What's In A Film? Robert Bresson Quiz

Answer: A ballet dancer

Agnès had dreamed of becoming a ballet dancer, but ends up doing seedy cabaret and prostituting herself. In fact, Hélène goes to find her in a cabaret club where she's performing, then follows her back to her abode where she finds her being touched up by lewd drunks. Agnès later expresses her regret at not getting into dancing.

When Hélène tells Jean about Agnès's sordid past, he storms off. Agnès, who has fainted, is looked after by servants, and then her mother. Jean eventually comes back, finds Agnès at death's door, realizes he loves her, and tells her to hold on.

The last line of the film, "I'm battling, I'll stay" (Agnès), was interpreted as symbolic of the French Resistance by film director Jean-Luc Godard, who called it "the "only" film of the French Resistance".

At first glance, "Les Dames du Bois de Boulogne" sticks out like a sore thumb when compared to Bresson's main suite of feature films. The cast is made up of professional actors (the last of his films to be so), the dialogue wasn't written by Bresson (it was by Jean Cocteau), and there is an intrusive use of music. However, when you scratch beneath the surface, Bresson's elegant simplicity, painter's eye in composing a shot, and pure class are all there.

"Les Dames du Bois de Boulogne" was Bresson's second feature film. It's based on Diderot's "Jacques le Fataliste" (1796).

Answer: "What does it matter? It's all grace."

The line is one of Bresson's most celebrated, along with "God is not a torturer", also from this film. The words seem to sum up his failure as a priest in a hostile rural setting trying to build a bridge between the church and the community.

"Diary of a Country Priest" is Bresson's first attempt at using what he called "actor-models" (non-professionals) instead of professional actors, something he did for the rest of his career. However, this film was the transition and the lead role (the priest of Ambricourt) was Bresson's prototype actor-model, whilst the rest of the main cast was made up of regular actors. The experiment worked as far as using a non-professional was concerned (Claude Laydu manages to bring pathos to the film), but the contrast with over-theatrical actors (such as Adrien Borel playing the priest of Torcy) was straining.

In explaining his actor-models, Bresson stated he was in search of "truth", something he said he couldn't get from somebody who was doing their job of (over) acting. He often made actors do scenes over and over again, partly to get just the right take, but he also talked about stripping away the performance and getting to something "real". Bresson was also very critical of other film-makers, who he accused of filming theatre rather than cinematography. Bresson's "Notes on the Cinematographer" is a great read, even for dilettantes such as I.

"Diary of a Country Priest" is based on a successful novel by Georges Bernanos, and unlike some of Bresson's other adaptations, the film sticks faithfully to the novel.

The other choices: "The horror .... the horror" is from "Apocalypse Now", "God have mercy." is from "Vertigo", and "Where the devil are my slippers, Eliza?" is from "Pygmalion".

Answer: A spoon

Right at the beginning of the film when Fontaine is being taken to prison by car, he jumps out and tries to escape, so we are well aware of his intentions. He doesn't make it on his first attempt and gets a brutal beating that leaves his shirt blood-stained for the rest of the film.

Fontaine manages to keep the spoon when the food utensils are being collected, and he shapes it into a kind of chisel on the hard floor. Later, it breaks, but he gets another one. A lot of the film is taken up by him scratching away at the door, but it never gets dull. In fact, the tension is high as we are sure that he'll get shot if he's discovered, which was the fate of a fellow prisoner whose escape went pear-shaped. However, we also know that Fontaine is probably going to be sentenced to death, which he is towards the end of the film, which adds some urgency. Although the film's title should reassure us that he'll escape, we are on tenterhooks.

At the end of the film Fontaine and his newly arrived cellmate, François Jost, make it over the wall, and we see them scurrying off into the night. Where a lesser director would have shown us what happened to them, Bresson only cares about them whilst they are in the prison trying to escape, and leaves them to their fate.

Answer: At the races

The first sequence takes place at the horse races, where the main character (Michel) steals some cash from a lady's handbag. He leaves the races ecstatic after his first theft, but is pulled in by the police. They don't charge him, but a perverse game of cat and mouse between Michel and the head police inspector begins. Towards the end of the film, Michel goes to the races with a punter he has met in a bar. The punter shows him his winnings, and although Michel smells a rat (he is sure the punter's horse lost the race), he can't resist slipping his hand in the man's cash-filled pocket, where his wrist is handcuffed immediately. It was a set-up, and Michel ends up behind bars.

