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The Essence of Forms

The Essence of Forms
Robert Bresson deforms the sense(s)

"Nicodemus said unto him,
'How can a man be born when he is old?

Can he enter a second time
into his mother's womb and be born?

Jesus answered, 'Do not marvel that
I said to you, You must be born again.

The wind blows where it wishes,
and you hear the sound of it,

but cannot tell where it comes from
and where it goes.'"

You hear me?
- I'm listening.

Fire!

I have the feeling that Bresson...

wouldn't appreciate
having one of his "models"...

speak about his film.

I don't think he'd have liked that.

Anyway, it's part of a greater problem:

Would he have liked...

having DVD bonus material?

I don't think so.

I think Bresson...

would certainly have preferred

his films to be shown
on a big screen in a movie theater.

The idea of them being watched
on a small TV screen

or even a cell phone

definitely wouldn't have pleased him.

That's all. But since we must,

I'm happy to talk about his film.

But I needed to explain that,
in memory of Bresson.

I don't consider him an outsider.
He was an insider.

Inside the system,

he really shook up...

the established conventions of film.

- Was he a rebel?
- Absolutely.

He was a rebel,
and he remained a rebel.

We saw several films together.
He never liked them.

We'd do some location scouting,
then go to the movies.

He'd quiver in his seat, muttering,

"How can they do such things?"

It didn't seem bad to me.

Plus, I'd take him to see
what I considered "good films."

He was never —

Watching the films of others...

was hard for him, I think.

It all stemmed from that.

He'd pondered over the essence of film

and realized cinema

was neither a novel nor a play on film.

It was something else,

more related to music
and painting.

At first, he wanted to be a painter.

He painted a lot, and quite well.

I remember, one day
when we were talking about cinema,

he said, "You know, Pierre" —

Preparing a film, you share
exceptional moments with directors.

What follows is generally
less exceptional

and less pleasant!

Preparing a film is the part of our job

that's under a lucky star.

One day he said, "You know, Pierre" —

we were talking about painting —

"I really loved painting,

but no one ever saw my work.

Perhaps I make films
so people see my work."

Whether we use painting,
the pictorial form, or the filmic form,

the form is the force.

Consider van Gogh's vision
of a poppy field. It's quite distinctive.

It's no longer a poppy field.

The subject disappears,
or rather, it's deformed by the form.

The way he distorts the poppies

lets us feel the man
seeing those poppies.

We feel —

They are no longer poppies.

I mean sunflowers.
They are no longer sunflowers.

It's something else.
It's the man's heart.

He's closer to his heart

painting sunflowers

than if he tried to express
his inner feelings

which he can't paint.
Bresson does the same thing.

His great strength is he realized...

the subject must be very simple.

The great films always have
a very simple subject, a clear story.

The simpler it is, the greater
the possibilities for mise-en-scène.

Your turn. Go down.

It's an easy film to watch.

A child could understand it.
A condemned prisoner escapes.

It's suspenseful —
Will he escape?

He's condemned,
so if he doesn't, he'll die.

We know that.
Will he succeed?

It's such a mainstream story,

but it has a spiritual impact

which comes from the mise-en-scène,

not from the story.

It was a great pleasure

to see how this man and I

managed to create the shots.

He had an idea for the shot,

his script was very precise,

but our challenge was to pare an image

down to its essence,

to show only what is needed,

nothing else.

We stripped each shot
down to the bone.

It was the fruit
of multiple requirements.

The pace of the dolly shot,

the use of only one focal length,

the way he positioned
the actors' eye lines,

the way one shot followed the next.

He used all these ideas
to create a fluid mise-en-scène.

He was constantly on guard
for anything jarring.

Not jarring like this,
not in the usual sense,

but anything that interfered
with the project.

It's really impressive.

The asceticism, the starkness.

The humility.
It's an ascetic mind-set.

You could consider it

liturgical cinema.

It's a ritual.
The shots repeat like a rite.

Often, scenes are repeated.

We hear the same sounds.

The whole film

takes place in one setting.

There's only a few sounds,
no more than four or five,

over its 90 minutes.

The strength of the film...

lies in its single-minded fixation.

It uses simple images,

clearly defined and repeated.

