How to Make a Perfect Film

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A closer look into the filmography of French director Robert Bresson and an exploration of his philosophy of life, work and visual language.
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[@DirtyConsolePeasant]

"If we could express things clearly, then we wouldn't make art." Excellent Video.

[@danschneider7531]

Great art clarifies reality. It's the human brain that is unclear, and needs clarification.

[@danschneider7531]

@@thotslayer9914 Communication at its highest. You've been clarified.

[@Mandibil]

"A Man Escapes" .. masterpiece

[@kabirprakash]

A Man Escaped is the name of the movie.

[@Mandibil]

@@kabirprakash Right ... mistyped

[@mohammedmustafa3858]

الزيج سفري لو صالة

[@VitorBrauer]

A few weeks I rewatched Au Hasard Balthazar and was really angry you guys didnt put it in the best movies of all time. This vídeo made me very happy you guys did Bresson justice. ❤

[@bluefilmsltd]

OMG. I saw the title.....then I saw the image of the film you used......this is..I kid you not. Au Hasard Balthazar is the greatest film I have ever seen if such a film exist. I say that as somebody who has seen the works of Kurosawa, Fuller, Hitchcock, Fellini, Kubrick etc. When I think of Bresson, I think of 'Au Hasard Balthazar'. I love 'A Man Escaped' and 'L' argent' too but 'Au Hasard Balthazar' just feels other worldly.

[@dianaflorea952]

Than you so much for making this youtube channel, it's the best thing on the whole internet right now

[@antoinepetrov]

I've always wondered and tried to find the secret behind the greatness of Bresson's technique. I've never managed to find out why his films are so effective, but I think this video provides a clue - this evenness throughout the film, where there are no 'bumps' in the story, where we are not made to think or feel anything except watch what's happening, kind of sets the scene for the final explosion of emotion. If something else interferes with the 'Bressonian rhythm' before the final scene, than that catharsis wouldn't work so well. Thank you for this great essay.

[@antoinepetrov]

@@ANGE__LICA Oh, yes, I've read it. It's very impactful, especially when you're in a film production.

[@antoinepetrov]

@@ANGE__LICA Wow, that quote by Malle is so great. I hadn't heard of it. Also, I still haven't seen L'Argent and I consider this one of my big mistakes. Because many say it's Bresson's best film.

[@mattygroves21478]

A Man For All Seasons for me is the perfect film. There's not a word spoken that's superfluous. The costumes, set, pathos and speech patterns evoke the period incredibly. Finally, it's incredibly rare for a film to best its source material, which the film does.

[@drumbum3.142]

Upvote for the Level Headed Realism there. 👍👏👏👏🤝👏👏

[@mattygroves21478]

@@drumbum3.142 Thanks

[@unimpressedalchemist]

For me, Bresson is the example of why "perfection" isn't everything. A Man Escaped is the only film I've watched by him that actually engaged me, but I can appreciate the craft.

[@luismarioguerrerosanchez4747]

What a story Mark

[@Igor32595592]

give it time. and also learn more

[@unimpressedalchemist]

@@Igor32595592 I've not given up on getting into him, but not everyone is gonna love every great filmmaker, regardless of time or knowledge

[@Igor32595592]

@@unimpressedalchemist I agree .. Hope you get to like his films someday

[@abstergo1318]

​@@unimpressedalchemist this, people can be so rude about it, as if we didn't have the right to not personally like something so subjective as any form of art even if we respect it and recognize the craft

[@drurybynum9657]

Excellent analysis. Such refreshing content!

[@liltick102]

Can’t wait for the next 10/10 video

[@AlencarFaulkner]

O Bresson. I've read many non-Catholic critics misunderstanding Robert Bresson as a pretentious misanthrope. I think some believe he talked a better art than he produced. He deserves more appreciation.

[@jangdi.]

Yes he was. He a try hard.

[@fh854]

@@jangdi. Why are you in every replies hating on Bresson. It seems you are projecting

[@jangdi.]

