André Bazin (18 April 1918 – 11 November 1958) was a renowned and influential French film critic and film theorist.

Life[link]

Bazin was born in Angers, France, in 1918. He died in 1958, age 40, due to leukemia.^[1]

Film criticism[link]

Bazin started to write about film in 1943 and was a co-founder of the film magazine Cahiers du cinéma in 1951, along with Jacques Doniol-Valcroze and Lo Duca. Bazin was a major force in post-World War II film studies and criticism. In addition to editing Cahiers until his death, a four-volume collection of his writings was published posthumously from 1958 to 1962 and titled Qu'est-ce que le cinéma? (What is Cinema?). A selection from this collection was translated into English and published in two volumes in the late 1960s and early 1970s. They became mainstays of film courses in the English-speaking world, but were never updated or revised. In 2009, the Canadian publisher caboose, taking advantage of more favourable Canadian copyright laws, compiled fresh translations of some of the key essays from the collection in a single-volume edition. With annotations by translator Timothy Barnard, this became the only corrected and annotated edition of these writings in any language.^[2]

The long-held standard and highly reductive view of Bazin's critical system, now being subjected to more sophisticated analysis by Bazin scholars worldwide, is that he argued for films that depicted what he saw as "objective reality" (such as documentaries and films of the Italian neorealism school) and directors who made themselves "invisible" (such as Howard Hawks). He advocated the use of deep focus (Orson Welles), wide shots (Jean Renoir) and the "shot-in-depth", and preferred what he referred to as "true continuity" through mise en scène over experiments in editing and visual effects. This placed him in opposition to film theory of the 1920s and 1930s which emphasized how the cinema can manipulate reality. The concentration on objective reality, deep focus, and lack of montage are linked to Bazin's belief that the interpretation of a film or scene should be left to the spectator.

Bazin believed that a film should represent a director's personal vision, rooted in the spiritual beliefs known as personalism. These ideas would have a pivotal importance on the development of the auteur theory, the manifesto for which was François Truffaut's 1954 Cahiers article "A Certain Tendency of the French Cinema". Bazin also is known as a proponent of "appreciative criticism," wherein only critics who like a film can write a review of it, thus encouraging constructive criticism.

Bazin in popular culture[link]

• François Truffaut dedicated The 400 Blows to Bazin, who died one day after shooting commenced on the film.
• Richard Linklater's film Waking Life features a discussion between filmmaker Caveh Zahedi and poet David Jewell regarding some of Bazin's film theories. There is an emphasis on Bazin's Christianity and the belief that every shot is a representation of God manifesting creation.
• Jean-Luc Godard's Contempt (Le Mépris) (1963) opens with a quotation wrongly attributed to Bazin (in fact the author of the quotation is French film critic and playwright Michel Mourlet from his article "Sur un art ignoré" in Cahiers du cinéma, no. 98).
• David Foster Wallace's novel Infinite Jest references Bazin in regards to film and film criticism.

Bibliography[link]

In English[link]

• Bazin, André. (2009). What is Cinema? (Timothy Barnard, Trans.) Montreal: caboose, ISBN 978-0-9811914-0-9
• Bazin, André. (1967–71). What is cinema? Vol. 1 & 2 (Hugh Gray, Trans., Ed.). Berkeley: University of California Press. ISBN 0-520-02034-0
• Bazin, André. (1973). Jean Renoir (Francois Truffaut, Ed.; W.W. Halsey II & William H. Simon, Trans.). New York: Simon and Schuster. ISBN 0-671-21464-0
• Bazin, André. (1978). Orson Welles: a critical view. New York: Harper and Row. ISBN 0-06-010274-8
• Andrew, Dudley. André Bazin. New York: Oxford University Press, 1978. ISBN 0-19-502165-7
• Bazin, André. (1981). French cinema of the occupation and resistance: The birth of a critical esthetic (Francois Truffaut, Ed., Stanley Hochman, Trans.). New York: F. Ungar Pub. Co. ISBN 0-8044-2022-X
• Bazin, André. (1982). The cinema of cruelty: From Buñuel to Hitchcock (Francois Truffaut, Ed.; Sabine d'Estrée, Trans.). New York: Seaver Books. ISBN 0-394-51808-X
• Bazin, André. (1985). Essays on Chaplin (Jean Bodon, Trans., Ed.). New Haven, Conn.: University of New Haven Press. LCCN 84-52687
• Bazin, André. (1996). Bazin at work: Major essays & reviews from the forties and fifties (Bert Cardullo, Ed., Trans.; Alain Piette, Trans.). New York: Routledge. (HB) ISBN 0-415-90017-4 (PB) ISBN 0-415-90018-2
• Bazin, André. (Forthcoming). French cinema from the liberation to the New Wave, 1945-1958 (Bert Cardullo, Ed.)

