Au Hasard, Balthasar

[poliphilo]

Bresson was Tarkovsky's favourite director.

Bresson liked to use non-professional actors. Did he think he would get truth to life? but that's just what you don't get. What you do get is stiff, wide-eyed intensity, uninflected voices, an inability to register emotion.

I keep thinking of Piero della Francesca. There's the same combination of naivete and sophistication- and a stylistic rigor so pure it approaches self-parody. Balthasar is a fresco cyle on the life of a saint (who happens to be a donkey.)

Godard says this movie "contains the world". It certainly covers a lot of ground, but where are the laughs?

Comments

[sorenr.livejournal.com]

Sometimes non-actors can be used with great results... City of God is a good example of how un-trained actors can deliver outstanding performances under the right director, even if this is far from a regular occurrence.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Yes, I agree.

But Bresson seems to have valued his non-pros for precisely their qualities of stiffness and unease. He doesn't want them to be natural. It's a weird aesthetic he has, but one that sometimes delivers powerful results.

[sorenr.livejournal.com]

In many ways that is normally associated with stage acting; films normally attempt reality, whereas on stage there is hardly any way of avoiding saying "look at me; I'm ACTING!"... And I quite like the concept of an actor pointing at himself and saying "this is not reality, but a representation of reality"; it becomes very meta-dramatic, I suppose.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I think Bresson is attempting some sort of hyper-authenticity, which is certainly not the same thing as conventional realism.

A woman is supposed to be mourning her dead husband. Her face is blank and she is clearly reciting words that she has memorised. The effect is weird and distancing- but somehow the emotion comes through.