@@fh854 I ve just checked others comment on this video. Guess what? Didnt see any of mine. You are the one who PrOjEcTiNg

[@fh854]

​@@jangdi. You commented on one which lead with: 'As Bresson once said, "I'm more interested in what they [his actors] don't say!"'

[@elonmusksellssnakeoil1744]

Perfection is (not a real thing, but I'll indulge) not "only including what is necessary", it is _making whatever is included necessary._ Bresson did the former, Tarkovsky the latter. That is why Tarkovsky is the greatest, and why his films are so much more appealing in almost every way - visually, emotionally, spiritually, philosophically. One could argue the "dryness" of Bresson's approach is not necessary, but the same argument cannot be applied to the poetic approach of Tarkovsky, which is the very essence of his films.

[@myp3ukgh646]

причём здесь вообще Тарковский если видео про другого режиссёра

[@makerbrothersworldwide]

Thank you.

[@Kieslowski1989]

As Bresson once said, "I'm more interested in what they [his actors] don't say!" I knew I was hearing the word of a true poet who just wandered into the cinematic medium and created Cinematic poetry. The poetry of nothing. The poetry of silence. And there's nothing like Au Hasard Balthazar. Only a select few like Tarkovsky and the two he considered important to him, Bergman and Bresson can conjure up a vision this great, this poetic, this haunting and this silent! BTW can anyone tell me what my expectations should be while getting into Diary of a Country Priest. I've watched his other notable works like Au Hasard Balthazar, Pickpocket, A Man Escaped, Mouchette and L'Argent. What should my expectations be?

[@jangdi.]

Look up poetry. It nothing like you said. Dry Bresson.

[@Kieslowski1989]

@@jangdi. I'm sorry to say but I've read all the sonnets, works of Poe, Wordsworth, Chaucer, Milton, Frost and many more. And Bresson is definitely the cinematic equivalent of a poet. Why the hate for a legend?

[@Atticus113]

DoaCP is very beautiful. One of those great religious films where you feel like the faith is properly integrated into the film and not some ham-fisted moralizing story. Couple very memorable spiritual insights that I won't forget.

[@abdullahbinduhaim666]

Can you make an episode about the history of stop motion

[@ACertainGoldEevee]

I'm not sure what it is about Bresson that I don't like, but there is certainly something missing that keeps me from being engaged. It may just be that I don't care about what's happening to the characters. I've watched a lot of art house and classic cinema, and it's very much my jam, so it's not like I need explosions and cheap laughs to keep me entertained. I'd argue that Hirokazu Kore-eda has what Bresson lacks. An emotional connection, and better character writing. It seems to me that Bresson's story telling is very cut and dry. Yes, there are hidden meanings underneath, obviously, but there is no emotion, or reason for the viewer to care, because the characters that drive your story feel stale.

[@adamdictatedbutnotreadkadh8719]

Ceylon does it with each new film he releases

[@liltick102]

1:56 shot reminds me of when Jenny robs the guy on the streetcar in Gangs of New York

[@brockkomon7484]

I had to watch this twice because I couldn't pay attention to the audio track, I was too captivated by the visuals.

[@hofmannwaves1525]

high quality youtube

[@THICCTHICCTHICC]

How to make a perfect film: Be as efficient as Bresson, and as deep as Bresson

[@devinoutfleet1998]

Don't be afraid to go outside the lines... There's no one absolute direction for things

[@JCarrera27]

🖤👏

[@fishman098]

To me, La Casa Lobo is the perfect film, every monologue seems like a thing to be interpreted, but in reality it just is for the sake of evoking a sheer feeling, the visuals are there for the sake of transformation. The film allows you to be inside it, to feel whatever María feels, to love what she loves and to fear what she fears. Even though it is the villain who carries us through the story, you never get to sympathize to him, for María represents the childhood in us who hides and tries to change a sad world into a bearable fantasy

[@luzng]

When we see something good, we see the same. "Oh but art is not seeing... yeye, i tell you we see the same because we see... The art is seeing thats to Art.