In French[link]

• La politique des auteurs, edited by André Bazin. Interviews with Robert Bresson, Jean Renoir, Luis Buñuel, Howard Hawks, Alfred Hitchcock, Fritz Lang, Orson Welles, Michelangelo Antonioni, Carl Theodor Dreyer and Roberto Rossellini
• Qu'est-ce que le cinéma?, by André Bazin, originally published 1958-1962. New edition: Les Éditions du CERF, 2003.

References[link]

External links[link]

• André Bazin - Divining the real (page on BFI)
• André Bazin: Part 1, Film Style Theory in its Historical Context
• André Bazin: Part 2, Style as a Philosophical Idea
• André Bazin at the Internet Movie Database

Online essays[link]

• "The 400 Blows: Verisimilitude and the (Re)presentation of the City" (2008)
• "The Life and Death of Superimposition" (1946)
• "Will CinemaScope Save the Film Industry?" (1953)
• André Bazin on René Clement and literary adaptation: Two original reviews
• André Bazin on Claude Autant-Lara and literary adaptation: Four original reviews

See also[link]

• The André Bazin Special Issue, Film International, No. 30 (November 2007), Jeffrey Crouse, guest editor. Essays include those by Charles Warren ("What is Criticism?"), Richard Armstrong ("The Best Years of Our Lives: Planes of Innocence and Experience"), William Rothman ("Bazin as a Cavellian Realist"), Mats Rohdin ("Cinema as an Art of Potential Metaphors: The Rehabilitation of Metaphor in André Bazin's Realist Film Theory"), Karla Oeler ("André Bazin and the Preservation of Loss"), Tom Paulus ("The View across the Courtyard: Bazin and the Evolution of Depth Style"), and Diane Stevenson ("Godard and Bazin"). Introductory essay, "Because We Need Him Now: Re-enchanting Film Studies Through Bazin," written by Jeffrey Crouse.

François Roland Truffaut (6 February 1932 – 21 October 1984) was an influential film critic and filmmaker, one of the founders of the French New Wave.^[1] In a film career lasting over a quarter of a century, he remains an icon of the French film industry. He was also a screenwriter, producer, and actor working on over twenty-five films.

Early life[link]

Truffaut was born in Paris on 6 February 1932. His mother was Janine de Montferrand. His mother's future husband, Roland Truffaut, accepted him as an adopted son and gave him his surname. He was passed around to live with various nannies and his grandmother for a number of years. It was his grandmother who instilled in him her love of books and music. He lived with his grandmother until her death when Truffaut was ten years old. It was only after his grandmother's death that he lived with his parents for the first time.^[2] The identity of Truffaut's biological father was unknown, though a private detective agency in 1968 revealed that their enquiry into the matter led to a Roland Levy, a Jewish dentist from Bayonne. Truffaut's mother's family disputed the findings but Truffaut himself believed and embraced them.^[3]

Truffaut would often stay with friends and try to be out of the house as much as possible. His best friend throughout his youth and until his death was Robert Lachenay, who was the inspiration for the character René Bigey in The 400 Blows and would work as an assistant on some of Truffaut's films. It was the cinema that offered him the greatest escape from an unsatisfying home life. He was eight years old when he saw his first movie, Abel Gance's Paradis Perdu from 1939. It was there that his obsession began. He frequently played truant from school and would sneak into theaters because he didn't have enough money for admission. After being expelled from several schools, at the age of fourteen he decided to become self-taught. Some of his academic "goals" were to watch three movies a day and read three books a week.^[2][4]

Truffaut frequented Henri Langlois' Cinémathèque Française where he was exposed to countless foreign films from around the world. It was here that he became familiar with American cinema and directors such as John Ford, Howard Hawks, Nicholas Ray as well as those of British director Alfred Hitchcock.^{[citation needed]}

Career[link]

After starting his own film club in 1948, Truffaut met André Bazin, who would have great effect on his professional and personal life. Bazin was a critic and the head of another film society at the time. He became a personal friend of Truffaut's and helped him out of various financial and criminal situations during his formative years.^{[citation needed]}

Truffaut joined the French Army in 1950, aged 18, but spent the next two years trying to escape. Truffaut was arrested for attempting to desert the army. Bazin used his various political contacts to get Truffaut released and set him up with a job at his newly formed film magazine Cahiers du cinéma. Over the next few years, Truffaut became a critic (and later editor) at Cahiers, where he became notorious for his brutal, unforgiving reviews.^{[citation needed]} He was called "The Gravedigger of French Cinema" and was the only French critic not invited to the Cannes Film Festival in 1958. He supported Andre Bazin in the development of one of the most influential theories of cinema itself, the auteur theory.