But it deepens with each repetition,

for the mise-en-scène
constantly changes.

The corporal slept on the ground floor
near the door to which he had the key.

This door remained locked
throughout the night.

I visualized every possibility
and even what was impossible.

I devised a thousand plans,
but acted on none.

In the prison yard,
when they empty the buckets,

the seemingly repetitive shots
are never the same.

It's incredible.

It expresses their captivity,
lack of freedom,

how they are forced
to repeat the same motions

to avoid attracting
the guards' attention,

yet at the same time,

the tiny daring actions,

like at the sink,
"Quiet!"—

Quiet! No talking!

The tiny changes, an iota of change

that destabilizes

the repetitive nature of prison life.

You see it in the films
of Dreyer, Jean Epstein,

that whole tradition
of mystical filmmakers.

All of their mise-en-scène is —
Dreyer's films are incredibly austere.

My only reservation about Bresson

is he's always made out to be

a pioneer,
as if everything started with him,

when in fact,

he's the spiritual son
of other filmmakers.

He is part of that history.

He's influenced by Dreyer,
by Epstein,

by all those directors of the past

whose films
his work is rooted in.

We need to pay homage
where homage is due,

not just to Robert Bresson.

Once I was there

when they screened some edited scenes.

Bresson never entered the editing room.

After the dailies,
he had them screen what they'd edited.

With the editor, he'd watch
bits of what had been edited.

Once, I stayed with them.

After watching three minutes
of what had been edited,

he said to the editor,
"You're totally off track.

Reedit it for tomorrow."

Without any further explanation.

"You don't understand
what I want to express."

The editor redid it,
and the next day it was a bit better,

and that's how they worked.

Bresson told me once,

"What matters

isn't one shot or the other.

It's where the two shots meet.

That expresses everything."

Shot A with Shot B
expresses one thing.

Shot A with Shot C is totally different.

He always said,
"Geneviève, think of how they join."

Bresson used very brief shots.

Look at his scripts.
The shots are very short.

What mattered to him
was the "joint" between two shots.

In general, he used brief shots.
Always shot with a 50mm.

He used one focal length.

50mm.

It comes closest to human eyesight.

He never ceased to amaze me

with this 50mm,

which fit his vision of things.

It was his vision,
how he saw things,

so the 50mm was always
glued to the camera.

But this restriction
gave him ideas for mise-en-scène,

for staging.

It emphasized gestures.

If you can't fit the gesture
and the face in the same frame,

you have to choose:
The gesture or the face.

This restriction gives you a freedom

you don't have when you're "free"
to use other possibilities.

That's impressive.

He tried to find

the perfect detail.

The marvelous thing
is he tried to discover

the link between reality

and his characters' inner world.

I think it really simplified his stories.

By that I mean,
he wouldn't film what happened —

he preferred to film the interior echo

of what a character saw happen.

I knew they conducted executions
within the prison compound.

A crazy thought crossed my mind.

In the cell,

he cuts the scene into many shots,

even though it's a small room.

The images have a rhythm

which is extraordinary,
and it's very clever

how they evoke
the meticulousness of his escape plans.

The image expresses his mind-set.

He's a meticulous man.

He prepares his escape
with utter concentration.

The prisoner's mind-set

is expressed by the mise-en-scène.

We see it in the way
the scene is constructed.

It allows us to enter Fontaine's mind.

What he's actually expressing
is the spirit.

Showing the prisoner's

escape efforts in great detail

evokes something deeper,
of spiritual import.

It evokes...

optimism, faith in the future,

in opportunities,
in the strength of willpower.

I see him as a Christian director.

The best way to understand his work
is through his mind-set,

the mind-set of his films.

He's always labeled himself
a Catholic filmmaker,

so his films are Catholic films,

but that's great.

The image, the sound, the actors,

all evoke a spiritual asceticism,
a Christian asceticism,

through which he expresses...

his spirituality,
and notably, his faith.

You, too, Mr. Blanchet,
should fight and hope.

Hope for what?

To go home, to be free.

Free?

- Somebody waiting for you?
- Nobody.

A friend?

I don't have friends.

Fight anyway.
Fight for everyone here.

