He often elided scenes and details that other directors might well not have done without. He also began to make changes to his filmmaking methods, paring down his visual style, and finding beauty in what he described as “necessary” images, often making the soundtrack do as much work as the visuals. Bresson’s Catholic upbringing was on display here as it would be in his later films, exploring the possibility of grace in some at first surprising subjects. (It became his first film to secure a UK commercial cinema release, in 1953.) The story of the young priest of the title (Claude Laydu) who struggles to fulfil his duties in a small village, despite the indifference if not hostility of the villagers and increasing illness. Diary won the Grand Prize at the Venice Film Festival (along with an award for Léonce-Henri Burel’s cinematography) and established Bresson’s reputation. This was an adaptation of a novel by Georges Bernanos, another of whose novels Bresson would adapt in 1967 as Mouchette. (Neither of these two features appear to have had UK commercial releases at the time of their making, with Dames appearing in 1967 and Anges not until 1987, presumably in the light of Bresson’s later fame.)īresson’s next film was Diary of a Country Priest ( Journal d’un curé de campagne, 1951). However, this was a practice Bresson was soon to move away from. Both of these were studio productions with professional actors. It was followed by Les dames du Bois de Bologne (1945). His first was Les anges du péché, set in a convent which rehabilitates female prisoners. World War II intervened, and Bresson was a prisoner of war for over a year, an experience which may have informed one of his greatest films, A Man Escaped ( Un condamné à mort s'est échappé ou Le vent souffle où il veut, 1956). It’s hardly representative of Bresson’s later works, and he was given to asking for audiences’ indulgence when it was shown as he had been a young man at the time. Pickpocket is one of Bresson’s major works.īresson began as a painter, and made his first film in 1934, a comedy short, Les affaires publiques. Not least of these was Paul Schrader, who contributes to the present disc’s extras, of which more below. Although his output was relatively sparse – one short film in 1934 then thirteen features between 19 – its impact and influence on other filmmakers has been profound. Robert Bresson (1901-1999, though some sources give his birth year as 1907), was one of the major filmmakers of the cinema’s first century. Meanwhile, while visiting his ill mother, Michel meets Jeanne (Marika Green). Arrested but released for insufficient evidence, Michel falls in with a gang of pickpockets who teach him their trade. Michel (Martin LaSalle) is a young man who picks a spectator’s pocket at a horse race. Robert Bresson’s PICKPOCKET, one of his greatest and most influential films, comes to Blu-ray as the first of three Bresson releases from the BFI.
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