In 1954, Truffaut wrote an article called "Une Certaine Tendance du Cinéma Français" ("A Certain Trend of French Cinema"),^[4] in which he attacked the current state of French films, lambasting certain screenwriters and producers. The article resulted in a storm of controversy. Truffaut later devised the auteur theory, which stated that the director was the "author" of his work; that great directors such as Renoir or Hitchcock have distinct styles and themes that permeate all of their films. Although his theory was not widely accepted then, it gained some support in the 1960s from American critic Andrew Sarris. In 1967, Truffaut published his book-length interview of Hitchcock, Hitchcock/Truffaut (New York: Simon and Schuster).

After having been a critic, Truffaut decided to make films of his own. He started out with the short film Une Visite in 1955 and followed that up with Les Mistons in 1957. After seeing Orson Welles' Touch of Evil at the Expo 58, he was inspired to make his feature film debut in 1959 with Les Quatre Cents Coups (The 400 Blows).

Truffaut's grave

This film was an instant success and won him a prize at the Cannes Film Festival^[5] This film and the following films were successful even with the low budget he had to make the films.

He was also notably one of the main stars in Steven Spielberg's 1977 film Close Encounters of the Third Kind, where he played scientist Claude Lacombe.

Truffaut was married to Madeleine Morgenstern from 1957 to 1965, and they had two daughters, Laura (born 1959) and Eva (born 1961). Madeleine was the daughter of Ignace Morgenstern, managing director of one of France's largest film distribution companies, and was largely responsible for securing funding for Truffaut's first films. While he had affairs with almost all of his leading ladies – in 1968 he was the fiancé of Claude Jade – Truffaut and actress Fanny Ardant lived together from 1981 to 1984 and had a daughter, Joséphine Truffaut (born 28 September 1983).^[2]

Death[link]

In 1983, Truffaut was diagnosed with a brain tumor. He died on 21 October 1984, aged 52, at the American Hospital in Neuilly-sur-Seine in France.^[6] At the time of his death, he still had numerous films in preparation. His goal was to make thirty films and then retire to write books for his remaining days. He was five films short of his personal goal. He is buried in Paris' Montmartre Cemetery.

Work[link]

The 400 Blows was released in 1959 to much critical and commercial acclaim. Truffaut received a Best Director award from the Cannes Film Festival, the same festival that had banned him only one year earlier. The film follows the character of Antoine Doinel through his perilous misadventures in school, an unhappy home life and later reform school. The film is highly autobiographical. Both Truffaut and Doinel were only children of loveless marriages; they both committed petty crimes of theft and truancy from the military. Truffaut cast Jean-Pierre Léaud as Antoine Doinel. Léaud was seen as an ordinary boy of 13 who auditioned for the role after seeing a flyer, but interviews filmed after the film's release (one is included on the Criterion DVD of the film) reveal Léaud's natural sophistication and an instinctive understanding of acting for the camera. Léaud and Truffaut collaborated on several films over the years. Their most noteworthy collaboration was the continuation of the Antoine Doinel character in a series of films called "The Antoine Doinel Cycle".

The 400 Blows marked the beginning of the French New Wave movement, which gave directors such as Jean-Luc Godard, Claude Chabrol and Jacques Rivette a wider audience. The New Wave dealt with a self-conscious rejection of traditional cinema structure. This was a topic on which Truffaut had been writing for years.

Following the success of The 400 Blows, Truffaut featured disjunctive editing and seemingly random voice-overs in his next film Shoot the Piano Player (1960) starring Charles Aznavour. Truffaut has stated that in the middle of filming, he realized that he hated gangsters. But since gangsters were a main part of the story, he toned up the comical aspect of the characters and made the movie more attuned to his liking. Even though Shoot the Piano Player was much appreciated by critics, it performed poorly at the box office. While the film focused on two of the French New Wave's favorite elements, American Film Noir and themselves, Truffaut never again experimented as heavily.