Plus, it helps.
If you only look out for yourself...

What else are you doing?

I think of you, Mr. Blanchet,
and it gives me courage.

I'd just finished my military service.
Back then, it lasted two years.

I wanted to work in film,

to get a job as a screenwriter,

and some friends sent me to see

a producer named Jean Thuillier.

He was producing A Man Escaped,

and he told me that Bresson
needed an actor.

I'd never wanted to be an actor

or act in a film,

but I thought it'd be
an interesting experience.

I went to our appointment
on the Île Saint-Louis,

and I met Robert Bresson.

He said, "Let's try a few things."

He had me do a reading using dialogue
from Les Anges du péché.

I remember some of it.

"Mother Mary thinks
dust on the furniture shocks God."

Oddly,

in Anne Wiazemsky's book

on her experiences with Bresson,

she mentions something quite similar.

She met Bresson on Île Saint-Louis,

and he had her read the same dialogue

from Anges du péché.

I assume this dialogue
was important to him.

It allowed him to judge

the latent possibilities
of the person reading it.

Since I don't have a script,

I think Bresson didn't give it to me.

Maybe he didn't want me to know

what would happen next.

Yes, I do the same thing.

- That's why I —
- Yes, I totally understand.

I used to give actors scripts.

I saw the disasters... it caused,

so I no longer do that.

Actors don't need to know.

Actors should act without necessarily
understanding what they're doing.

This misunderstanding or ignorance

very often intensifies
the viewer's perception.

It raises the viewer.

Otherwise, it's just an actor
reciting lines.

It bores me.

Bresson never gave me a direction

in terms of emotion or feeling.

He'd say, "Move from here to there,"

"Look here, then there."

And we'd do it over
until it was exactly how he wanted.

But he never said,
"In this shot, he's angry." Never.

He never gave directions
about interiority

the way other directors
do on their films,

telling actors,
"Give it more feeling."

No. Absolutely not.

I think we discover

that we need to find new ways
of directing an actor,

something besides realism.

We try substituting expressions,

reversing things.

The more things we invert,

the more surprising the effect.

We need surprise. It's part of cinema.
We say, "Isn't that strange?"

"Isn't that strange?"

We move away from realism and reality.

The only way to do it is
by finding substitutes for acting.

When he attacks the guard,
his hands are like this,

like Nosferatu.

It's totally surrealistic,

the position of his hands.

The position of the hands
expresses his character's ugliness,

his capacity to kill.

It's done very simply.
He doesn't need to film the murder.

It's yet another evocation.

He leaves the rest to our imagination,
and that's where it unfurls.

Using the viewer's imagination
is much more effective

than showing...

the guard being attacked,
or rather, murdered.

He meticulously described
each action of the actor.

If he was to pick up a glass like this,

it was like this,
not like this.

Each movement had been analyzed.

The pace of each movement too.

It was totally controlled,

due to his constant worry
of betraying the subject.

Everyone knew that Bresson did
25, 30, 40, 50 takes.

In Au hasard Balthazar

for a shot

with two or three words,
we did...

more than 50 takes.

He doesn't direct the actors,

or rather,
the people playing the character.

They have a line.

He says, "Okay, say your line."

"No, do it again."

The cameraman says,
"It's good for camera."

"No, do it again."

He doesn't give any directions,

just does it until the actors are worn out.

He told me, "In real life,

when you say, 'I'll buy some bread,'
did you think about it first?

No, you say it naturally,
as naturally as walking.

That's what I want."

He waits until the actors
are so worn out

that they say their lines
without thinking.

When he got here,
we thought he'd go mad.

And now he's just another man.

His face shows neither hatred
nor even suffering anymore.

He's called Orsini.

Actors don't like to do things
over and over. They tire quickly,

so there's always some tension.

But it's up to the director
to impose that discipline.

It's a disciplined film.

It's very strict.

It's utterly austere.

It couldn't possibly
have been fun to make.

Once shooting wrapped,

we had to do the sound.

All the sound was postsynchronized.

You've done your duty.
That will help you hold out.

Look.

There's something called
a rythmo band.

In the recording studio,

they project the film with your lines

on a band in sync with the image.