"Pickpocket" is loosely based on Fyodor Dostoyevsky's novel "Crime and Punishment". Both the main characters commit a crime to see what it's like as much as out of necessity, both want to admit their guilt to the authorities but are also terrorized by the consequences, and both achieve some kind of redemption thanks to a good woman. However, Bresson cleverly takes murder out of the equation, leaving simple theft, thus making the culprit's superman theories and fear of punishment seem slightly ridiculous. Bresson's Michel (played brilliantly by non-actor, or in Bressonian terms "actor-model", Martin LaSalle) isn't struggling with morality, but bored with, and detached from society, so steals to feel alive again.

Answer: French & English

Of course, it is the English who are behind the trumped up charges and although it is the Bishop of Beauvais and his cronies who conduct the trial, behind the scenes they are taking orders from the English military leaders. The English are speaking English, whereas the trial is in French. There is no such language as Belgian. The three official languages of Belgium are Dutch, French and German.

They get obsessed with the fact that Joan wears male attire since the other charges of witchcraft won't stick. Joan doesn't break until she is shown the stake where she will be burnt, and out of fear she gives in on condition that she is handed over to the church, not to the English. This promise is broken by the English as they want her burnt, and she is assaulted by a noble. Joan refuses to go back to wearing women's clothes, so she is taken back to the stake and burnt as a heretic.

Bresson kept faithfully to the transcript of the actual trial for the screenplay and portrayed Joan as a woman who knew what she was about, and had fully grasped what was really going on rather than the naïve waif sometimes peddled by other filmmakers. It is filmed with typical Bresson sparseness and lack of sentimentality, and is enthralling from start to finish, even though you know what's going to happen.

Answer: To race against other donkeys

Early in the film we see Balthazar drawing heavy loads, ploughing fields, and pulling a hay cart. The cart topples over and Balthazar, who has become unbridled, trots off. Balthazar goes back to the farm where he was born and is reunited with Marie, now a young woman.

The leader of a gang of local good-for-nothings, Gerard, is employed by a baker to deliver bread and he uses Balthazar to carry the load. Gerard mistreats Balthazar, even attaching burning paper to his tail. Despite Gerard's cruel character and reckless ways, Marie falls in love with him.

When Balthazar falls desperately ill and is going to be put down, a local drunk, Arnold, takes him on. It is Arnold who uses Balthazar to carry a highfalutin artist out on a painting trip. Arnold later beats Balthazar with a chair in a drunken rage.

Balthazar escapes from Arnold and ends up in the circus, where he is shown tapping his hoof to give the answers to maths questions. However, Arnold finds him and takes him back. When Arnold inherits a fortune, he holds a celebration party. He rides Balthazar towards home but slips off, bangs his head, and dies.

Gerard and one of his cronies steal Balthazar, load him up with black market goods, and set off up into the hills. On the way up they beat him with sticks and kick him. They are frightened off by gun shots, leaving Balthazar alone. He is hit with a bullet and bleeds to death on the hillside, surrounded by a flock of sheep.

"Au hasard Balthazar" is a very complex film that works on a multitude of levels, and yet remains so simple in its execution. The religious overtones are impossible to overlook, but at the same time somewhat difficult to grasp for the layman. Apparently, Balthazar's tormentors commit each of the seven deadly sins (lust, gluttony, avarice, greed, sloth, wrath, envy, and pride). He is beaten, whipped, kicked, burned, scorned, shot and left to die on hillside, just like Jesus Christ was according to Christian tradition. There are a myriad of other references to Christianity throughout the film.

Famed French director Jean-Luc Godard said that Balthazar is "the world in an hour and a half", and it is considered by many to be Bresson's masterpiece.

Answer: Arsène, the poacher

Arsène thinks he has killed the gamekeeper, Mathieu, who had vowed to get Arsène because the local barmaid (whom Mathieu had designs upon) has favoured Arsène over him.

