“I’d rather people feel a film before understanding it. I’d rather feelings arise before intellect.” Amazing. Can apply to any art form.

I like to think that "do you feel alone?" is just a standard closing question in French interviews.

This film is called 'Two reporters vs. master director.'

He was a completely honest, direct, straightforward man, and the most uncompromising and intuitive of artists.

“Build your film on white, on silence and on stillness.” - Robert Bresson

Both Chalais and Roche were among the best and well known journalists writting on cinema. They loved cinema and knew it very well. Beeing french myself, I don't understand all those critics I read here. I think it's a very good interview, with acurate questions, for people who really love cinema. Remember, this is not the kind of promotionnal interview with standard questions as we have today ; they were journalists doing their job and with respect.

His films will still be recognised in thousands of years

Regarding the last question and answer about being alone. It is very interesting to note that the more you run from yourself the more you will have to run -- the more you will get scared of loneliness. The more you accept to be with yourself the more you will be able to find that the loneliness is not loneliness but aloneness. There is a difference between loneliness and aloneness. Loneliness means that you miss the presence of the other. To be alone means that being by oneself is enough. Loneliness is painful but there is bliss in being alone. Being lonely means that you feel the absence of the other. Aloneness means that you are happy to be with yourself. Aloneness means you have fallen in love with yourself. Meditation means to be in love with yourself. Meditation means to make such a relationship with yourself that there is no need to make a relationship with anyone else. Meditation means to be fulfilled in oneself. Your world, your whole world is in you. There is nothing lacking. You are complete, you are whole, you are the divine, there is no need for you to go anywhere.

“Robert Bresson is French cinema, as Dostoevsky is the Russian novel and Mozart is the German music." - Jean-Luc Godard

What an angel of art... it breaks my heart to watch this and uplifts my soul... thanks for posting this.

Honestly this feels more like a psychological evaluation than an interview.

that last expression.

holy shit ahhahah even the way this interview is shot inspires tension.

The kind of visionary you only see once in a lifetime. The greatest filmmaker who has ever lived.

some people might they think they were a little too harsh but I'm glad they asked the hard questions. they pushed him to defend his philosophy and methods and he responded in a way that could really help somebody understand what he is trying to do. more interviewers should challenge the stance of who they're interviewing, it's way more interesting than the stupid tame questions we get today where the interviewer is trying extremely hard not to say anything that might even slightly annoy the other person

That woman is quite a "Bressonian" character, would have done a brillant job as an actress in one of his films.

Actually I like these kinds of interviews, they feel more real, more sincere; I saw an interview of his actors on another film of his, they were basically saying "he's talented but he is such a pain in the ass!"; nowadays the interviews are so fake, you can't learn anything from them. Also rjbeeswax is right, us french tend to be cold with people we've just met but that just because we're scared, that's a defense mecanism

this interview plays like a bresson film

What a beautiful interview, the lady is quite knowledgeable and very pertinent questions. The clarity of Bresson is as good as his movies.

i think bresson must have directed this interview

What a wonderful offering! Thank you so much for adding this. Bresson remains incomparable.

This two on one style of interview would make me very defensive.

Bresson is the last light of the classic french cinema, after him started the novelle vague and before him was everything, he was a genius

excellent interview which can and should inspire many emerging directors..Today there are some directors I admire who convey the same message as Bresson did half a century ago... A poet, a fine soul he was..

thanks for posting this. In a Cahiers du Cinema poll many years ago of the best French films since WWII Pickpocket was chosen #1 on the list. It's quite an amazing film, as are many of his.

A timelessly fascinating man. How can one not respond to Bresson's style, technique and thoughts?

Indeed a rare Bresson interview! He was 58 at the time but made at least as "fresh" movies as did the Nouvelle Vague "young turks".

The french critic in 1959 is Les Cahiers du Cinéma, not those 2 ignorants. And believe me, Les Cahiers understood the genius of Bresson.

La combinación de la escena final con la música de la película estará en mi memoria para siempre

This brief segment purports to record a spontaneous interview. But in its construction, editing, framing, shot selection and scripting, it's clearly revealed to be a formal cinematic exercise. The questioners perform assigned roles, as does Bresson. The questions themselves are vapid, designed to indicate the lack of substance characteristic of the intelligentsia. And Bresson, as Bresson, defends himself against hostile imputations of greatness. What we have is a little film about incomprehension on the one hand and erudite simplicity on the other.

Bresson makes an amazing deconstruction of his vacant inquisitors - the way he turned the questions around reminded me of Dostoevsky for some reason.

Thank you for uploading this terrific interview!

I think lots of people love to feel they’re somehow at one with such and such an esteemed person or artist, and so united against perceived critics or enemies of that artist. This making the feel somehow more special, and thus so many critical remarks about this interview. In such a short space of time this interview manages to pack in a lot of substance, doesn’t feel the modern need to pad it out with some endlessly repeated amusing anecdote we all get to laugh at, Bresson is given serious questions from people who clearly are quite considered intelligent viewers of this art form. It’s a bloody good piece! And Bresson’s approach to acting and displays or almost total non-displays of the characters’ inner worlds is very extreme. It’s idiotic to pretend otherwise.

I spent a lot of time in Catholic school but I get much more of a feeling that Catholicism is valid by watching Bressons movies.

I don't know why but it seems so much like the French to put on a hostile interrogation like this.

Anyone noticed when voice-over says "others, it seems, have difficulty understanding him." And then the two interviewers enter the frame?

