Though the singular French filmmaker Robert Bresson was once thought of as a kind of transcendentalist, and was even discussed as such alongside Carl Dreyer and Yasujirō Ozu in Paul Schrader’s famous book Transcendental Style in Film (1972), more recent criticism on Bresson has pushed back against this as the dominant hermeneutic approach. If transcendentalist… Read more »
Robert Bresson is a filmmaker apart. Or, so his friend Jean Cocteau once quipped about him, and this remark has summed up the general critical response to Bresson’s filmography for decades. His work is inscrutable, seemingly without other film referents. And a mythology has built up around him – not completely without merit. However, over… Read more »
Guest post by Noelle Ibrahim. Themester intern Noelle Ibrahim had a conversation with Jonathan Risner, a professor in the Department of Spanish and Portuguese at IU. They discussed the upcoming Themester film, Au hasard Balthazar. (This interview was edited and condensed.) What do you find compelling about this film? If I’m going to relate it to… Read more »