By following that pace,

your voice would match
your lip movements on-screen.

Bresson didn't do it that way.

Alone in the studio,

Bresson watched the scene

and said the lines in his head.

Look.

Once he'd decided
the rhythm of the phrase

to be recorded,

we stopped everything.

You'd been waiting outside.
Now you could enter the studio.

He said the phrase for you
and you repeated it.

You've done your duty.
That will help you hold out.

It took time.
You might repeat it 40, 50, 60 times

until he got what he wanted.

You've done your duty.
That will help you hold out.

I remember doing lines over and over.

A famous one was,
"Go to bed and sleep."

He says it to his young cell mate.

I must have done it 60, 80 times.

But without getting any direction.

I said, "Go to bed and sleep,"
Bresson said, "No."

I'd repeat, "Go to bed and sleep,"
"No."

He didn't tell me
what I was doing wrong.

He waited until the phrase came out —

Go to bed and sleep.

the way he imagined it.

It's time to be quiet now.

He went to great lengths.

Once the sound was postsynchronized,

it had to be edited.

Lamy, an excellent editor,
tore his hair out

because Bresson had five or six good takes
of the same phrase,

but he'd say,
"Use the 'I' from the third take,

the 'am' from the second take" —

Word by word.

Bresson wanted him
to take words from different takes.

They'll release you.

No.

- What can I do for you?
- Nothing.

There's always something.

If you listen carefully,

you can hear it on certain lines.

You must understand.

I'm free to say yes or no.

Now you know everything.

I know everything?

Enough.

The acting will always bother me,

the way he had them speak
with such flat voices.

He made them flat
because they couldn't speak as well as he.

When he picked up the script
and read the lines,

it was absolutely fantastic.

His voice has such musicality,
such perfect tone.

The investigation of your case
has been concluded, Lt. Fontaine.

The charges of espionage and planning
a bomb attack are punishable by death.

Accordingly, you will be
executed by firing squad.

Just listen to him speak!
It's such a treat.

When he'd say dialogue
for his "models,"

his voice was perfect,

but the others couldn't reproduce
one-tenth of that perfection.

That's why he couldn't stand actors,

because an actor
can't stop himself from acting.

He couldn't. Actors go crazy
if they have to be absolutely neutral.

It's totally abnormal.

It's true, in other films,
actors never speak like in Bresson's films.

In real life, no one speaks like
in Bresson's films.

The night was dark.

The following night
would be darker still.

It had to be tomorrow.

But in my opinion,

he gave up working with actors

because actors added things
that he didn't want.

They added intention.
He didn't want any intention,

"Except mine!"

Intention is the worst thing.

It's a truly great film

because intention has disappeared.

Everything is one with the story.

It's just the story,
not the person filming the story.

Bresson has disappeared
in the midst of the story he's telling.

That's a masterpiece.

There's nothing worse
than intention.

Mouchette.

That was my second film.

Already, I'd been 1st AD
on Au hasard Balthazar.

The gamekeeper said,
"Where are you going, Mouchette?"

And Robert Bresson asked,
"Why do you say it like a question?"

I'm not trying to say,
"That's how he is,"

but in a way, that says it all.

No feeling.
"Where are you going Mouchette." Period.

He tells his actors
not to look at each other.

Exchanging a look
can charge a scene

with intention that is misplaced.

For example, I can speak
without looking at you.

- You mean between actors?
- Yes, in certain scenes

so a look
doesn't take on an undue importance.

How do we stop a look
from having undue importance?

We need to refer to the editing lesson
of that Russian, what's his name?

- Eisenstein.
- No, not him.

It's something with "effect."
The Kuleshov Effect. That's it.

You must take a huge risk.
You subdivide the means of expression,

taking a huge risk
when finalizing the film.

If everything comes together
while shooting,

you're probably not making a film

because it's already done.

You have to take a huge risk
in your mise-en-scène while shooting.

You are preparing
your future means of expression

for the final edit,

but it must be separate.

If you edit while you shoot,

there's nothing left to edit.

He must have intuited it,

for he directed his actor to be neutral.

His expression never changes.

I could finally relax
my stiff arms and wrists.

I felt a sudden sense of victory.