[@DavidFedele]

I know it, I know it ..... just having a mental blank. Can anyone tell me the name of the song at the start of the video, beginning at 0:14?

[@saidtoshimaru1832]

Franz Schubert, Piano sonata in A major D 959, second movement.

[@Montezuma777]

Name of mentioned movies??? Pls 🙏🏼🙏🏼🙏🏼

[@cinematic_parth9627]

Aren't these points counterintuitive ? "Bresson actively opposed reality (cinema being a reflection of reality)" later on, you say this about his films "Films in which there's no access whatsoever. Films that cut straight to heart of what they're about . They are exactly what they aim to be. what you see, is what is" Bresson opposed reality, yet he's still portraying the real world, doesn't make sense.

[@mrmogford8117]

What it IS and reality can often be very different, it’s why Bresson films manage to feel like magic but with no visible effects- sort of like the mysteries a person experiences every day in just life- you have to act on what you feel and that is what is- you can throw theory and analysis to some degree, but in the end it is only belief and blind faith in continuing. It’s this balance that helps straddle his films between almost starkly ‘plain/ realistic’ and transcendental.

[@moteiza]

Not really, he isn't portraying the real world as you say. People do not behave like Bresson's models in real life, things aren't as clear as Bresson close-ups in real life. His films are true to themselves, which means true to cinema, and cinema is something that can be similar to, but it's not, real life.

[@dimkilago2958]

@@moteiza Bresson's theoretical approach was completely stupid. He believed that in art only form (banal reality,not something else) does not lie and that emotion does, when in fact the exact opposite is true. The only way he could support his theory was to make documentaries(there indeed the form does not lie so much), on the contrary he wrote and directed dumb scripts with awful performances. In the good artist his connection with his characters is schizophrenic like Becket in the The Unnamable,there are personas and there are not at the same time. Method acting is the only real form of acting.

[@moteiza]

@@dimkilago2958 I don’t agree with you, and there is some truth in what he says about form, you can lie through form but form does not lie, what you see is what it is, the colors projected on a screen, nothing more nothing less. Nowadays Bresson’s cinema takes a bit getting used to, because the viewer today is not accustomed to this approach to cinema.

[@dimkilago2958]

@@moteiza You have to see F for Fake by Orson Welles. The art form is always lie. The meta, the documentary, the fantastic and more the comedy(always more intellectual the process and not emotional) than the drama are what underline it while remaining within the framework of the art form. The banal and boring does the opposite of what it thinks it does (that approaches reality), actually moves away. I don't have a problem with Bresson's "models", but his scripts are completely banal, boring and in several places poorly written. When you put in these banal contexts something so absurd it becomes a comedy without wanting it (it is even more funny that Bresson thinks that is more real lol). The robotic dialogues in his films of Lanthimos for example, they have aesthetic logic . Also this sound so stupid " If an image, looked at by itself, expresses something sharply, if it involves an interpretation, it will not be transformed on contact with other images… it is definitive and unusable in the cinematographer’s system." On the other hand he wanted so much to "express the uniqueness of the medium" and he chooses staticness in the medium of absolute freedom of movement. Boring bad scripts,boring images,flat expression it's just bad cinema

[@gd5830]

You lost me at around 2:40, anyways, I'm sure it's all good stuff :D :D

[@dinahalsall7469]

😊

[@ArgoBeats]

5:19

[@kinghailz786]

List of every film shown please?

[@luismarioguerrerosanchez4747]

It's Bresson's filmography. The most used were Au Hasard Balthazar, L'Argent, Pickpocket, Mouchette an A Man Escapes.

[@asaiira]

@@luismarioguerrerosanchez4747what of 0:46?

[@robertsyrett1992]

You know... I am thinking Bresson could have tortured fewer animals to make his movies.

[@ivano8]

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Bresson for those slightly annoyed that the name isn't written anywhere in the video or video notes.

[@rustyshackleford735]

Boost

[@monkew6123]

W

[@thefebo8987]

Music?

[@saidtoshimaru1832]

Franz Schubert, Piano sonata in A major D 959, second movement.