"Films in the future will move further and further away" 2017: "Wonder Woman is the best film of the year"

Interviewgatory

They are critics or interrogators?

Robert Bresson, une icône du cinéma français: "On ne crée pas en ajoutant, mais en retranchant. Développer est autre chose."

The Trial of Robert Bresson

François Chalais (1919-1996) & France Roche (1921-2013)

bresson is the new name on cinema in the world. bresson comes to our heart with absolute non-act

This is not an interview. It's an interrogation.

Incredible interview

Simply a master!!

The French G.O.A.T.

i think bresson had to have been playing most people most of the time. as anyone who directs people in film would do. one cannot be as intelligent and self-aware as bresson without being "aware" of the dynamic in any such interaction with others. so was he "playing them"? it comes down to semantics. what do you mean by "playing them"? he was in control. we can safely say that. i agree with you he was not about to "crack up". that was never going to happen. btw pls only respond if you must.

Great video, thanks!

Ah the age old tradition of interviewers interrupting their guest lives on.

@Rosinante00 i totally agree with your assessment. i think he was playing them the whole time. and loving it. the eyes. just look at his eyes. in fact. i think his "pursed lips" are a visual echo of the character Max from Rushmore. on some level. I just make that connection at least. In my mind. study his face. think of the kid in Rushmore. am i wrong?

Interviews could be like this nowadays.

the way she was asking questions led to that answer.

this is a master for me, i wanto know more about BR

The last question should have been, "Do you feel the interview is ending?"

"I derive no pleasure from that feeling". Don't we all understand that?

@RonAlmeida i would say honest. i think all great artists are on some level full of their own ego. otherwise they wouldn't do what they do. i think it's simply a matter of perception. i admire the honesty of bresson as opposed to false humility of others. (not naming names)

@coldbacon Right On! The commercial cinema is full of false humility. While real artists know that honesty is the basic quality of all art even if it is only their own.

This is a piece of theatre!

they made me so uncomfortable

merci!

when film was film, the master himself. If alive now there is no way he could make a film or go to the theater. We live in a commercial now

What kind of interview is this, jesus...

Maybe someone else mentioned it already, the music in the beginning is a third wave jazz version by Jacques Loussier of Bach's Gigue from Partita No. 1 in B flat major (BWV 825). kzfaq.info/get/bejne/e8d4mduiutGRpZs.html#t=48m18s

I don't know why everyone's saying this looks more like an interrogation, maybe it's because there are 2 people interviewing him instead of one but their tone is so chill here I don't feel it's an interrogation.

those french critics... mon dieu, quelle snobisme!

At some point of the video, they mentioned ''the films of today'' like which films they are talking about it? Also this interview when it was?

@tool619 i know is that not awesome? check my other video distilled from this same one but shorter. that's the very essence of all of this. that one line. about being alone. you are so right on. (in my humble opinion)

Hi! I am going to use this interview for a paper I am writing. Do you know when it is from and where please? Cheers, Jack

@tool619 i know!!! that is the essence of it don't u think? that's why i made the other one which keys on that point. look in my uploads for this same thing but a shorter version. ps...i derived no pleasure making it. (okay, that's a lie)

Un titano della settima arte

Bresson did minimalism right. Maybe the greatest minimalist filmmaker ever. I feel that Kim Ki Duk may rival him though.

You haven't turned your back on me, I can assure you, Monsieur Bresson.

I try watching his films but I find them boring and too relaxing, No it is not because I prefer action films or "I should watch Nascar" but his films don't add up or need more to them.....is it just me? Do they need rewatches or...are they really that dull? I don't mean to offend I love PTA, Kubrick and Kurosawa. But I just don't know the appeal with Bresson.

A Kafkaesque interrogation. You half expect them to sentence him to re-education at the end.

Awesome 🕷

can totally understand that

the goat 🐐

I've been enjoying reading the comments below, some of them are fascinating. But I want to protest to the leveling by some of Robert Bresson and Jean Luc Godard, the latter being a gentle dwarf in the presence of the former giant!

This brief interview from French Television (ORTF)??? - dates from when? Obviously the black & white TV era that means before 1969?

"Bresson seemed..." "He was playing them the whole time." You both are very bad at reading people. They weren't acting like characters nor was he playing them. Bresson was a reserved, calm man and the possibility of him "trying not to crack up towards the end" because these two interviewers are supposedly too aloof to be true is extremely low. Even in this interview he said that he doesn't think his unexpressive characters are unrealistic.

Great genius!

Au Hasard Balthasar one of the most beautiful films ever made. You cant watch that film get half way towards its implications and then invade Iraq.

Un génie.🧡👍

@skarphedin77 i think it's cultural. not rude in france

I am sorry I don't see why anyone who believes in himself should be humble? 'Just because you like what I do, doesn't mean I owe anything to you' - Bob Dylan.

@sashonska exactly.

@coldbacon What's got me buffaloed is that this person is comparing Bresson to Godard. Some people...

"Do you feel alone?" What the hell was this last question for?

magnific

Intrigueing interview (staged?), with a touch of narcissism on Bressons part because he seems to be quietly enjoying the interrogation from the interviewers who could be characters from his films.

This 'interview' feels more like interrogation

He has an anxiety problem. He creates works for comfort

@xalstarx i know!!? :p

Elle interrompt et cela me pose problème.

I am sorry, is it Interrogation or interview?

Bresson talkin' about everything, but not about cinema lol

Interview or interrogation...

le temps lui a donné tort

@TheWanderingPrimate you're welcome. :)