forest notes

lumen * w/ 2 contributions by art of memory correspondent

- trees as wind instruments in bresson’s mouchette
- it is something invisible by matthew swiezynski

pickpocket : footsteps, car loops, train drones and station ambience

robert bresson - pickpocket - 1959

classic drone series
sound, sound design, music in film

 opening sequence at the races, repetition of ticketing devise (exaggerated)

 doors, footsteps and car drones

 subway, pickpocket activities, footsteps
(dialogue edited out, 3 sections combined)

 car drone repetitions which are looped and layered throughout film,
either in the foreground, or background
(2 sections combined)

 train stations sounds, footsteps, distant electronic voices
(voices similar to tati films)


sound - antoine archimbaud *

polish reviews

bresson on artificial eye

robert bresson, olivier messiaen, i listen to my films as i make them

the composer olivier messiaen comes to mind as the closest parallel to bresson in the other arts. a devout catholic, the organist of the trinité in paris, messiaen has always been a radical modernist and a seminal figure in the evolution of modern music (in addition to his compositions, he deserves the credit of teaching stockhausen and boulez). nevertheless, the material of messiaen's art, pure sounds, submits to simultaneous modernism and theophany more flexible and more radical than narrative film.*

that is a question of composition. i use the word "composition" as opposed to the word "construction." i listen to my films as i make them, the way a pianist listens to the sonata he is performing, and i make the picture conform to sound rather than the other way round. transitions from one picture to another, from one scene to the next are like shifts in a musical scale. our eyesight occupies a large proportion of our brain, perhaps as much as two-thirds. yet our eyes are not so powerful a means of imagination, not so varied and profound as our ears. and so, as imagination is a critical element in any creative process, how could one not privilege the sound aspect?**

olivier messiaen: from vingt regards sur l'enfant jesus (1944) played by his wife yvonne loriod (1956)


* from p. adams sitney's the rhetoric of robert bresson: from le journal d'un curé de campagne to une femme douce

** from i seek not description but vision: robert bresson on l'argent (interview with robert bresson by michel ciment) - both found in robert bresson edited by james quandt, cinematheque ontario, 1998

robert bresson, murder sequence from l'argent

robert bresson, l'argent, 1983
cinematography by pasqualino de santis and emmanuel machuel
editing by jean-françois naudon

first and last frame of each shot from bresson's murder sequence.

shot 1.
1.16.28 - 1.16.58

shot 2
1.16.59 - 1.17.14

shot 3
1.17.15 - 1.17.25

shot 4
1.17.26 - 1.17.36

shot 5
1.17.37 - 1.17.43

shot 6
1.17.44 - 1.17.45

shot 7
1.17.46 - 1.17.47

shot 8
1.17.48 - 1.17.49

shot 9
1.17.49 - 1.17.56

shot 10
1.17.57 - 1.17.59

shot 11
1.18.00 - 12.18.05

shot 12
1.18.06 - 1.18.07

shot 13
1.18.08 - 1.18.10

shot 14
1.18.11 - 1.18.16

shot 15
1.18.17 - 1.18.21

shot 16
1.18.22 - 1.18.23

shot 17
1.18.24 - 1.18.25

shot 18
1.18.26 - 1.18.28

shot 19
1.18.29 - 1.18.30

shot 20
1.18.30 - 1.18.42

total duration: 2 minutes, 14 seconds
(numbers represent length of shot: hour.minute.second)

robert bresson, given by the eyes of john cage

radically suppress intentions in your models.

*

not to use two violins when one is enough.

*

no intellectual or cerebral mechanism. simply a mechanism.

*

hide the ideas, but so that people find them. the most important
will be the most hidden.

*

all those effects you can get from repitition (of an image, of a sound).

*

practice the precept: find without seeking.

*

to translate the invisible wind by the water it sculpts in passing.

*

make visible what, without you, might perhaps never have been seen.

*

build your film on white, on silence and on stillness.

cagean notes by robert bresson,
found in his notes on the cinematographer,
green integer 2, 1997 translated by jonathan griffin

robert bresson, ingmar bergman, free from all impurities

coffee in mouchette

i felt a strong affinity with bernanos' and bresson's mouchette. it's a film i would have liked to have made myself, but which i didn't understand. in mouchette the motif is expressed clearly and explicitly, free from all impurities. the girl in mouchette and the girl in the devil's wanton are sisters, sisters in two similar worlds.
but while the devil's wanton is full of quirks and divagation and coquetry and jumps about all over the place. mouchette is clear as daylight. it's a pure work of art. the religious motif only comes in for a moment, before the titles, as one sees the girl sitting there crying, and she says- "how will they manage without me?" how are you to manage without the saint, without the person who bears your sufferings? just for a moment- and then all the rest of the film is completely undogmatic.
i'm also tremendously fond of the diary of a country priest, one of the most remarkable works ever made. my winter light was very much influenced by it.

(pages 43-44 from bergman on bergman: interview with ingmar bergman by stig björkman, torsten manns and jonas sima, da capo press, 1993)


also, see deakins post