In his narration,
he expresses joy and pain,

like when he learns he's condemned
or his friend will be shot.

Yet his expression never changes.

Terry's departure and the death
of a comrade I had never seen

left me in distress.

It's evoked by the sound of gunshots,

and that's what makes it exceptional,
it's evoked by other things.

The sound doesn't copy the image,
it plays another role.

For example,

when Fontaine expresses joy,
it's in his voice, we don't see his face.

His surprise pleased me.

He says he is happy
because he found a way,

but it's not expressed
with his face,

only his voice.

It's like the sound effects —
the passing of a train or a tram.

It's a sort of a counterpoint to the image.

It's never redundant.
They never express the same thing.

It gives the film an incredible depth.

What's the matter?

The sounds were entirely redone in post.

I was lucky enough to be present

at Poste Parisien on the Champs-Élysées
in the recording studio.

Daniel Couteau did the sound effects
and he was excellent.

He did the sound effects on all his films.

I watched them work on the scene

where Fontaine tosses his hook
over the guard's path

and it gets caught on a wire.

A sound was needed
for the vibration of the wire.

Bresson had
a very specific sound in mind.

It took almost an entire day.

Couteau tried wires, cables,
all sorts of things.

He made them vibrate.

He even tried violin strings.

He experimented all day
until they finally found it.

In the film,
that sound is of great importance

because it could've alerted the guards.

This man had to disappear.

It's totally surrealistic

in the sense
that it isn't realistic at all.

And yet it uses "real" elements
like a train whistle.

It's an expressionist film.

It's totally abstract.

And I think the choice of abstraction
in the mise-en-scène

is what gives it its depth.

It'd be impossible with location sound.

Location sound gives such a sense
of reality that you can't get past it.

Here, he takes the risk
of using only one sound and one voice.

A combination of two sounds, no more.

Reality is never like that.
Its sounds are so complex...

that he needs to make them abstract.

The character's spiritual tension
is expressed in his actions.

If it wasn't, we'd just be watching
a guy trying to escape.

Who cares about that?

It's a way for the film

to express something mystical,

our need to try to escape,
to believe in tomorrow.

I didn't know anything
about the film industry.

I'd never been on a film set before,

so I didn't realize...

Certain members of the crew told me,
"It's usually not like this, you know."

"We don't usually do things this way."

For them, it was very different

than shooting a "normal" film.

He emanated a great sense of calm.

He was very nice,

very courteous to everyone,

but he could also spend two hours
on his own to think,

figuring out how to do a certain shot
and so on.

But we had to keep still.

It wasn't like on other sets,

while lighting is being done,
assistants start chatting and joking.

No way!

The set was absolutely calm.

It creates an incredible tension

not to know what to do,
not being allowed to move, and so on.

It's the only film that when
shooting wrapped, I was exhausted.

Not physically,
but psychologically.

Utterly exhausted from nervous tension.

It wasn't like a shoot with Claude Sautet

with sudden fits of anger.

Although there was some on Lancelot.
That wasn't so calm.

Otherwise, you were under
constant nervous tension

if you were invested in the film.

You could wait up to two hours...

for him to make a decision.

On Lancelot,
he told them to set up a dolly shot —

How the crew grumbled! —

in the woods.

It was a fairly long dolly shot.

He had them change its position
three times

because once the track had been laid,
he saw it wasn't what he wanted.

In addition, we were shooting outside,
so as the sun moved,

the lighting also changed,
and he didn't like it anymore.

"Move everything back six feet."
The grips were furious.

I knew one from a previous film,
and he was at his wit's end.

They were at their wits' end because

unless you accept his logic,

you can't understand why
an entire dolly track is moved six feet,

and if that's not right,
it's moved again

and it take five hours to do one shot.

Some were for him,
some against him.

Those on his side

are attentive to every word he says,

they don't get upset if he's already

moved the camera
six or seven times,

each time by two inches.

They understood.

It's not quite right,
and with a tiny change, it's better.

They realize it's not because
he doesn't know what he's doing.

It's because he knows how to look,
how to choose,

and he knows
this isn't where he wants it.

Moving the camera eight inches to the right
changes everything.