[@Elfo_Scuro]

Please, there is not a "perfect" film take for example nature...nature isn't perfect but it has the perfection in this imperfection.

[@jimmyvanilla5285]

What about shrek 2?

[@NightmareCourtPictures]

Ya this is my view…which would be more Werner Herzog: the spontaneity of camera movement, the exploration of different interpretations and ideas…I feel like those things have a uniqueness about them that can’t be captured without it being discovered.

[@drumbum3.142]

Perfect Films. No Particular Order. (Seemingly Unlike Some other Folks *I'M* HAPPY to Dive into the why and how and wherefore Further and Farther.. Never Gonna Snow Again. The Whistlers. Cloud Atlas. Blade Runner 2049. Empire of Light. A Very Long Engagement. The Survivalist. Monday. Broken Circle Breakdown. A Ghost Story. Brimstone. The Master. 3,000 Years of Longing. (This ones [a bit] tricky Cuz it's so Weird but its Absolutely Brilliant.) Among a couple others.. ... The Batman.. Probably About thirteen or seventeen hair millimeters from perfection..

[@TerrorHawk111]

You should check out A24s The Green Knight. Another film by David Lowery

[@drumbum3.142]

@@TerrorHawk111 Yes Indeed. That one is VERY Special, Incredible, and Unique.

[@drumbum3.142]

@@earforenglish5867 Does (Any of) These Titles Strike You as Satire?

[@drumbum3.142]

@@earforenglish5867 None of them are asserted, simply for the Heck of it. The scope and or details of which I'd be Gladly to Further Investigate and or Enumerate.

[@drumbum3.142]

@@earforenglish5867 Have You Ssen (all) of aforementioned titles ?..

[@charlenetupas8642]

Bresson!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 🤍🖤

[@General_reader]

Sounds like M night Shyamalan need to take notes from this guy

[@markrolle2527]

is there just nothing to do in england other than make video essays?

[@jimmyvanilla5285]

Video essays, complain about the weather, complain about the weather in video essays

[@saurabhkumarjain7]

2:32 Timothée Chalamet

[@braq9775]

Camelot timtiddy

[@clemkzn6281]

French subs please

[@Jonerssons]

Nerd 3:04

[@nobbystyles4807]

that mubi link prompts you to add card deets i aint doin that

[@Jonerssons]

Nerd 3:16

[@lannisterlodbrok]

Sorry for writing this on this video. Comments are turnerd off in the original one: kzbin.info/www/bejne/jKuqlntqnb6ildk What's the movie with the wolves at 31:55 ? I really need to watch that movie.

[@dimkilago2958]

Marketa Lazarová is i think.

[@lannisterlodbrok]

@@dimkilago2958 I think it is! Thank you so much!!

[@Realsagarbhat]

My Picks for Top 5 Perfect Films of All Time - CITIZEN KANE APOCALYPSE NOW COME AND SEE THE THING THE NIGHT OF THE HUNTER HONOURABLE MENTION - PARIS,TEXAS

[@ahnmensch3115]

When talking about Apocalypse Now, which version would you consider a perfect film? theatrical?

[@kinghailz786]

@@ahnmensch3115 the one with Mel Gibson in it

[@Jimmy1982Playlists]

Great list. _Come And See_ is one of the most absolutely unforgettable cinematic masterpieces of all time... stunning! My jaw was on the ground for two hours. The director's wife, Larisa Shepitko, made another of the great films ever, _The Ascent._ They could be considered the two greatest films ever - certainly among the greatest war films!

[@ahnmensch3115]

@@Jimmy1982Playlists Oh, wow, I didn't even know that Shepitko and Elem Klimov had any connection to each other whatsoever, let alone being married! I agree, these two films are absolutely magnificent pieces of art.

[@drumbum3.142]

(Completely) Disagree. But Upvote for the syringe shot of level headed realism. 👏👏👏🤝👍🤝👏👏👏👏👏

[@luismarioguerrerosanchez4747]

Q - How to make a perfect film A - Always think, what Alfred Hitchcock would do.