In 1962, Truffaut directed his third movie, Jules and Jim, a romantic drama starring Jeanne Moreau. Over the next decade, Truffaut had varying degrees of success with his films. In 1965 he directed the American production of Ray Bradbury's classic sci-fi novel Fahrenheit 451. It showcased Truffaut's love of books. His only English-speaking film was a great challenge for Truffaut, because he barely spoke English himself. This was also his first film shot in color. The larger scale production was difficult for Truffaut, who had worked only with small crews and budgets.

Truffaut worked on projects with varied subjects. The Bride Wore Black (1968), a brutal tale of revenge, is a stylish homage to the films of Alfred Hitchcock (once again starring Jeanne Moreau). Mississippi Mermaid (1969), with Catherine Deneuve, is an identity-bending romantic thriller. Stolen Kisses (1968) and Bed and Board (1970) are continuations of the Antoine Doinel Cycle. And The Wild Child (1970) included Truffaut's acting debut in the lead role of 18th century physician Jean Marc Gaspard Itard.

Two English Girls (1971) is the yin to the Jules and Jim yang. It is based on a story written by Henri-Pierre Roche, who also wrote Jules and Jim. It is about a man who falls equally in love with two sisters, and their love affair over a period of years.

Day for Night won Truffaut a Best Foreign Film Oscar in 1973.^[7] The film is probably his most reflective work. It is the story of a film crew trying to finish their film while dealing with all of the personal and professional problems that accompany making a movie. Truffaut plays the director of the fictional film being made. This film features scenes shown in his previous films. It is considered to be his best film since his earliest work. Time magazine placed it on their list of 100 Best Films of the Century (along with The 400 Blows).

In 1975, Truffaut gained more notoriety with The Story of Adele H. Isabelle Adjani in the title role earned a nomination for a Best Actress Oscar. Truffaut's 1976 film Small Change gained a Golden Globe Nomination for Best Foreign Film.

One of Truffaut's final films gave him an international revival. In 1980, his film The Last Metro garnered twelve César Award nominations with ten wins, including Best Director.

Truffaut's final movie was shot in black and white. It gives his career almost a sense of having bookends. Confidentially Yours is Truffaut's tribute to his favorite director, Alfred Hitchcock. It deals with numerous Hitchcockian themes, such as private guilt vs. public innocence, a woman investigating a murder, anonymous locations, etc.

Among Truffaut's films, a series features the character Antoine Doinel, played by the actor Jean-Pierre Léaud. He began his career in The 400 Blows at the age of fourteen, and continued as the favorite actor and "double" of Truffaut. The series continued with Antoine and Colette (a short film in the anthology Love at Twenty), Stolen Kisses (in which he falls in love with Christine Darbon alias Claude Jade), Bed and Board about the married couple Antoine and Christine—and, finally, Love on the Run, where the couple go through a divorce.

In the last movies, Léaud's partner was played by Truffaut's favorite actress Claude Jade as his girlfriend (and then wife), "Christine Darbon." During the filming of "Stolen Kisses, Truffaut himself fell in love with, and was briefly engaged to, Claude Jade.

A keen reader, Truffaut adapted many literary works, including two novels by Henri-Pierre Roché, Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451, Henry James' "The Altar of the Dead", filmed as The Green Room, and several American detective novels.

Truffaut's other films were from original screenplays, often co-written by the screenwriters Suzanne Schiffman or Jean Gruault. They featured diverse subjects, the sombre The Story of Adele H., inspired by the life of the daughter of Victor Hugo, with Isabelle Adjani; Day for Night, shot at the Studio La Victorine describing the ups and downs of film-making; and The Last Metro, set during the German occupation of France, a film rewarded by ten César Awards.

Known as being a lifelong cinephile, Truffaut once (according to the 1993 documentary film François Truffaut: Stolen Portraits) threw a hitchhiker he had picked up out of his car after learning that the hitchhiker didn't like films.

Truffaut is admired among other filmmakers and several tributes to his work have appeared in other films such as Almost Famous, Face and The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, as well as novelist Haruki Murakami book Kafka on the Shore.

