Directed by Robert Bresson
9 Episodes
A singular, iconoclastic artist, Robert Bresson left behind an astonishing body of work, defined by the search for what he called “not beautiful images, but necessary images.” In a long, visionary career that began in the 1940s and ended in the 1980s, he continually refined the strict precision of his famously ascetic style—abolishing psychology, professional actors, and ornate camera work, and instead concentrating on the exactingly choreographed movements of his “models” (as he called his performers) and the anguished solitude of his martyred characters. In indelible visions of suffering and salvation like PICKPOCKET, AU HASARD BALTHAZAR, and MOUCHETTE, he stripped cinema to its essence to reveal nothing less than the very soul of his subjects.
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00:57Episode 1Directed by Robert Bresson Teaser
Episode 1
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1:25:47Episode 2Les dames du Bois de Boulogne
Episode 2
Directed by Robert Bresson • 1945 • France
Starring Paul Bernard, María Casares, Elina LabourdetteThis unique love story, based on a novelette by Denis Diderot and with dialogue written by Jean Cocteau, follows the maneuverings of a society lady as she connives to initiate a scandalous affair b...
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1:40:55Episode 3A Man Escaped
Episode 3
Directed by Robert Bresson • 1956 • France
Starring François Leterrier, Charles Le Clainche, Maurice BeerblockWith the simplest of concepts and sparest of techniques, Robert Bresson made one of the most suspenseful jailbreak films of all time in A MAN ESCAPED. Based on the account of an impriso...
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1:16:14Episode 4Pickpocket
Episode 4
Directed by Robert Bresson • 1959 • France
Starring Martin LaSalle, Marika Green, Pierre LeymarieThis incomparable story of crime and redemption from the French master Robert Bresson follows Michel, a young pickpocket who spends his days working the streets, subway cars, and train stations of P...
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1:04:37Episode 5The Trial of Joan of Arc
Episode 5
Directed by Robert Bresson • 1962 • France
Fourteen years after Hollywood ran aground with its film of Joan of Arc (starring Ingrid Bergman), French filmmaker Robert Bresson turned his attention to the last part of Joan's life, and the result was a stark and beautifully compact retelling of the ...
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1:35:50Episode 6Au hasard Balthazar
Episode 6
Directed by Robert Bresson • 1966 • France
Starring Anne Wiazemsky, Walter Green, François LafargeA profound masterpiece from one of the most revered filmmakers in the history of cinema, Robert Bresson’s AU HASARD BALTHAZAR follows the donkey Balthazar as he is passed from owner to owner, some ...
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Mouchette
Episode 7
Directed by Robert Bresson • 1967 • France
Starring Nadine Nortier, Jean-Claude Guilbert, Marie CardinalRobert Bresson plumbs great reservoirs of feeling with MOUCHETTE, one of the most searing portraits of human desperation ever put on film. Faced with a dying mother, an absent, alcoholic fath...
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1:36:52Episode 8The Devil, Probably
Episode 8
Directed by Robert Bresson • 1977 • France
Starring Antoine Monnier, Tina Irissari, Henri de Maublanc“My sickness is that I see clearly.” Robert Bresson’s most controversial film (the French government banned viewers under the age of eighteen from seeing it, believing it would incite a rash of ...
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L'argent
Episode 9
Directed by Robert Bresson • 1983 • France, Switzerland
Starring Christian Patey, Vincent Risterucci, Caroline LangIn his ruthlessly clear-eyed final film, French master Robert Bresson pushed his unique blend of spiritual rumination and formal rigor to a new level of astringency. Transposing a ...
