Grace and Perfection: The Films of Robert Bresson

March 3–April 1, 2017

A near-complete restrospective of the French director's austere yet compassionate work.

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Mouchette
Au hasard Balthazar
Pickpocket
A Man Escaped
The Devil, Probably

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Selected
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Films
Past
Events

Past Films

L'argent
- Saturday, March 4 5:30 PM
- Saturday, April 1 6 PM
Robert Bresson
France, 1983
Digital Restoration

A young man unknowingly passes counterfeit cash and sets off an escalating spiral of crimes in Bresson’s last film, a tough, terse investigation of the power of money adapted from a Tolstoy novella.

Introduction and post-screening discussion with Tony Pipolo
The Devil, Probably
- Friday, March 31 7:30 PM
Robert Bresson
France, 1977
In this portrait of a young Parisian whose personal crisis mirrors the ecological, political, and social disasters of his time, Bresson’s morally probing compassion meets the cynicism of the 1970s.
Pickpocket
- Saturday, March 11 8:15 PM
- Wednesday, March 29 7 PM
Robert Bresson
France, 1959
A Parisian thief’s anguish and redemption are played out in Bresson’s famous reworking of Crime and Punishment. “An unmitigated masterpiece” (Paul Schrader).
Lancelot of the Lake
- Sunday, March 26 4:30 PM
Robert Bresson
France, 1974
Imported 35mm Print

Bresson gives us Lancelot and Guinevere and the end of the Arthurian era, a brave experiment in sound, image, and souls. “Stunningly beautiful, mesmerizing, exhausting, uplifting, amazing.” (Time Out)
Mouchette
- Saturday, March 25 6:30 PM
Robert Bresson
France, 1967
Bresson’s portrayal of the life and death of a despised country girl is gritty yet lyrical and ultimately sublime. “In Mouchette, the world itself is a mystical stage” (J. Hoberman).
Une femme douce
- Saturday, March 25 8:15 PM
Robert Bresson
France, 1969
Digital Restoration

Dominique Sanda stars in Bresson’s first color film, the simple, mysteriously resonant story of a young woman’s marriage and her suicide. Adapted from a Dostoyevsky short story.
Au hasard Balthazar
- Sunday, March 19 4:30 PM
- Friday, March 24 7:30 PM
Robert Bresson
France, 1966
Bresson found the perfect protagonist for this film in a donkey, “born, like all beings, to suffer and die needlessly and mysteriously. . . . A morbidly beautiful flower of cinematic art” (Andrew Sarris).
A Man Escaped
- Saturday, March 18 6 PM
Robert Bresson
France, 1956
From the true account of a Resistance leader who escaped from a Nazi prison just before he was to be executed, Bresson created a film where the drama is all internal. “Essential viewing” (Jonathan Rosenbaum).
Les dames du Bois de Boulogne
- Sunday, March 12 5 PM
Robert Bresson
France, 1945
Imported 35mm Print

Bresson updates an eighteenth-century Diderot novel to contemporary Paris with this story of a beautiful woman who takes revenge on her ex-lover. “A landmark in cinema history” (David Thomson).
The Trial of Joan of Arc
- Saturday, March 11 6:30 PM
Robert Bresson
France, 1962
Imported 35mm Print

In his austere, transcendent dramatization of transcripts from Joan of Arc’s trial, Bresson conveys the mystery of the woman and the reality of the saint.
Les anges du péché
- Sunday, March 5 7 PM
Robert Bresson
France, 1943
Imported 35mm Print

Bresson’s visual elegance and uncompromising narrative style are already in evidence in his first feature film, which follows a sophisticated young woman into the closed world of a convent.
Diary of a Country Priest
- Friday, March 3 7:30 PM
Robert Bresson
France, 1950
A young priest tries to lead an exemplary life, but his parishioners respond with scorn and indifference. “A film of great purity, and at the end, almost Bach-like intensity” (Pauline Kael).

Introduction and post-screening discussion with Tony Pipolo

Grace and Perfection: The Films of Robert Bresson

March 3–April 1, 2017

It is with something clean and precise that you will force the attention of inattentive eyes and ears.

—Robert Bresson

With his first feature, Les anges du péché (1943)—made after he had been a prisoner of war—Robert Bresson (1901–99) was recognized as an original and authentic voice in cinema. Over the years, this authenticity would rework itself in film after rigorous film, gaining him awe and more than a few imitators, but never a true heir. Even now, the power of Bresson’s style—austere, yet deeply affecting—remains one of cinema’s pure mysteries.

It is with something clean and precise that you will force the attention of inattentive eyes and ears.

—Robert Bresson

This near-complete retrospective (lacking only two of the fourteen films he released in his five-decade career) is an immersion in Bresson’s unsparing yet compassionate work, with insights from two featured guests. New York–based film critic Tony Pipolo, author of Robert Bresson: A Passion for Film, joins us on the opening weekend to speak about Diary of a Country Priest (1950) and L’argent (1983), presented in a new digital restoration. Jeffrey Skoller, UC Berkeley associate professor of film and media, leads In Focus: Robert Bresson, a film-lecture series that considers three films in depth: A Man Escaped (1956), Mouchette (1967), and The Devil, Probably (1977).

Susan Oxtoby, Senior Film Curator

In the BAMPFA Store
Bresson on Bresson: Interviews 1943–1983
Notes on the Cinematograph, by Robert Bresson
Robert Bresson: A Passion for Film, by Tony Pipolo
Robert Bresson (Revised), edited by James Quandt

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We are grateful for the support of the Cultural Services of the French Embassy, New York; the Consulate General of France, San Francisco; and Institut Français, Paris. Tony Pipolo’s visit is part of the series Afterimage, made possible by generous funding from the Hollywood Foreign Press Association®.