#886: BRESSON, Robert: L'Argent (1983)
BRESSON, Robert (France)
L'Argent [1983]
Spine #886
Blu-ray
The Booklet
Forty-four page booklet featuring an essay by critic Adrian Martin and a 1983 interiew with Bresson by critic Michel Ciment.
Commentary
None, unfortunately.
Press conference
from 1983 Cannes Film Festival featuring director Robert Bresson and the film's cast.
Video essay
"L'argent," A to Z, a new fifty-minute video essay by film scholar James Quandt.
Theatrical trailer
Extended outtakes from the ATM machine we see under the opening credits. Very clever.
Extras Rating (0-40):
L'Argent [1983]
Spine #886
Blu-ray
In his ruthlessly clear-eyed final film, French master Robert Bresson pushed his unique blend of spiritual rumination and formal rigor to a new astringency. Transposing a Tolstoy novella to contemporary Paris, L'argent folllows a counterfeit bill as it originates in a schoolboy prank, then circulates like a virus among the corrupt and the virtuous alike before landing with a young truck driver, leading him to incarceration and violence. With brutal economy, Bresson constructs his unforgiving vision of original sin out of starkly perceived details, rooting his characters in a dehumanizing material world that withholds any hope of transcendence.
84 minutes
Color
Monaural
in French
1:66:1 aspect ratio
Monaural
in French
1:66:1 aspect ratio
Criterion Release 2017
Director/Writer
Robert Bresson was 81 years when he directed L'Argent.
Bresson is universely acknowledged as one of the great filmmakers of all time.
He could be called a minimalist; his actors are almost always non-professional "models" -- all performance artifice carefully stripped away; his camera never ever moves around gratuitously; his scenarios are bare-boned and frequently have large sections elided or only incidentally referred to; and his sound design was a model for all such modern-era work.
Above all, his films are truthful to the vision of the auteur (the term could have been invented for him) from the first frame to the last. Bresson has influenced many other filmmakers.
He could be called a minimalist; his actors are almost always non-professional "models" -- all performance artifice carefully stripped away; his camera never ever moves around gratuitously; his scenarios are bare-boned and frequently have large sections elided or only incidentally referred to; and his sound design was a model for all such modern-era work.
Above all, his films are truthful to the vision of the auteur (the term could have been invented for him) from the first frame to the last. Bresson has influenced many other filmmakers.
Other films by Bresson in the Collection:
The Film
This film -- Bresson's last -- is based on a Tolstoy short story: The Forged Coupon. Under the credits, we watch a static shot of an ATM machine dispensing money. Soon some bored teenagers pass a 500-franc note (about $100) at a camera shop, whose shifty owner then passes it on to the innocent working stiff who delivers their gas, Yvon (Christian Patey).
From there, Bresson works his magic -- moving swiftly through time towards an inevitable, devastating conclusion.
Film Rating (0-60):
From there, Bresson works his magic -- moving swiftly through time towards an inevitable, devastating conclusion.
Film Rating (0-60):
55
The ExtrasThe Booklet
Forty-four page booklet featuring an essay by critic Adrian Martin and a 1983 interiew with Bresson by critic Michel Ciment.
Commentary
None, unfortunately.
Press conference
from 1983 Cannes Film Festival featuring director Robert Bresson and the film's cast.
Video essay
"L'argent," A to Z, a new fifty-minute video essay by film scholar James Quandt.
Theatrical trailer
Extended outtakes from the ATM machine we see under the opening credits. Very clever.
Extras Rating (0-40):
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