Bresson presents a world of extreme excess, wrought, paradoxically, through absence. He strips his scenes to the bones to make them feel fuller; uses hesitant non-actors to get better performances; and frequently employs sound without images so we perceive vision itself. His technique is a sort of Michael Bay in reverse, where Bresson casts a naïve and unflinchingly earnest attention to the least flashy and simplest actions—the light touch of a dying mother or the flowing of a river—in order that they be thrown at the viewer with the disorienting force of concrete bricks falling to the pavement.
In his 1975 published work, Notes on Cinematography, Bresson stated that his reason for making movies was to startle and surprise himself, to escape the boredom of being a mere “executant of my own projects.” He hoped to find “for each shot, a new pungency over and above what I have imagined. Invention (re-invention) on the spot.” Since the great moments of life for Bresson were these moments where he himself became surprised by potencies he didn’t know were present, his characters (and the viewers) come to embody the same desire.
The camera’s unblinking focus on the aspects of life often taken for granted is a way to remind his characters, himself and the viewer that potential and possibility are present in every moment and every space—hence the preponderance of lingering shots that feature empty rooms, bare feet in mid-step, and faces unsure of expression. His characters typically begin burdened by enormous crises and living like automaton unhappily chained to their fate, until they come to be possessed by the same overwhelming epiphanies of awareness that the camera captures.
For some characters, this awareness is not as accessible as it could be. Bresson’s 1977 film, The Devil, Probably, depicts a scene following a couple’s quarrel. The lingering camera captures the perfect stillness of the room; white curtains billow in a small breeze, the sun comes in. The audience realizes that if the characters had been paying attention to what was happening in the room and how it could have been felt by them, they might have experienced something beautiful—and hopped into the waiting double bed with the cotton sheets. The only real devil here, probably, is ourselves—which most of his main characters realize eventually. By relinquishing their hatred, fear or worry, life becomes new and beautiful.
It is in this sense that his films are ‘spiritual’ and ‘idealistic’. At their best, they show men and women becoming possessed with a newfound sense of vibrancy. As Bresson said of his characters, “the thing that matters is not what they show me but what they hide from me and, above all, what they do not suspect is in them.” The power and excitement of this discovery is the great achievement that Bresson’s films bring to life again and again.
Poetry of Precision: the Films of Robert Bresson is ongoing until March 30. Visit tiff.net to check programming schedule.
