A Man Escaped is the absolute best defense of cinematic minimalism *because it has an inherently interesting subject.* It's a story that works completely without adornment, because the nuts and bolts of a prison break are fascinating. I loved it, went to check out more Bresson...and yeah, none of it is riveting like this. But I'll always have this one
With regard to those hard-to-see late-period Bressons, I found three of them (A Gentle Woman, Four Nights of a Dreamer, and Lancelot du Lac) on rarefilmm. At this point, the only one of his features I have yet to lay eyes on is 1977’s The Devil, Probably, which I’ll probably have to make a deal with the Devil to get to see.
A Man Escaped was the first Bresson I watched - shown in my first college film class decades ago. It’s been a favorite since then, and I was pleased to see it still on the Site & Sound list.
Thank you for this series of articles - I’m looking forward to reading your thoughts on the current version of the list. The last few months I’ve being doing some catching up with films on the list I haven’t seen. So far I’ve watched Black Girl, Tropical Malady, Once Upon a Time in the West, and I’m currently in the middle of The Leopard. The Leopard is interesting - before I watched I had it pegged as one of my least favorite kinds of movies, and I didn’t enjoy the first third much. But once Alain Delon’s Tancredi met Angelica, and the Prince’s plan started to unfold, it became a lot more interesting for me.
They've all been great, but I think Tropical Malady made the biggest impression, and is probably the one I'll go back to the soonest. The first part by itself is expert filmmaking, but the second part adds to the previous narrative in ways I'm not sure I can describe in words. At some point I'll go back and try to better sort out what Apichatpong is doing.
I'm working my way through the list from bottom to top - just ones I haven't seen. Next is Histoire(s) du Cinema, which I ordered from Amazon today since I can't find it streaming anywhere. I don't think I've seen any Godard after Alphaville, but I've enjoyed everything by him so far.
Once again commenting on an article from months ago because I finally caught up with the movie in question, here I am basking in the effect my first experience with a Bresson film had on me.
Now I fully confess that I am here commenting as someone who has been living with a certain level of misery since the events of our most recent U.S. election, but lately I've had the tendency to read almost everything I see as some kind of resistance fable (FYI, watching Gladiator, Wicked and Metropolis in rapid succession can do that.) So the moment Fontaine lies about the pencil for the simple reason of not giving in, I wanted to pump my fist in the air. And when, after that tension has built for a straight hour and a half and the two of them drop to the street and look at each other and Fontaine just says "Jost," I was overcome with emotion. Catharsis, it's real!
A Man Escaped is the absolute best defense of cinematic minimalism *because it has an inherently interesting subject.* It's a story that works completely without adornment, because the nuts and bolts of a prison break are fascinating. I loved it, went to check out more Bresson...and yeah, none of it is riveting like this. But I'll always have this one
This has always seemed more like a Melville movie to me, which despite his esteem might still be apostasy.
I totally see it. Though Melville would have had more brotherhood of men
With regard to those hard-to-see late-period Bressons, I found three of them (A Gentle Woman, Four Nights of a Dreamer, and Lancelot du Lac) on rarefilmm. At this point, the only one of his features I have yet to lay eyes on is 1977’s The Devil, Probably, which I’ll probably have to make a deal with the Devil to get to see.
Hey Craig, The Devil, Probably is on the Criterion Channel now!
Oh, yes. I jumped on that as soon as it was available on there: https://boxd.it/4WXw4r
A Man Escaped was the first Bresson I watched - shown in my first college film class decades ago. It’s been a favorite since then, and I was pleased to see it still on the Site & Sound list.
Thank you for this series of articles - I’m looking forward to reading your thoughts on the current version of the list. The last few months I’ve being doing some catching up with films on the list I haven’t seen. So far I’ve watched Black Girl, Tropical Malady, Once Upon a Time in the West, and I’m currently in the middle of The Leopard. The Leopard is interesting - before I watched I had it pegged as one of my least favorite kinds of movies, and I didn’t enjoy the first third much. But once Alain Delon’s Tancredi met Angelica, and the Prince’s plan started to unfold, it became a lot more interesting for me.
That’s awesome. Any favorite of the ones you’ve seen so far?
They've all been great, but I think Tropical Malady made the biggest impression, and is probably the one I'll go back to the soonest. The first part by itself is expert filmmaking, but the second part adds to the previous narrative in ways I'm not sure I can describe in words. At some point I'll go back and try to better sort out what Apichatpong is doing.
I'm working my way through the list from bottom to top - just ones I haven't seen. Next is Histoire(s) du Cinema, which I ordered from Amazon today since I can't find it streaming anywhere. I don't think I've seen any Godard after Alphaville, but I've enjoyed everything by him so far.
Once again commenting on an article from months ago because I finally caught up with the movie in question, here I am basking in the effect my first experience with a Bresson film had on me.
Now I fully confess that I am here commenting as someone who has been living with a certain level of misery since the events of our most recent U.S. election, but lately I've had the tendency to read almost everything I see as some kind of resistance fable (FYI, watching Gladiator, Wicked and Metropolis in rapid succession can do that.) So the moment Fontaine lies about the pencil for the simple reason of not giving in, I wanted to pump my fist in the air. And when, after that tension has built for a straight hour and a half and the two of them drop to the street and look at each other and Fontaine just says "Jost," I was overcome with emotion. Catharsis, it's real!