Posts by silentpuma7

Nancy Barnes33 said:Despite all that worship, I still see total sincerity here. I’m just trying to call you out for being a snob. 😁
A real snob would be singing praises to Griffith, obsessing over Vertov, and claiming Beauty and the Beast is the greatest movie ever made. You just have a specific, picky taste. Though, acting like those two (and who else, Bresson?) are the only "pure" works of cinema is getting pretty close to arrogance.
The whole point of film from the start was to be self-aware and analytical, with countless directors working hard to build an autonomous cinematic language—basically just proving they were more than just a tech hybrid. It sucks seeing lazy filmmaking based on outdated theater and literary tropes, even today, but saying that is like saying Balzac is trash just because Joyce came after him. Besides, as much as most movies—even the commercial ones—draw from theater, Tarkovsky and Parajanov draw from painting and poetry. It’s not any more "authentic," and honestly, it can be pretty static (though, yeah, I agree with you that Mirror is Tarkovsky's best, most illustrative work).
And I hope you realize you could fit three-quarters of what you wrote about Mirror into a description of Citizen Kane.

"Mirror" is kind of (following Borges' idea of the book and anti-book) a counter-film to "Citizen Kane"... if I were to keep listing those few unique (and authentic) films, Citizen Kane would definitely be on there. Maybe my view of film is so specific because I'm looking for a different cinematic language. And since film is a young art form—not quite "captured" yet, to quote R. Bresson—it feels okay for me to call most modern movies mass-produced (not being arrogant or anything). For me, it’s about how these directors actually used the medium. Take Parajanov, for example; in "Sayat-Nova," he ditches plot entirely, using a static camera to bring a dead poet to life, framing him against passersby to show the permanence of tradition and culture... it works perfectly. Not to mention the way images relate to each other; there isn't a single dynamic shot, maybe not even a pan or a tracking shot.

Anyway, I'm struggling with this right now: when nobody asks, you know what you think, but when someone actually asks, you can't explain it... maybe because I'm buzzed... anyway, I guess I agree with what you wrote.

Kevin Lopez43 said:silentpuma7 👍 I was actually pretty hyped for Mirror right after finishing Stalker, and you just laid out all the best parts of it. Now I'm really looking forward to watching it.

😉 Let me know what you think once you do, I'm curious... I've been meaning to write an essay or some kind of deep dive on it for a while now, but honestly, I'm being lazy, so it's just a plan for now. Maybe I'll get around to it eventually...

Nancy Barnes33 said:Well, you did say "a couple"... 🤷

I mean, Andrei Tarkovsky and Sergei Parajanov are pretty similar, right? Not sure why they'd be considered better than Alfred Hitchcock or Jean-Luc Godard though.

Okay, I guess when I said "a couple," I actually meant a few... just to clarify...

Tarkovsky and Sergei Parajanov aren't quite the same thing, even if they're close. They're superior because, take Mirror for example—it uses this whole new cinematic language that hadn't been seen before. You've got non-linear storytelling, a protagonist who’s basically a ghost for most of the movie, and this mix of documentary footage, black-and-white, sepia, and color. Then there's the narration, the lead actress playing double roles, poetry being recited, even the way he films the wind by tracking the camera with it. It's all to tell his own story—this deeply personal, autobiographical version of his life. He originally wanted to make a film consisting of hidden camera interviews with his mother, but it evolved into Mirror. So, it's this clever, unique film that reconstructs reality (well, parts of it), acting like a fictional documentary woven from reconstructed truth. The director doesn't really try to invent things... some might call it an experimental film, but I don't really buy those kinds of labels. In this case, it's about the method, the style of storytelling. Tarkovsky uses everything necessary to reconstruct lost time; his lens basically pierces through into the memory of a life already lived...

Anyway, that's my quick take on why it's superior... it's about the cinematic expression and style. I guess Hitchcock is mostly meh to me, except for maybe two or three films, but I respect him. As for Godard, I haven't watched much, so I can't really judge...

Nancy Barnes33 said:What’s the other movie?

It's not just about the two... but since you asked... I guess it would be... maybe "The Color of Pomegranates," also known as "Sayat Nova" or whatever by Sergej Paradžanov (Sarkis Paradzhanian)

Look, I consider myself a total film snob and I’m fine with that... just not the kind described in this thread. That brand of snobbery feels way too much like an "us vs. them" mentality. Honestly, most movies out there—whether they're big blockbusters or supposed "art house" stuff (if you can even call it that)—don't feel like true cinema. They just feel like unoriginal, inauthentic products.

Maybe just a handful of films actually feel authentic to me. I always point to Andrei Tarkovsky’s masterpiece, Mirror, as the ultimate example of real filmmaking.