Attitude towards other filmmakers[link]

Truffaut expressed his admiration for filmmakers such as Luis Buñuel, Ingmar Bergman, Robert Bresson, Martin Scorsese, and Steven Spielberg. He once called German New Wave filmmaker Werner Herzog "the most important film director alive." In 1973, Jean-Luc Godard accused Truffaut of making a movie that was a “lie,” and Truffaut replied with a 20-page letter in which he accused Godard of being a radical-chic hypocrite, a man who believed everyone to be “equal” in theory only. The two never saw each other again.^[8]

Filmography[link]

Director: features[link]

Director: shorts[link]

Screenwriter only[link]

Actor[link]

Producer only[link]

Bibliography[link]

• Les 400 Coups (1960) with M. Moussy (English translation: The 400 Blows)
• Le Cinéma selon Alfred Hitchcock (1967, second edition 1983) (English translation: Hitchcock and Hitchcock/Truffaut with the collaboration of Helen G. Scott)
• Les Aventures d'Antoine Doinel (1970) (English translation: Adventures of Antoine Doinel; translated by Helen G. Scott)
• Jules et Jim (film script) (1971) (English translation: Jules and Jim; translated by Nicholas Fry)
• La Nuit américaine et le Journal de Fahrenheit 451 (1974)
• Le Plaisir des yeux (1975)
• L'Argent de poche (1976) (English title: Small change: a film novel; translated by Anselm Hollo)
• L'Homme qui aimait les femmes (1977)
• Les Films de ma vie (1981) (English translation: Films in my life; translated by Leonard Mayhew)
• Correspondance (1988) (English translation: Correspondence, 1945–1984; translated by Gilbert Adair)
• Le Cinéma selon François Truffaut (1988) edited by Anne Gillain
• Belle époque (1996) with Jean Gruault

See also[link]

• François Truffaut Award
• List of brain tumor patients
• Paris Belongs to Us
• Two in the Wave, a 2010 documentary film about Truffaut's relationship with Jean-Luc Godard

References[link]

External links[link]

• Animated Google Logo for François Truffaut's 80th birthday on YouTube

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: François Truffaut

• François Truffaut at the Internet Movie Database
• New Wave Film Encyclopedia: "François Truffaut" an extensive biography
• François Truffaut bibliography via the UC Berkeley Media Resources Center
• Francois Truffaut at The Guardian Film
• Francois Truffaut at The New York Times Movies
• François Truffaut collected news and commentary at The New York Times
• Works by or about François Truffaut in libraries (WorldCat catalog)
• Legendary interview with Truffaut from 1970
• AllMovie.com Biography

v t e César Award for Best Director 1976 Bertrand Tavernier 1977 Joseph Losey 1978 Alain Resnais 1979 Christian de Chalonge 1980 Roman Polanski 1981 François Truffaut 1982 Jean-Jacques Annaud 1983 Andrzej Wajda 1984 Ettore Scola 1985 Claude Zidi 1986 Michel Deville 1987 Alain Cavalier 1988 Louis Malle 1989 Jean-Jacques Annaud 1990 Bertrand Blier 1991 Jean-Paul Rappeneau 1992 Alain Corneau 1993 Claude Sautet 1994 Alain Resnais 1995 André Téchiné 1996 Claude Sautet 1997 Patrice Leconte / Bertrand Tavernier 1998 Luc Besson 1999 Patrice Chéreau 2000 Tonie Marshall 2001 Dominik Moll 2002 Jean-Pierre Jeunet 2003 Roman Polanski 2004 Denys Arcand 2005 Abdellatif Kechiche 2006 Jacques Audiard 2007 Guillaume Canet 2008 Abdellatif Kechiche 2009 Jean-François Richet 2010 Jacques Audiard 2011 Roman Polanski 2012 Michel Hazanavicius

Bernard Pivot
Bernard Pivot at a book fair in Paris, France, in March 2009
Born	(1935-05-05) May 5, 1935 (age 77) Lyon, France
Occupation	Journalist, television personality

Bernard Pivot, OC, CQ (born 5 May 1935) is a journalist, interviewer and host of French cultural television programmes.^[1] He is a member of the Académie Goncourt.^[2]

Biography[link]

Pivot was born in Lyon, the son of grocers. During World War II, his father, Charles Pivot, was taken prisoner and his mother moved to the family home to the village of Quincié-en-Beaujolais, where Bernard Pivot started school.

In 1945 his father was released, and the reunited family returned to Lyon. At age 10, Pivot went to a Catholic boarding school and discovered a consuming passion for sport, a passion which helped teachers to overlook his general mediocrity in all traditional school subjects except French language and history.

After starting studies in law in Lyon, Pivot entered the Centre de formation des journalistes (CFJ) in Paris, where he met his future wife, Monique. He graduated second in his class.

After an internship at "Le progrès" in Lyon, he studied economic journalism for a full year, then joined the Figaro littéraire in 1958.

In 1970, he hosted a daily humorous radio programme that often raised political issues, which was not appreciated by Georges Pompidou.

In 1971, the Figaro littéraire closed and Pivot joined Le Figaro. He left, however, in 1974 after a disagreement with Jean d'Ormesson. Jean-Jacques Servan-Schreiber invited him to start a new project, which led to the creation of a new magazine, Lire, a year later.

