5 posts tagged “bresson”
It's a strange movie - some say it parallels the two stories - that of a poor girl of a proud father who falls in with a group of ruffians and loses her way, (if not more) and that of a donkey that goes from owner to owner suffering varying forms and degrees of abuse.
The girl picked the donkey out of a flock when young with a boy who said he would always lover her at her side.
Now, this happens some times, but I liked this movie and I can't tell you why. I sat there watching it, wondering what would happen next, my full attention on the plight of these two rather pedestrian characters. It was nice. It hasn't happened in a while.
Bresson is still framing low and tight with big contrasty sources. It's beautiful black-and-white cinematography. One huge mistake however, occurs right at the end. I can't tell you of the image,beyond that it is wonderful, but during this final exterior moving shot, someone steps in and gets their shadow on the bottom right hand side of the screen. Totally blows it. Makes you think someone is going to come to the rescue.
Bresson loves framing out faces and then putting them dead center in the next shot. He focuses on wheels, feet, legs, any thing but a face; and then he squares up a face in the next frame. He rarely offers a wide shot, but he does so more often in this film than in most of his previous work.
And, I recommend watching it knowing that he has a sense of humor. Sometimes I watch a French film, particularly one in black and white, and I think it's all seriousness. Bresson lets us know right off the bat that he can kid around - the braying of a mule interrupts and becomes a response to a Schubert sonata during the opening sequence.
Unbelievable.
Excellent movie. But, I couldn't tell you why. It's the same things - I don't know why I want to know what's going to happen next to these characters, but it's riveting.
The first thing you notice is the hard shadow and lack of fill lighting to complete the image. But, this done on the cheap, DIY and all, and so, one wonders what criticisms one should lay bare.
The truth of the matter is, one light isn't that much less expensive to use than two and tow lights looks five times better than one light. Of particular importance is using the limited assets creatively. For instance, and this is just one, after the heroine discovers her friend passed-out in the front seat of her truck and helps her up, it was obvious that you needed exposure. But one thing beginners often forget is that exposure counts all over the frame. Yes, the rich expose the subjects of the frame But us poor folk have to expose other things as well as time and budget allows. So, in this shot, she's helping her friend from the car and into her apartment across a darkened yard, but IN FRONT OF a darkened house. Solution? Turn on the lights in the house- the background lights - thereby exposing their respective shapes in sillhouette. It's exposure in the frame. Murky is not a look, its holes in your shoes.
Got to figure out ways to fill those holes.
But, it was an original movie with a great idea. A very charming and thoughtful approach by the lead actress.
Absolutely worth seeing. Watch for hte green t-shirt macguffin. nice work there too
One of Bresson's earlier films, it again holds it's hero closely, more so than before with Diary of a Country Priest, I think. One of the first things you notice is that Bresson isn't going to show us what we expect, and we won't know what to expect becuase of it - it immediately gets us off balance. All we see of a robbery is the dough, all we know about the heroes back story is that it was something remarkable. The hero is moving deftly through our emotional audience, picking up what he wanst, his technique is his only exposure. He shows us how its done, and that's about all we get.
Until the third act, when we finally get what really made this sociopath tic. SPOILERS- He wanted nothing more than to succeed on some level for his mother, impress the girl and make good. It wasn't just a life of thievery that led him astray, but one of false philosophy. He was a psuedo intellectual with a desire to stay away from society.
But, like all the smart ones, he wanted to dare them to catch him and we all know how that ends.
But, he gets his love in a way in the end, and it's all hopeful and stuff.
Again, we stick with the medium shots and close ups. Bresson always plays it close to the chest it seems. His most dramatic framings seem to be the crowded long shot and the filled wide shot in an interior. Mostly, it's medium close and two shot wide.
The lighting stuck with hard contrast and naturalistic. In the black and white with the simple camera moves, it worked. I can see where Harneke and Jarmusch are influenced by him. It is fun to watch a smart man get turned around, here it's largely his own doing, but you can feel the desolation of the economic world hanging on this smart, young man's shoulders. He got dug into the dumb trenches, he comes home, a supposed smarty and can't eat unless he figures something out.
But, he ends up with the good blue collar girl who wasn't in love 'enough' with his straight-shooting pal.
I'm looking forward to more from Bresson, but up next is "Funny HA HA" a little DIY indie I've heard a lot about.
FLOG- Really just thoughts for me that I'm sharing. Not to be read as any sort of 'film writing' or criticism.
Bresson does it again. It's a shame that this filmmaker is so well known to critics and scholars and filmschool kids (sometimes) and not to more film story lovers. Anyway, again camera movement that's decades ahead of it's time, tight, complex moves that keep the focus on the hero. Contrasty lighting, big sources. Again, the focus is always on the hero. It's a simple story - a man imprisoned in a German jail plans to escape. What makes this such a good movie is how well Bresson keeps us focused on the story of the escape. It's been done a hundred times since, but here, we never leave his face.
My ability to complete a coherent thought is leaving me. He keeps us focused on the moral dilemmas as well as the physical risks involved. He has us asking "what's going to happen next?" when we know that all he's going to try to do is escape. It's really great minimalist story telling. Writers of all kind would be wise to watch and learn. I'm impressed.
FLOG- Really just thoughts for me that I'm sharing. Not to be read as any sort of 'film writing' or criticism.
Claustrophobic witch-hunt. The camera movement that you wouldn't see in hllywd for decades. Big, single source lighting and almost entirely medium close-up. What makes it great? Tragedy that survives the ages, storytelling of a kind that we rarely get to see done well. ***********SPOILER ALERT*************** When the main character, the hero, dies in a movie, it's always difficult to make the audience feel that sense of relief, expulsion you feel at the end of a really good story. It gets tried frequently, notice the number of remakes of 'Joan of Arc'. But, with rare exception, tragedy fails. Here, I think it succeeds. Why? Not necessarily because the priest is likeable, but because we can see ourselves in his heroic shoes. He has set out to save someone who might not deserve it, whom we certainly believe won't accept it and who then dies saved, completing a rare success in the priest's life. esp. this one. That Bresson is able to hold our attention - with some investment early on, to be sure - is remarkable. It breaks many rules of film story-telling. Voice over, death of the hero, passive first-person narration. But, where it succeeds is in keeping it about fighting the good fight. One man against the onslaught of small town small-mindedness. That's something we all aspire to, to be wiling to die in the fight for justice.
