Bresson and Vigo
By Like me, Roy was introduced to Robert Bresson by means of the sublime Au Hasard, Balthasar (which I saw last year.) Like me, he found it a remarkable, haunting picture; unlike me, he is capable of writing effectively about it, so I turn it over to him. As he suggests, it made me anxious to check out more of his work. I saw two that were revived at the Film Forum (alone, but with no celery or notebooks–I’ll have to work on that) last year. Pickpocket was terrific; I was a little disappointed in Mouchette–similar thematically to AHB but not quite as rich–but still very powerful.
In other art-house wanker news, since somebody brought up L’Atalante in comments, I should pass on via frequent commenter Jay a free link to Vigo’s Zero De Conduite, which I hadn’t seen but is as amazing as you’d expect. If that’s not good reason to oppose draconian American copyright laws, I don’t know what is…