The ones against him think,

"The old geezer still doesn't know
what he wants."

I've heard people say that,
but I won't name names!

They warned me,
"He is constantly redoing shots."

"What do you mean?"
"He redoes shots.

He's not happy with them.
We don't always know why.

But he redoes shots.
So be ready to redo shots."

Producers hated that.

He had a close call with Alain Poiré.

Was it in Lyon?
No, Paris. On a soundstage.

Certain shots had been planned that day
in the shooting schedule,

but Bresson said,
"We're not doing that,

I saw the dailies
and I want to redo certain shots."

The production supervisor said,
"It will cause trouble."

"I don't care."

So we started doing a reshoot
of a shot we'd already done.

As we were setting up the shot,

someone ran in and said,
"Alain Poiré from Gaumont is here.

He's coming to the set."

It'd be a disaster
if he saw us doing reshoots.

In three minutes, we set up
the shots we were supposed to be doing

and pretended to shoot them.

So when Alain Poiré arrived,

we were "shooting" what we were
supposed to, perfectly on schedule.

We weren't really filming
because the lighting was all wrong.

Poiré was very pleased.

As soon as he left,
we went back to doing the other shot.

Doing reshoots is fine,

but he had limited shooting time,
like everyone.

I asked him,
during Au hasard Balthazar,

"Mr. Bresson,

I don't understand. The shooting schedule
is much too short to do everything we need.

From experience, you know how long
it takes you to do a shot."

"Yes, I know."

"Then why did you accept
this shooting schedule?"

"If I refused,
saying I needed two more weeks,

the film would never get made.

I signed the shooting schedule.
I'll sign whatever they ask.

But in the midst of shooting,
if we're a week behind schedule,

I modified it.
What can they do?"

I liked working with him.

I think he really needed someone

who understood his worries

and could also reassure him.

One Saturday he said,
"Geneviève, I'd like to speak to you.

Come see me
after everyone goes home."

I thought, "It's over.

Did I make some huge mistake
or he doesn't like me? What is it?"

When I went to see him,
I was pretty worried.

I didn't show it, but I was.

He said, "I asked to talk to you
because since I've gotten to know you.

I get the feeling you understand...
what I'm trying to do."

I'd seen all his films,
and I told him I found them fiery.

People generally found them ice-cold.

He said, "After two weeks of shooting,

I'm totally lost.

I'm full of doubts.

So I need to talk to you" —

To be reassured.

I was really surprised
a director like him had doubts.

But now I believe all the great ones
doubt their work.

Perhaps you've seen that?

I think a great painter

must suddenly doubt
his painting or technique.

He had doubts.

The risks he takes to privilege
form over content are amazing.

Today, it's the opposite.
It's what I call "filmed theater."

The content dominates.

Most directors are mere drudges,
just following along. They do nothing.

But he takes enormous risks
in terms of stylistic invention.

To the form, he gives —

He lets the form shine,

but only to express the content,
and suddenly, it does.

His films have an incredible depth

which "filmed theater" lacks,
despite a similar style.

It's probably his purest film,

the most pared-down and concentrated

of either his previous
or subsequent works.

His later films
aren't as concentrated.

They aren't as pure.

I think at that moment
he'd found his true path.

It's the sort of film
that no one wants to see,

but if you make them watch it,

they'll be fascinated.

But they must be forced.

One of my kids,

he must have been seven or eight

when I made him watch
Au hasard Balthazar.

For 10 minutes,
he completely rejected it,

but then he was fascinated.

The images are what fascinates.

Everything you see is off-putting.

But then that feeling reverses,

and the opposite occurs.

That's the form.
It's an austere film,

but its austerity leads to joy,

the joy of a filmgoer
who's seen a work of substance.

But this joy is inversely proportional

to the viewing difficulty.

It's an austere film.
You're rewarded at the end.

The reward is in remembering the film,
not watching the film.

The film is tough!

That's cinema,
what we do with it later.

This film will leave you
with a fantastic memory,

but the day you watch it,
it's an effort.

It's all in retrospect.

But it works! For example,
my son still talks about it.

It doesn't fit today's lifestyle.

People want immediate gratification.

That's not Bresson.

The pleasure comes afterward.