Robert Bresson's Best Films, From A Man Escaped to L'Argent

For those studying French cinema, all roads lead to Robert Bresson. In his 50 active years as a filmmaker, Bresson crafted some of the most enduring classics in all of cinema, including seven listed in Sight and Sound’s ranking of the top 250 films ever made. Aside from influencing generations of filmmakers both in France and abroad, Bresson created a singular style that has often been mimicked but never rivaled. Alongside auteurs like Jean-Luc Godard, Jean Renoir, and Jean Cocteau, Bresson helped put France at the forefront of international cinema and has gone on to influence a number of filmmakers including Paul Schrader, David Lowery, and Christopher Nolan.

The fact that he only directed 13 films in his lengthy career helps add to his legacy. He achieved a remarkable consistency in quality, with even his lesser works still standing out as masterful works of cinematic art. These works were often quiet — both literally, since he was frequently restrained when using score, and narratively speaking — and utilized ellipses in their storytelling. The result tended to be a minimalist expression of some grandiose theme that was hidden deceptively in the movie’s simple package.

Even with such a trim body of work as Bresson, there are films that stand out above the others. For those interested in investigating his work, we’ve compiled a list of his seven most essential works. Prepare yourself for some beautiful tragedies.

Pickpocket (1959)

Bresson explores the ambiguity of morality in his excellent 1959 film Pickpocket. Martin LaSalle stars as Michel, an impoverished petty criminal who becomes swept up in the underground world of pickpocketing in order to raise enough money to pursue his dreams. The film has an exceptional ability to capture its sequences of thievery. Each is masterfully edited, heightening suspense while portraying quite plainly how the pickpockets get away with their crime. It often feels like a documentary on the actual pickpockets of France, informing the viewer with a sort of clinical observation on how the act is carried out. Bresson often took an interest in filming hands as they performed their various actions, and it’s here that this technique is used to its fullest extent.

Pickpocket acknowledges the moral trickiness of Michel while neither praising nor condemning him. Bresson largely leaves the judgment up to the viewer. Are his rationalizations for his crimes just, or are his actions inexcusable? The film refuses to answer directly. Instead, it uses objectivity in its direct style, diminishing the emotion in its actors’ performances to allow the viewer to see its events more clearly. A heavy influence on Paul Schrader’s scripts for Taxi Driver, American Gigolo, and The Card Counter among others, Pickpocket remains one of Bresson’s most influential works and an exceptional introduction to his filmography.

Mouchette (1967)

In Mouchette, Bresson's final film in black-and-white, the director paints a portrait of a young woman (Nadine Nortier) who suffers at the hands of the cruel society around her. Adapted from a novel by French author Georges Bernanos, Mouchette is a poetic examination of a young girl's misery while she lives an empty life exempt from happiness. Mouchette's father is an alcoholic, her mother is ailing on her deathbed, and the children at her school bully her cruelly. Bresson has no interest in creating a stirring drama about escape and redemption, nor does he have any interest in basking in her suffering.

In the hands of a lesser artist, Mouchette might have been an unbearable film. It's certainly unhappy enough to be. Yet, Bresson's complete mastery of his craft ensures that the viewer is left with far more than a heart that breaks at the fortune of its titular heroine. There's also a lot of credit to be given to Nadine Nortier, who was only 18 at the time of filming. Her performance is one for the annals of cinema, pained but never sentimental, a young girl whose suffering is apparent but not milked for melodrama. She becomes more relatable because she's very real, a sort of imperfect human saint who suffers for no certain reason.

Au Hasard Balthazar (1966)

There are few if any of Bresson’s films that aren’t wholly tragic, but Au Hasard Balthazar is one of the most unflinchingly heartbreaking. That said, it’s also one of the filmmaker’s most beautiful works, offering a glimpse at the highs and lows of human morality. Few other films have captured with such poignancy the kindness and cruelty that people are capable of. A donkey, the titular Balthazar, lives a simple life in which he is passed from one owner to the next through a variety of circumstances far beyond his control. There is Marie (Anne Wiazemsky) who loves Balthazar like a pet, adorning him with a crown of flowers, there is Gérard (François Lefarge), a mean-spirited if sadistic youth who embodies the aimless wickedness of the devil, and there are many in between.

Filled to the brim with Bresson’s trademark religious iconography, Au Hasard Balthazar is a complicated allegory about human nature. The film refrains from particularly humanizing Balthazar. His being an animal is always made abundantly clear and, in fact, is largely the point. How will people behave towards something that can offer little reaction to whatever is done? Bresson’s philosophizing is emphasized through the movie’s technical beauty. Here, the filmmaker has achieved a complete mastery of composing a frame, and every shot in the film has the expressive power of a painting. The recurring musical motif of a Schubert piano sonata underscores the tragedy of the story, coexisting amongst the various sounds of nature (most predominately, the braying of Balthazar) to create a singular experience.