Meanwhile, in April 1973 he had started hosting a programme called Ouvrez les Guillemets on France's first TV network. In 1974, the ORTF was dissolved and Pivot started his Apostrophes programme. Apostrophes was first broadcast on Antenne 2 on January 10, 1975, and ran until 1990.^[3][4]

Pivot then created Bouillon de culture, whose scope he tried to broaden beyond books. He eventually came back to books, however.^[5]

On April 10, 2008 Pivot was made an honorary member of the Order of Canada.^[6][7]

Spelling championships[link]

In 1985, with linguist Micheline Sommant, Pivot created the Championnats d'orthographe (spelling championships) which in 1992 became Championnats mondiaux d'orthographe (world spelling championships) then in 1993 the Dicos d'or (golden dictionaries).

These yearly contests are held in three phases:

• During the spring, selection tests are organised with the press, in particular with Lire, and in a few local communities (e.g. schools). These are multiple-choice questionnaires.
• During the fall, the selected candidates meet region by region at the semi-finals. They get again multiple-choice questionnaires, and a dictation.
• Then, during winter, the finals are held at a single place.

There are four categories: school juniors, juniors, professional seniors and amateur seniors.

Participation is free of charge, except for the cost of the magazines that publish the selection tests.

Partial filmography[link]

• Apostrophes (1975–1986)
• Bouillon de culture (1991–2001)
• Double je (2002–2005)

Bernard Pivot and James Lipton[link]

James Lipton was inspired by a chance viewing of a Pivot programme on cable TV to create Inside the Actors Studio. Lipton adapted Pivot's use of a Proust Questionnaire to one that he himself used at the end of each episode of Inside the Actors Studio.^[8]

Pivot became aware that Lipton was inspired by his questionnaire, and invited Lipton to appear on the final episode of Bouillon de Culture.

References[link]

External links[link]

• Bernard Pivot at the Internet Movie Database

Robert Bresson
Born	(1901-09-25)25 September 1901 Puy-de-Dôme, Auvergne, France
Died	December 18, 1999(1999-12-18) (aged 98) Paris, France
Occupation	Film director, screenwriter
Years active	1933 - 1983
Influenced by	Blaise Pascal, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Cornelius Jansen[1][2]
Influenced	French New Wave, Andrei Tarkovsky, Michael Haneke, Jim Jarmusch, the Dardenne brothers, Aki Kaurismäki, Paul Schrader
Spouse	Leidia van der Zee (m.1926) Marie-Madeleine van der Mersch

Robert Bresson (pronounced [ʁɔbɛʁ bʁɛˈsɔ̃] in French; 25 September 1901 – 18 December 1999) was a French film director known for his spiritual, ascetic style. He contributed notably to the art of film and influenced the French New Wave. He is often referred to as the most highly regarded French filmmaker after Jean Renoir^[3]. As Jean-Luc Godard said, "Robert Bresson is French cinema, as Dostoevsky is the Russian novel and Mozart is the German music."^[4]

Life and career[link]

Bresson was born at Bromont-Lamothe, Puy-de-Dôme, the son of Marie-Élisabeth (née Clausels) and Léon Bresson.^[5] Little is known of his early life, and the year of his birth – 1901 or 1907 – varies depending on the source. He was educated at Lycée Lakanal in Sceaux, Hauts-de-Seine, close to Paris, and turned to painting after graduating.^[6] Three formative influences in his early life seem to have a mark on his films - Catholicism, art and his experiences as a prisoner of war.

Initially also a photographer, Bresson made his first short film, Les affaires publiques (Public Affairs) in 1934. During World War II, he spent over a year in a prisoner-of-war camp - an experience which informs Un condamné à mort s'est échappé ou Le vent souffle où il veut (A Man Escaped). In a career that spanned fifty years, Bresson made only 13 feature-length films. This reflects his meticulous approach to the filmmaking process and his non-commercial preoccupations.^{[citation needed]} Difficulty finding funding for his projects was also a factor.

Themes[link]

This section needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (March 2009)

Bresson's early artistic focus was to separate the language of cinema from the theatre, which often heavily involves the actor's performance to drive the work. With his 'actor-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, and one that can only be found in the cinema. Some feel that Bresson's Catholic upbringing and belief system lie behind the thematic structure of most of his films.^[7] Recurring themes under this interpretation include salvation, redemption, defining and revealing the human soul, and metaphysical transcendence of a limiting and materialistic world. An example is his 1956 feature A Man Escaped, where a seemingly simple plot of a prisoner of war's escape can be read as a metaphor for the mysterious process of salvation.

