Robert Bresson was an abstemious filmmaker. He paid the utmost attention to detail and divulged his entire self into each of his 13 feature films. Compared by Jean-Luc Godard himself to the likes of Fyodor Dostoevsky, Bresson’s enigmatic, minimalist films leave viewers with a lingering sense of solidarity, as if you’ve just been a part of something positively spectacular made especially for you. Few others produced such contemplative cinema that remains as binding— especially with non-actors and little background noise and dialogue. The actors did not need to express their emotions outwardly, that’s all felt by the onlooker afterwards. To re-watch a Bresson film is a life-changing cinematic event.
READ MORE: The Films Of Robert Bresson: A Retrospective
In a new video essay by Filmscalpel, Bresson’s masterful “Pickpocket” is dissected, juxtaposing the brilliant monochromatic work onscreen with some of the director’s writings on film from his “Notes sur le cinématographe.” Bresson would set up his characters so that they were bound to not only each other, but to objects in their vicinity. They would also be bound by facial expressions, which are particularly important in this film, as we watch the titular criminal’s mannerisms and facial ticks while he’s hard at work.
Roger Ebert surmised that Bresson based “Pickpocket” on “Crime and Punishment,” (another great mind comparing the director to the likes of one of the greatest Russian novelists to ever live) noting that Martin LaSalle‘s antihero is akin to Raskolnikov wherein they both need money to realize their dreams, and neglect the love of a perfectly good woman who wants to do nothing but save them.
A voyeuristic look at society in parametric narration, Bresson’s film, and this essay to boot, are not to be missed.