A Man Escaped (1956)

It’s bold for a narrative to state explicitly in its title what’s going to happen, but A Man Escaped does just that. Clearly, it isn’t about what happens but how it happens and what everything in between means. Largely inspired by Bresson's own time spent imprisoned during the French Resistance, the film primarily takes inspiration from the real-life story of André Devigny, an imprisoned resistance soldier who published memoirs about his unlikely escape. Lieutenant Fontaine (François Leterrier) is a man devoted wholly to escape. He spends his time isolated in his cell, and he has little to do but plan his way out. Still, knowing that he will inevitably escape as the title suggests doesn't diminish the potency of the film.

A Man Escaped spends plenty of its runtime in the cell with Fontaine. In a sense, Bresson offers a complete view of what life in a military prison is like. The audience is allowed in to see all the intricate details. All of them matter. Clichés about elaborate, grandiose escape plans, sadistic guards, and intimate bonds between prisoners are largely foregone. Non-professional actors lend believability to the film that a high-profile star would diminish, as does the trim and non-manipulative style with which Bresson operates. Here, there's so much to be found in the little that is actually offered. It doesn't need anything but the basics, and an astounding sense of poetry.

L’Argent (1983)

Bresson’s final film examines for one last time many of the themes that pervaded the entirety of the director’s filmography. Inspired by a novella by Leo Tolstoy, L’Argent follows the rippling consequences of a single forged bill of currency. For just over 80 minutes, this great work from one of the world’s greatest cinematic artists uses as little as possible to convey its weighty themes. Robert Bresson made a total of five color films, and many critics consider his transition to color as a comparable transition into a more cynical worldview. This argument is made most clearly in this final film, where not a shred of optimism can be found in the ebbing waves of consequence stemming from a single action.

Throughout L’Argent, the everyday sounds of the real world are amplified, replacing any sort of score with an immersive soundtrack of realistic noise. Footsteps echo through alleyways and currents of water trickle deafeningly, every action creates a sound that is captured in full. The narrative is trim, slow, and much of the narrative is left in ellipses. Much of it is overwhelmingly tranquil until its shocking finale delivers a powerful gut-punch.

Diary of a Country Priest (1951)

The religious overtones that pervade much of Bresson's work are perhaps most apparent in Diary of a Country Priest. Following a young priest with declining health (Claude Laydu) as he arrives at his first parish assignment, the film focuses on the nature of faith and religious obedience in a character who has little to show for his efforts. The village which he works for seems to offer him little welcome. The citizens have little interest in him, even making fun of his sickly demeanor. Yet, the priest continues on nevertheless.

Claude Laydu is exceptional as the priest. Frequently, Bresson demanded his actors not to use emotion in their performances, begging the question as to what "acting" is even done. He often thought of his performers not as actors but as models. That said, Laydu is one of the most convincing of the filmmaker's many models. His face is a blank template upon which little is written. His dry, unemotional voiceover monologues let the viewer into his thoughts while remaining distanced. In a moment toward the middle of the film, the priest takes a motorcycle ride through the country with an acquaintance. It's one of the few rare moments of joy in the man's life, and it's an achingly beautiful moment in a film full of joylessness.

Lancelot du Lac (1974)

As far as Arthurian films go, Lancelot du Lac is pretty far from what is usually expected. Anybody familiar with Bresson shouldn't be surprised, though, considering the director's tendency to operate in the quiet moments between the action. The film concerns itself with the moments following the Knight of the Round Table's failed crusade for the Holy Grail, when Lancelot (Luc Simon) attempts to end his ill-advised affair with Queen Guinevere (Laura Duke Condominas). Unlike many other works studying these timeless legends, Bresson's film abandons any fraction of fantasy and wonder. Instead, the film is real in its depiction of the deeply flawed behavior of its very human characters. Again, Bresson junkies shouldn't be surprised.

Fans may be surprised, however, at the occasional brutality the film indulges in. Besides an unforgettably brutal ending, the film opens up with a few blood-drenched minutes of knights being killed. It's apparent that the intent is to focus on the absurdity and senselessness of violence, with the few acts that are actually depicted being essentially drained of any suspense or style. There's also something to be said about the movie's fantastic immersion into the period in which it's set. It rarely if ever feels staged, with the elaborate costumes and the loud, incessant clanking of the knights' armor ringing with each step bringing the viewer directly into a fascinating period of history and its many legends.