Like Une femme douce, The Devil, Probably begins with an unexplained death and looks backwards in an attempt to make sense of the tragedy. The film is weighed down by all of the troubles of its time with discussion of politics, ecology, and philosophy. It is fitting that a film so charged would be Bresson’s most formally daring, as we see diegetic documentary footage cut in. The final product, though, remains as meditative as one would expect.

Capturing the Real: Four by Robert Bresson – Programmed by: Vaughn Jarvi
Co-sponsored by the France Chicago Center and the Consulate General of France in Chicago

Robert Bresson, a filmmaker of immense formal discipline, created one of cinema’s most singular oeuvres over a career of fifty years. A theorist of cinema from his earliest projects, Bresson greatly respected literature and theater, but aimed to distance himself from them in directing films: he spoke often of the clarifying nature of the camera, of the life breathed from “images, voices, sounds, silence.” His films approach the suffering of characters within a broken world, but are never despairing: life and grace are sought after, in spite of darkness.

This series provides a cursory look at Bresson through his Diary of a Country Priest (which established much of his filmmaking philosophy and style) and three lesser-seen films. Through his works, we may see Bresson for all his nuances: as a director who relied on the restrained gestures of non-actors yet described his films as being primarily “of feelings and of action,” or as a creator of great formal precision who saw improvisation as a necessity. In these four, we observe the director’s approach extended to a number of subjects, and a base interest in the expression of his own emotions regarding these them. Bresson’s films could be described as bare, but it is these quietly beautiful creations that allow us to richly see his own care and conviction — we watch as he seeks “the real,” the eye of his camera mimicking our own.