[@Jimmy1982Playlists]

Or "what would Kubrick do?"

[@luismarioguerrerosanchez4747]

@@Jimmy1982Playlists That's not what Truffaut said, lol.

[@shedtime_au]

I'd describe it as banal, dreary and utalitarian, but then maybe I expect more from life.

[@StreetHierarchy]

I don't know if I've seen a perfect movie. Maybe Good Will Hunting, but it's like Sis, he can't move out of state; he's on parole...

[@SnakeBush]

Nah man the only Perfect film is Pulp Fiction

[@gavinhenderson7250]

Ooft. That’s a hard disagree with the implication that Au Hasard Balthazar is perfect.

[@Jimmy1982Playlists]

Definitely not my favorite Bresson.

[@yeahiagree1070]

Top Gun Maverick is a perfect film.

[@Jimmy1982Playlists]

🤣🙄🤦‍♂️SMH Now I'm realizing why Cinema Cartography turns the comments off on so many of their videos lol

[@drumbum3.142]

"Its "Plane".. - Yeah I Agree," 🤭🤭🤭🤭🤭🤭🤭🤭🤭🤭

[@yeahiagree1070]

@@Jimmy1982Playlists It's a perfect film.

[@TOAOM123]

Yeah, nah

[@yeahiagree1070]

@@TOAOM123 You have to judge a film based on it's intentions. It's literally perfect.

[@dimkilago2958]

Bresson and Ozu are the kings of banal. No matter how hard the average uneducated "cinephile" tries, for those who have had some theoretical knowledge in aesthetics it is obvious.The educational level is so low that a banal boring movie like "JEANNE DIELMAN, 23, QUAI DU COMMERCE, 1080 BRUXELLES" voted best of all time lol. Bresson is such a bad director and screenwriter that he verges on the comical in reality without wanting it.

[@TOAOM123]

A simple "reeeeeeeeeeeee" would have sufficed

[@makidiaz3894]

They prolly watch the movie high as a kite on a pretentious opiate tip

[@thanasis_milios]

Thank God we have naked emper...I mean cinematically educated people like you, so there's hope for us plebeians.

[@THICCTHICCTHICC]

No one does banal better than Kaurismaki tbh. The most mundane shit ever, but with endless deadpan humour.

[@dimkilago2958]

@@THICCTHICCTHICC His sets are not realistic and has humor as you said. Even if he says that he loves Ozu, he is not Ozu.

[@WobblesandBean]

"Perfect" is subjective. And is it really a good idea to praise a man as messed up as Lars Von Trier?

[@sirlimen333]

Separate the work from the author.

[@chiaramaurizi5916]

We praise his art, and it deserves it

[@mattb.7079]

​@@sirlimen333 Separate the man from the pedophile

[@kdot78]

His movies are great

[@drumbum3.142]

Perfect delves the depths of Intelligence.. Not neccesarily Yourself; but for Anyone so inclined.. ....Please Explain how eeaao, or the most recent plane flying top gun film Accomplishes That ,?.. 😐😐😐🤔😐

[@BugVlogs]

The only truly perfect film ever made is Freddy Got Fingered. Every frame of Tom Green’s masterpiece is brilliant 🫡👌

[@acadia5898]

Him spinning that baby speaks to me deeply🤯

[@barrycohen311]

I'd have to agree. With the film "Roadhouse" coming in second place. Seriously though, I remember Roget Ebert's review of Freddy Got Fingered, where Ebert stated something to the effect- "This film could eventually wind up in the American Museum of Modern Art."

[@drumbum3.142]

Care to Explain how its Obviously "Superior" to.. ....oh.. ... I dunno.. say A Ghost Story, The Master, JoyRide, Empire of Light, Monday, A Very Long Engagement, Cloud Atlas, Blade Runner 2049, Never Gonna Snow Again, Brimstone, The Whistlers, and Enemy ,?.. 🤔 For Starters.. (,??)

[@dakota2579]

*PromoSM* ✋