The Bresson Shrine

The Shrine....

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my personal Bresson 'alter' (at which i bow)...

The Anthology Bresson series in neigh over... Having been o.o.t. (out-of-town) for most of it - I was thrilled to get back and find that 3 of his later films were still playing: "A Gentle Creature", "Lancelot du Lac", and "L'Argent" were still in my grasp... I find myself telling people that his later (incredibly colored) films are my favorites of his - this is a hard statement to really stand beside considering how important so many of his others are to me, as well... In all actuallity, I find myself moved unexplainably to tears by some of his earlier movies (I cry like a baby in "A Man Escapes" and "Mouchette" and "Au Hasard, Balthazar") - but these last, intensly bitter and bleaker ones almost never leave my mind... Unfortunately - my excitement for "A Gentle Creature" was dashed by my own inattention to details: having not really looked at the schedule - I hadn't noticed they were playing it without subtitles... At least, this time, it had been listed that way - as opposed to another time when they showed "Diary of a Country Priest" and, at the last moment, substituted a unsubtitled, 16-mm print... That time, I was really mad... None of this mattered, however, after getting the chance to see (for the first time on a big screen) "Lancelot du Lac"... Definately Bresson's most abstracted of films - it's also, like many of his films, almost impossible not to see as being perfect... it's as if nothing in it could have been done better.. I know that's a big and broad statement - but he just does every single thing so right... Every choice fits with the whole... The abstraction builds the tension, elucidates the world of the film and heightens the beauty without ever being flashy... And, like almost all of his films - his rigorous focus on specific parts (of actions, of people, of surroundings) not only forces an awareness of the world of the film - but of the world outside, as well... I'm always struck by how the feeling of noticing the tactile world - the physical - in Bresson's movies - transfers and lingers into my own experience after leaving the theater. It's not just a mood - but a way of seeing... And we'll get a chance to see more of Bresson's world, comming up, when Film Forum shows it's newly restored "Au Hasard, Balthazar"... We'll get to that, later...