Balthazar
1970
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Robert Bresson (French: [ʁɔbɛʁ bʁɛsɔ̃]; 25 September 1901 – 18 December 1999) was a French film director. Known for his ascetic approach, Bresson made a notable contribution to the art of cinema; his non-professional actors, ellipses , and sparse use of scoring have led his works to be regarded as preeminent examples of minimalist film.
- Film director, screenwriter
- 25 September 1901, Bromont-Lamothe, France
- 1933–1983
- 18 December 1999 (aged 98), Droue-sur-Drouette, France
Robert Bresson (1901-1999) was a French writer and director of minimalist and personal films, such as Diary of a Country Priest, A Man Escaped, and Pickpocket. He trained as a painter and spent time as a German POW during World War II.
- January 1, 1
- Bromont-Lamothe, Puy-de-Dôme, France
- January 1, 1
- Paris, France
- Features Writer / List Editor
- Pickpocket (1959) Bresson explores the ambiguity of morality in his excellent 1959 film Pickpocket. Martin LaSalle stars as Michel, an impoverished petty criminal who becomes swept up in the underground world of pickpocketing in order to raise enough money to pursue his dreams.
- Mouchette (1967) In Mouchette, Bresson's final film in black-and-white, the director paints a portrait of a young woman (Nadine Nortier) who suffers at the hands of the cruel society around her.
- Au Hasard Balthazar (1966) There are few if any of Bresson’s films that aren’t wholly tragic, but Au Hasard Balthazar is one of the most unflinchingly heartbreaking.
- A Man Escaped (1956) It’s bold for a narrative to state explicitly in its title what’s going to happen, but A Man Escaped does just that. Clearly, it isn’t about what happens but how it happens and what everything in between means.
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Dec 23, 1999 · A tribute to the French director Robert Bresson, who died in 1999 at 98, after a long illness. The article praises his austere and minimalist style of filmmaking, his preference for naturalistic actors and scenes, and his themes of passion, spirituality and morality. It also compares his films with other directors such as Fellini, Hitchcock and Tarkovsky.
- A Man Escaped (1956) In an unlikely alignment of Bresson’s style with the genre sensibilities of the “prison break” film, A Man Escaped may be Bresson’s only truly mainstream work while also arguably his first and fullest expression of the asceticism his whole career worked toward, both feeding and feeding on the genre mandated tension and stoicism, and finding in the prison setting a readymade stage for dramatic allegories of the spiritual.
- Au Hasard Balthazar (1966) Au Hasard Balthazar chronicles a slice of provincial life through the impassive eyes of a donkey, the titular Balthazar, as he changes hands from master to master, used and abused and silently bearing his burden.
- Diary of a Country Priest (1951) The culmination of Bresson’s work in melodrama – following the mostly conventional Angels of Sin and Les Dames du Bois de Boulogne – and his final use of professional actors, Diary of a Country Priest, from George Bernanos’ novel of the same name, also establishes his mode of existential character study, its motifs and conventions of the strictly single perspective of the priest (Claude Laydu), the exploration of psyche through diary and voiceover narration, and the film’s dramatic grounding in the internal movements of the priest’s spiritual condition, and the way these influence his relation to those around him.
- Mouchette (1967) From a novel by the same Bernanos as Diary of a Country Priest, Mouchette almost looks to be Bresson’s 400 Blows in its story of a poor and ostracized country girl that quickly takes a turn for the miserable.
Robert Bresson (born September 25, 1901, Bromont-Lamonthe, Puy-de Dôme, France—died December 18, 1999, Droué-sur-Drouette) was a French writer-director who, despite his limited output, has been rightly celebrated as one of the cinema’s few authentic geniuses.
Learn about the life and work of Robert Bresson, a French filmmaker who created a unique minimalist style with non-actors and Catholic themes. Find out his trademarks, trivia, quotes, and filmography on IMDb.