In a spartan woodland cabin, Arsène gets drunker and drunker, suffers an epileptic fit (which Mouchette nurses him through), and then sexually assaults Mouchette. It's one of the most draining scenes in the film, which is probably Bresson's bleakest and, arguably, his best. I think the final scene, in which Mouchette commits suicide by rolling down a hill into a lake, is unequalled in cinema in its representation of despair.

Bresson himself said, "Mouchette offers evidence of misery and cruelty. She is found everywhere: wars, concentration camps, tortures, assassinations."

Answer: A knight is beheaded in battle

This scene is the goriest, although significantly not most grueling, scene in any of Bresson's films. We are not told until later that Lancelot has just returned from a crusade, so this unexpected (for a Bresson film) scene has the viewer immediately wondering what is going on. It documents, albeit briefly, the knights' crusade and their less than smooth journey home It also sets the tone for a prosaic look at the eternal myth of King Arthur and the knights of the round table.

The film seems to be an attempt to strip the King Arthuian myths of any glamour and show the muck, the misery and drudgery of mediaeval times. The most memorable sound in the film is the clanking of the armour as the knights walk about, making it seem a rather clumsy and cumbersome thing to have to wear.

The film's piece de resistance is a scene where Lancelot turns up incognito at a jousting contest and beats everybody, including some of his fellow knights of the Round Table. Most of the shots focus on the horses running, and then the contact between Lancelot's lance and his opponent's shield. The image of horses running, this time sans rider, is echoed in the film's final sequence when those loyal to King Arthur (including Lancelot) are killed.

Answer: On a bus

The line ("the devil, probably") is actually borrowed from Dostoyevsky's novel "The Brothers Karamazov" and is said during an incredibly intellectual conversation that sparks up between ordinary folk on a bus Charles and his pal Michel are on. The question "Who's in charge?" has been posed, and is promptly answered. It's an absurd scene in an absurd film.

Richard Hell described "The Devil, Probably" as "the most punk movie ever made", and he should know as he released the punk classic "Blank Generation" with his band The Voidoids. In fact, the nihilism expressed by Charles when he visits the psychologist, which, by the way is the first time he expresses anything other than apathetic ennui, fits in precisely with what punk was all about. The doctor (cheekily called Dr Mime) seems to be going through the motions and coming out with all the usual clichés. The scene is one of Bresson's funniest.

Charles: "I want the right to be myself. I don't want to be forced to give up wanting, to replace my true desires with false ones based on statistics, surveys, formulae, ultra-stupid American-Russian scientific classifications. I don't want to be a slave or a specialist."

Dr Mime: "Were you beaten as a child? Try to remember."

Charles. "I was spanked." (smiling wryly)

Dr Mime: "Do you know that the feeling of being crushed by the society you live in might be the result of that spanking you got as a child? That together with the painful dream of being murdered for a good cause would point to the development of psychomotor symptoms and explain the root of your disgust and your wish to die."

Charles: "But, I don't want to die."

Dr Mime: "What? Of course you do."

Charles: "I hate life, but I hate death too. I find it appalling."

Dr Mime: "Look, leave it to me. Come back in two days. Thursday, same time."

Charles: "But Doctor, I'm not ill. My illness is seeing too clearly."

Dr Mime: "Of course. 200 francs a session."

Answer: A photography shop

One of the lads desperately needs some cash, and turns to his pal for a loan after his father has refused to up his allowance. The pal has a better idea; offloading a fake banknote he has. He says he knows where, a photography shop, where they go and buy a cheap frame. The cashier is dubious, but makes the sale. A delivery man (Yvon) gets lumbered with the fake note from the shop (the boss of which has realised it is a forgery), then gets caught using it in a restaurant, goes back to the shop, but the owners and employee have struck up an agreement to deny everything.

"L'Argent", Bresson's last film, touches on many issues, such as greed, corruption, revenge, and murder, but avoids teaching us anything. Like many Bresson films, the characters are emotionally cold, distanced and awkward. The main character is Yvon, and through events it's easy to sympathize with him, but then in the final part of the film Bresson even takes that emotion away from us by making him murder.

There are many things in "L'Argent" that are left unexplained, such as why Yvon's wife leaves him. When questioned about this at a press conference Bresson replied in his inimitable laconic style that he (Bresson) didn't know why she had left him, and neither did she. He also said that it was the film "with which I am most satisified - or at least it is the one where I found the most surprises when it was complete - things I had not expected."