for background with a view toward understanding the devotion (look at those Criterion Collection celebrity ten-best-films lists - EVERYONE picks an Ozu), I learned that Paul Schrader wrote his film school dissertation on Ozu, Bresson and Dreyer. I've liked Shrader's movies - some, keenly so - and he was one of the more fascinating characters in Easy Riders, Raging Bulls, so, Jim's son that I am, I had to check it out. It's a good argument, but a little soporifically inclusive and reiterative in the manner of academic prose. But, having started, I had to finish and having finished, I had to watch all the movies (Well, with respect to the Bresson oeuvre, through Au Hasard Balthazar at any rate. More to follow no doubt...) and having wrestled with the work, I had to read the theory.
Which brings us to Notes on the Cinematograph, Bresson's slim collection of aggressive, oracular apothegms about the theory behind his technique. Bresson calls his own fully aware, fully filmic art "cinematograph" so as to contrast it with the mainstream filmmaking that goes by the name of "cinema" and which he despises as the handmaiden of theater. My understanding may be a little colored by my irritation, but I sometimes felt while reading this that Bresson thinks he has made the only worthwhile films. I definitely felt that he is more than a little full of himself. I say this as someone who has become a fan. A Man Escaped and Mouchette are fantastic. Pickpocket is really good. I found Balthazaar periodically moving, but sorta creaky and programmatic. I seriously doubt that I'll ever watch Diary of a Country Priest or Trial of Joan of Arc again. The bracing minimalism, the quirky editing rhythms, and the "automatic" quality of line reading that he gets from his non-professional "models" are aspects of his technique that I think are theoetically well-justified and produce a unique cinematic satisfaction. One of the DVD-extra talking heads said that he thought a Bresson film was like a proper martini - ice cold when you take it in but progressively warming in its aftereffects. I thought that was pretty astute. I would definitely recommend some of the films, but probably not this combative, self-satisfied Hagakure for the pretentious aesthete, which yields limited rewards to a specialized audience. I think we already know who we are.
February 28, 2022
For all the “transcendental” mystification that has so long clouded Bresson’s movies, he proves to be a surprisingly pragmatic writer, illustrating his precepts of filmmaking with profundity and perfect clarity. (A lot like his films, then.) It’s as coherent and convincing a methodology for the search for “the Real” in filmmaking as has ever been articulated, and a fantastic book of artistic philosophy besides.
December 10, 2022
“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.”
“To create is not to deform or invent persons and things. It is to tie new relationships between persons and things which are, and as they are.
Radically suppress intentions in your models.”
“Cinematography, a military art. Prepare a film like a battle.”
“CINEMA draws on a common fund. The cinematographer is making a voyage of discovery on an unknown planet.”
“To find a kinship between image, sound and silence. To give them an air of being glad to be together, of having chosen their place. Milton: Silence was pleased.”
“To create is not to deform or invent persons and things. It is to tie new relationships between persons and things which are, and as they are.
Radically suppress intentions in your models.”
“Cinematography, a military art. Prepare a film like a battle.”
“CINEMA draws on a common fund. The cinematographer is making a voyage of discovery on an unknown planet.”
“To find a kinship between image, sound and silence. To give them an air of being glad to be together, of having chosen their place. Milton: Silence was pleased.”
November 16, 2009
Ahhhhh, yes!!:
Make visible what, without you, might perhaps never have been seen.
Because you do not have to imitate, like painters, sculptors, novelists, the appearance of persons and objects (machines do that for you), your creation or invention confines itself to the ties you knot between the various bits of reality caught. There is also the choice of the bits. Your flair decides.
One does not create by adding, but by taking away. To develop is another matter. (Not to spread out.)
When you do not know what you are doing and what you are doing is the best -- that is inspiration.
Make visible what, without you, might perhaps never have been seen.
Because you do not have to imitate, like painters, sculptors, novelists, the appearance of persons and objects (machines do that for you), your creation or invention confines itself to the ties you knot between the various bits of reality caught. There is also the choice of the bits. Your flair decides.
One does not create by adding, but by taking away. To develop is another matter. (Not to spread out.)
When you do not know what you are doing and what you are doing is the best -- that is inspiration.
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