Bresson's films can also be understood as critiques of French society and the wider world, with each revealing the director's sympathetic if unsentimental view on its victims. That the main characters of Bresson's most contemporary films, L'Argent and The Devil, Probably (1977), reach similarly unsettling conclusions about life indicates to some the director's feelings towards the culpability of modern society in the dissolution of individuals. Indeed, of an earlier protagonist he said, "Mouchette offers evidence of misery and cruelty. She is found everywhere: wars, concentration camps, tortures, assassinations."^[8] In 1975, Bresson published Notes sur le cinématographe (also published in English translation as Notes on the Cinematographer), in which he argues for a unique sense of the term "cinematography." For Bresson, cinematography is the higher function of cinema. Whereas a movie is in essence "only" filmed theatre, cinematography is an attempt to create a new language of moving images and sounds.

Legacy[link]

Worldwide[link]

Bresson is often referred to as a patron saint of cinema, not only for the strong Catholic themes found throughout his oeuvre, but also for his notable contributions to the art of film. His style can be detected through his use of sound, associating selected sounds with images or characters; paring dramatic form to its essentials by the spare use of music; and through his infamous 'actor-model' methods of directing his almost exclusively non-professional actors. He has influenced a number of other filmmakers, including Andrei Tarkovsky, Michael Haneke, Jim Jarmusch, the Dardenne brothers, Aki Kaurismäki, and Paul Schrader, whose book Transcendental Style in Film: Ozu, Bresson, Dreyer includes a detailed critical analysis. Andrei Tarkovsky^[9] held Bresson in very high regard, noting him and Ingmar Bergman as his two favourite filmmakers, stating "I am only interested in the views of two people: one is called Bresson and one called Bergman".^[10] In his book, Sculpting in Time, Tarkovsky describes Bresson as "perhaps the only artist in cinema, who achieved the perfect fusion of the finished work with a concept theoretically formulated beforehand."^[11]

Bresson's book Notes on the Cinematographer (1975) is one of the most respected books on film theory and criticism. His theories about film greatly influenced other filmmakers, such as the French New Wave directors

French Cinema and French New Wave[link]

Opposing the established pre-war French Cinema (Tradition de la Qualité) by offering his own personal responses to the question ‘what is cinema?’^[12], and by well-formulating his ascetic style, Bresson gained a high position among Founders of the French New Wave, such that he is often listed (along with Alexandre Astruc and André Bazin) as the main figures theoretically influenced the French New Wave. New Wave Pioneers often praised Bresson and posited him as a prototype for or precursor to the movement, although it must be ceded that Bresson was neither as overtly experimental nor as outwardly political as the New Wave filmmakers, and also his religious views (Catholicism and Jansenism) would not be attractive to most of the filmmakers associated with the movement.^[13]

In his development for Auteur Theory, François Truffaut lists Bresson among the main few directors the term "Auteur" can genuinely be applied to, and later names him as one of the only examples of directors who could approach even the so-called "unfilmable" scenes, using the film narrative at its disposal.^[14] Jean-Luc Godard also looked back at Bresson with high admiration, comparing his position in French Cinema with that of Dostoevsky in Russian Literature and Mozart in German Music (“Robert Bresson is French cinema, as Dostoevsky is the Russian novel and Mozart is the German music."^[15]) Screenwriter and director Alain Cavalier also describes Bresson's role pivotal not only in the New Wave movement, but for French Cinema in general, quoting "In French cinema you have a father and a mother: the father is Bresson and the mother is Renoir, with Bresson representing the strictness of the law and Renoir warmth and generosity. All the better French cinema has and will have to connect to Bresson in some way."^[16]

Quotes[link]

"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." -Robert Bresson^[17]

"When you do not know what you are doing and what you are doing is the best - that is inspiration." ^[18]

"The most ordinary word, when put into place, suddenly acquires brilliance. That is the brilliance with which your images must shine." ^[19]

"Cinema, radio, television, magazines are a school of inattention: people look without seeing, listen in without hearing." -Robert Bresson ^[20]

"Don't run after poetry. It penetrates unaided through the cracks." -Robert Bresson

Awards and nominations[link]

Robert Bresson was given the Career Golden Lion in 1989 by the Venice Film Festival