My quick take:

Super fun movie with some pretty clever stuff going on. Since I’m a total sucker for zooms (you know, those optical push-ins and pull-outs), this one hit harder; the camera basically drags you deep into the heart of the Los Angeles Society. The acting and characters are unforgettable too. Tim Robbins is great as Gene Shepard, this lucky, womanizing cop, and you've got Frances McDormand looking incredible, plus Julianna Moore with that subtle, shy vibe. Robert Altman uses jump cuts to nail the rhythm, so it never feels slow—it's like we're just voyeurs peeking into the lives of LA locals. That earthquake at the end? It actually makes sense, almost poetically... especially when Gene Shepard shows off his hilarious side by casually telling everyone over the megaphone not to panic because an "earthquake is currently happening." An 7/10 rating, or maybe a 6 on the Richter scale, won't be as bad as some of the characters might think...
Paul Thomas Anderson's «Magnolia» will probably just be a pale attempt at copying this masterpiece.

The Story of Adele H. (1969)

A young college girl ends it all by jumping off a balcony. There's this shot of her white scarf fluttering over her body on the street, which I guess is supposed to symbolize her innocence or whatever. The movie basically reconstructs everything that led her to that point. It’s almost like an autopsy—of the soul, maybe?—conducted by her husband while he talks to their housekeeper. He actually owns a pawn shop where she first walked in. He offers her the world just to marry him, but once they're hitched, he thinks he actually owns her, and things just spiral. She starts noticing how trapped she is, and his jealousy combined with her being unpredictable leads to them totally drifting apart. By the time he realizes he was wrong about women being possessions and that you can't demand love without giving it, she’s already hit total disillusionment because she was looking for an end. He tries to offer a new beginning, but she ends up having to sacrifice herself. Technique-wise, this is the director's first color film. The mise-en-scène is pretty sparse, and those meticulously framed shots leave you feeling kind of bitter. That final shot really elevates the whole thing, even if I think Robert Bresson isn't exactly at his peak here... especially with that five-minute theater scene of Hamlet that the couple watches. He’s clearly trying to distance the film from the stage, but since the story itself is so theatrical, it doesn't quite land for me.

L'Argent (1983)

If money is this visible, present god—as some convict sharing a cell with our main (anti)heroine Yvona might put it—then Bresson's protagonists are basically just believers sacrificing themselves for that deity. That whole theme of being trapped is everywhere, both metaphorically and literally, which keeps driving Yvona toward sin. I guess she does it because she’s convinced that once this fake god is shoved in her face, her innocence will be sacrificed (not that we've forgotten which god we're actually talking about here). But honestly, it all feels like a setup for the end, where the family "hosting" her meets a classic Bresson-style fate. Defeat is the ultimate victory, right? Like that housewife from the family says, if she were God, she’d forgive everyone. It's a pretty confusing flick, maybe even more so since it was his last...

Diary of a Country Priest (1951)

Bresson uses > as a confession, diving into his most intimate, raw, and meticulous details. But maybe truth works like an old relic—the second you dig it up, it starts turning to dust. Once the diary's secrets are out, they lose that sacred weight and just feel... profane, I guess. The priest's holiness basically burns up along with the book itself; it’s how Bresson builds the story, by having the confessor himself undergo the confession. It's powerful stuff. The direction is bold, and honestly, the small details pretty much tell the whole movie...

Pickpocket (1959)

Michael is this mysterious loner who decides picking pockets is a better career move than actually working. His hands are basically what drive his moral decay—which is pretty different from how Fontaine's hands lead him toward freedom—and ultimately land him in custody. At some point, Michael tells his friend Jacques that... I guess you're looking for me. What's up? We can't truly grasp what it feels like to be behind bars; it's just beyond us. Through that single idea, Bresson is actually talking about his own confinement during World War II. While Jean quite Fontaine eventually gets his freedom because he worked for it, Michael finds a kind of freedom within his imprisonment—it’s a chance at redemption, and Joan's kiss on his hands will ultimately wash away his sins. The style is incredibly meticulous and minimalist. These cold performances he gives his actors (especially Michael's outburst against the police inspector in Michael's "den") are super cerebral and don't always land. Still, it's not quite the Bresson I love, like in Mouchette, but it's pretty fascinating how he just completely ignores the backgrounds, the boulevards, the squares, or any architecture at all.

Joseph Lee3 said:For me, there are two stylistic quirks here that really stick. First off, the whole story relies heavily on narration; there's hardly any dialogue between characters, which is instead peppered in with this perfectly balanced rhythm. The second thing is that incredibly suggestive use of long takes, where Bresson lets a shot linger on the screen just long enough to squeeze out every drop of emotion. In a way, he says more through silence than he ever could with words, which fits perfectly with Leterrier's minimalist acting style. He wasn't even a trained actor, which is something Bresson used constantly to maintain total control. By using non-professionals, Bresson ensured that no actor's ego could ever overshadow his singular vision for the film.