• Journal d'un curé de campagne (1951) - Diary of a Country Priest
  • Venice Film Festival International Award Winner
  • Venice Film Festival Italian Film Critics Award Winner
  • Venice Film Festival OCIC Award Winner
• Un condamné à mort s'est échappé ou Le vent souffle où il veut (1956) - A Man Escaped
  • Cannes Film Festival Prix de la mise en scène Winner
• Pickpocket (1959) - Pickpocket
  • Berlin Film Festival Golden Bear Nominee^[21]
• Procès de Jeanne d'Arc (1962) - The Trial of Joan of Arc
  • Cannes Film Festival Special Prix du Jury Winner
  • Cannes Film Festival OCIC Award Winner
• Au hasard Balthazar (1966) - Balthazar
  • Venice Film Festival OCIC Award Winner
  • Venice Film Festival Jury Hommage
• Mouchette (1967)
  • Cannes Film Festival OCIC Award Winner
  • Venice Film Festival Pasinetti Award Winner
• Quatre nuits d'un rêveur (1971) - Four Nights of a Dreamer
  • Berlin Film Festival OCIC Award Winner^[22]
• Lancelot du Lac (1974)- Lancelot of the Lake
  • Cannes Film Festival FIPRESCI Prize Winner (Bresson refused this award)
• Le diable probablement (1977) - The Devil Probably
  • Berlin Film Festival Silver Bear - Special Jury Prize.^[23]
  • Berlin Film Festival Interfilm Award Winner
  • Berlin Film Festival OCIC Award Winner
• L'argent (1983) - Money
  • Cannes Film Festival Prix de la mise en scène Winner

Filmography[link]

Feature films[link]

• Les Anges du péché (1943)
  • Angels of the Streets
• Les dames du Bois de Boulogne (1945)
  • The Ladies of the Bois de Boulogne
• Journal d'un curé de campagne (1951)
  • Diary of a Country Priest
• Un condamné à mort s'est échappé ou Le vent souffle où il veut (1956)
  • A Man Escaped
• Pickpocket (1959)
• Procès de Jeanne d'Arc (1962)
  • The Trial of Joan of Arc
• Au hasard Balthazar (1966)
  • Balthazar
• Mouchette (1967)
• Une femme douce (1969)
  • A Gentle Woman
• Quatre nuits d'un rêveur (1971)
  • Four Nights of a Dreamer
• Lancelot du Lac (1974)
  • Lancelot of the Lake
• Le diable probablement (1977)
  • The Devil Probably
• L'argent (1983)
  • Money

Short films[link]

• Les affaires publiques (1934)
  • Public Affairs

Bibliography[link]

By Robert Bresson[link]

• Notes sur le Cinématographe – translated as Notes on Cinematography and Notes on the Cinematographer in different English editions.

About Robert Bresson[link]

• Robert Bresson: A Passion for Film by Tony Pipolo (Oxford University Press; 407 pages; 2010) pays particular attention to psychosexual aspects of the French filmmaker's 13 features, from Les Anges du peche (1943) to L'Argent (1983).
• La politique des auteurs, edited by André Bazin.
• Robert Bresson (Cinematheque Ontario Monographs, No. 2), edited by James Quandt
• Transcendental Style in Film: Bresson, Ozu, Dreyer by Paul Schrader
• Robert Bresson: A Spiritual Style in Film, by Joseph Cunneen
• Robert Bresson, by Philippe Arnauld, Cahiers du cinema, 1986
• The Films of Robert Bresson, Ian Cameron (ed.), New York: Praeger Publishers, 1969.
• Robert Bresson, by Keith Reader, Manchester University Press, 2000.
• "Robert Bresson", a poem by Patti Smith from her 1978 book Babel
• "Spiritual style in the films of Robert Bresson", a chapter in Susan Sontag's Against Interpretation and other essays, New York: Picador, 1966.
• Robert Bresson (Revised), James Quandt (ed), Cinematheque Ontario Monographs, 2012 (752 pages) (ISBN: 978-0-9682969-5-0)

See also[link]

	Book: Robert Bresson
Wikipedia books are collections of articles that can be downloaded or ordered in print.

• French New Wave
• Cinema of France
• Auteur Theory

References[link]

External links[link]

Informational[link]

• Robert Bresson at the Internet Movie Database
• Robert-Bresson.com: Resource dedicated to Bresson's films
• A Bresson bibliography (2008)
• Article about the cinema of Robert Bresson
• RobertBresson.org: Videos, Books, Notes... (French)

Interviews[link]

• Interview with Bresson (1970)
• Interview footage with Bresson from French TV in 1960
• Inside Bresson's L'Argent: Interview with Crew-member Jonathan Hourigan, by Colin Burnett