Exactly, you nailed the "stylistic quirks" part. Since Bresson basically defines style as everything that isn't just pure technique, he reveals his whole approach right in the title. He was clearly obsessed with reconstructing events through the relationship between images, which was pretty revolutionary back then. Cutting out the dialogue is his way of ditching that theatrical tradition he hated so much, which I guess wasn't easy for him to pull off. As for those long shots that let the emotion sink in, I guess David Lynch is playing in a similar sandbox with Inland Empire, though in my opinion, David just spiraled into a nightmare there. Actually, the whole movie felt like a nightmare to me, but that's probably a different topic. Back to Robert.
Bresson was definitely a weird, eccentric guy, but his take on cinema seems legit. Not sure if you've read his Notes on Cinematography? In them, he calls his actors "models" and writes: "Films featuring professional actors feel to me like those frustrating dreams where we stubbornly try to force the features of someone we know—a nose, eyes, a mouth—onto a stranger's face, even though we know they don't belong there." That might be the best description of how he viewed acting, specifically how he distanced it from theater. He goes on to say: "Whether we want it or not, the camera brings deep nature to light a thousand times more than our own eye. We have to work with raw material if reality is what we want to paint. And then, what discoveries!" and so on.

Basically, the guy was trying to invent an entirely new cinematic language based on the movement of images. He just couldn't stand the idea of film being some derivative art form of everything else...

A Condemned Man Escaped or The Wind Blows Where It Wills (1956)

From the opening frame to the credits, this thing just sucks you in, even though the title basically spoils the whole plot. I guess being stuck in prison for 16 months under the Nazis gave Robert Bresson a pretty fertile playground to lean into his minimalism and those specific directing methods he’s known for, following up on Diary of a Country Priest.
It’s really a movie about the little details and just sitting with things, plus that gritty human persistence—it makes it pretty clear that nobody is coming to save you unless you save yourself. The real power here is how you end up totally feeling what the lead goes through once he decides to break out; even if he hits a wall at first, freedom is definitely on the horizon...

A For Balthazar (1966)

There’s this weird little thing about Bresson’s movies (which is why I keep rewatching them, even after a year gap): they seem simple on the surface because of his cerebral, almost detached way of telling a story. But underneath, there’s actually some really clever directing, ingenious content, and a totally unique cinematic language. In "A For Balthazar," the director finds innocence and purity once again through a victim (a donkey): defeat is the ultimate victory. We get that recurring theme of the drunkard and the loser prone to crime, played by the same actor—though in Bresson's case, it's more accurate to say he uses the same "model" who played Arsène in "Mouchette." This is actually pretty uncharacteristic for Bresson, given what he says in his "Notes on Cinematography": "Don't use the same models in two films: a) They won't be believed; b) They'll look at themselves in the first film like looking in a mirror; they'll want to be seen how you want them to be seen, forcing themselves, and in correcting themselves, they'd betray themselves." But maybe he realized this through experience, since those notes weren't published until 1975.

So, all those beasts Balthazar sees behind circus bars—staring eye-to-eye with a bear, an elephant, and a tiger—basically witness the tragic fate of a single donkey. It's clear Bresson sees a Christ-like figure in Balthazar; he's destined to wash away sins through the suffering of others. Humans have to tame those other animals because they're superior to us, whereas a donkey is just born to be submissive. What really got to me, though—and honestly gave me chills—was when, after being beaten so badly, his owner offers him water, and the donkey proudly refuses it, only to drink from a puddle in a broken tile instead!
Death is salvation! When those eyes closed forever, my own eyes nearly teared up.
A For Balthazar! It's a massive film!

I guess I've fallen into a bit of a Bressonade; I'll probably end up bingeing his whole filmography over the next few days...

Mouchette (1967)

Robert Bresson basically uses this surface-level portrait to map out the personality of a total loser, capturing all the malice in the world and its people. He does it just to pull out that indelible, gloomy cinematic simulacrum known as "Mouchette." The title character—this supposed embodiment of innocence—gets knocked around while playing with toy cars at an amusement park, almost like she’s bouncing off everyone else. One guy might actually seem nice to her, but it's just a fleeting, symbolic moment before her father drags her back to reality with a slap. The hits she takes outside that park are the real horror, leading our spiteful little heroine into one of the most tragic stories ever put to film. It's perceptive and touching. I guess it's my personal favorite Bresson film.