AU HASARD BALTHAZAR (Bresson, 1966)
Criterion Collection, DVD, Release Date June 14, 2005
Review by Christopher S. Long
(On Friday Sep 25, 2015, TCM will be showing Bresson films most of the day. The marathon ends with "Au hasard Balthazar" at 6:15 PM Eastern. I am re-posting my 2005 review, one of the earliest ones I ever wrote, to encourage you to tune in or at least set your DVR. The blog also includes reviews of "A Man Escaped" and "Pickpocket" which are part of TCM's Bresson-o-thon as well.)
“Acting is for the theater, which is
a bastard art.” - Robert Bresson
Robert Bresson (1901-1999) produced one
of the most singular and challenging bodies of work in the history of
cinema. He ruthlessly stripped all the extraneous components from his
films until only the most essential elements remained. Bresson’s
films are austere, meticulous and precise; the term “minimalism”
does not do them justice, they can only be described as “Bressonian.”
Some view his films as slow and arduous while others see them as the
“purest” movies ever made: the Bresson cult is a fanatical one
and I proudly count myself a member.
One of the defining aspects of
Bresson’s work is his approach to acting. Bresson (after his first
few features) did not employ traditional actors but rather used
“models” – non-professional actors he trained to speak and act
as inexpressively as possible. The typical Bresson model has a blank,
impassive look (“the Bresson face”) and moves slowly and
deliberately. Bresson often shot numerous takes in order to exhaust
his actors so that their actions and line readings would become as
mechanical and automatic as possible. He sought a performance style
devoid of inflection; a model does not “look longingly” but
merely looks, does not “stand nervously” but merely stands; the
goal was action, not acting (method actors need not apply). Even in
highly emotional moments, the characters speak and act perfunctorily,
and sometimes their detachment seems at odds with the events being
depicted. Furthermore, Bresson filmed these automaton-like models in
flat, frontal stagings (almost always using a 50mm lens) with limited
camera movement.
What was Bresson’s purpose in
draining all the traditional elements of drama from his films? Critic
James Quandt describes it best: “(Bresson) produced a cinema of
paradox, in which the denial of emotion creates emotionally
overwhelming works (and) minimalism becomes plenitude.” Fanatical
restraint and precision unleash depths of feeling that cannot be
accessed through standard drama and pathos, or at least that was
Bresson's belief. The non-actor models are crucial to this endeavor;
any signs of theatrical, self-conscious acting break the spell.
Bresson found his ideal model in
Balthazar, the donkey who is the protagonist of “Au hasard
Balthazar” (1966), a central work by one of the greatest directors
in the history of the cinema. Jean-Luc Godard famously claimed that
the film conveyed “the world in an hour and a half,” and it could
also be described as the world contained in a donkey’s eyes.
Balthazar’s blank, impenetrable stare carries an infinite depth of
meaning simply because it is so fundamentally unreadable. Balthazar
is unlike any other movie animal you have seen, in large part because
he is simply an animal. He is not cute or smart or quirky; he is a
donkey and nothing more, which is to say he is everything.
Some have described “Au hasard
Balthazar” as a film told from a donkey’s point of view, but this
is not accurate. The film does follow Balthazar’s life from birth
to death, but only in the beginning and end does the story directly
concern him. At first, Balthazar is cherished as a pet by adoring
children who baptize him, but his peace is short-lived as he is
whipped, yoked, and put to work. He will spend most of the rest of
the film passing helplessly from one sadistic or indifferent owner to
another.
His first owner Marie (Anne Wiazemsky,
who, a year later, became the second Mrs. Jean-Luc Godard) dotes over
him, but she is a lazy, self-absorbed girl. In one scene, she
decorates Balthazar with branches and flowers, making local tough guy
Gerard (Francois Lafarge) jealous. He and his gang beat Balthazar
cruelly while Marie watches in hiding; her affection for the animal
does not extend to risking her safety for him. Later, Marie falls in
love with Gerard and forgets all about the poor little donkey.
Abused by Gerard and abandoned by
Marie, Balthazar eventually collapses from exhaustion. Gerard
volunteers to “end his misery,” but the donkey is rescued by
Arnold (Jean-Claude Guilbert), the town lush. Life gets better for
Balthazar, but only briefly. Arnold is kind when sober but vicious
when drunk, and he beats Balthazar savagely with a bottle. Balthazar
escapes to a circus where he is briefly a star, but later he is sold
to a wealthy miser who is so stingy that he barely feeds the donkey
and won’t even buy him a proper saddle harness; it is more
economical simply to kill the beast if it gets too sick to work.
Through all these ordeals, Balthazar is
merely a passive observer. The humans’ stories spin all around him,
and he takes almost no part in them, hovering constantly on the
periphery of our perception. When the gendarmes come for Arnold, we
see Balthazar through a window as he grazes in a field; in another
scene, Balthazar stands idly at a hitching post as rowdy youths set
off firecrackers in the street. In fact, the stories could easily
take place without Balthazar’s presence at all, yet time and again
Bresson returns to shots of the donkey merely standing and watching.
He serves as a mute and uncomprehending witness to the human dramas
that surround him and which, ultimately, determine his fate.
The cruelty of the humans seems all the
more terrible because of the detached quality of the performances:
Marie’s slack-jawed look and slumped shoulders, Gerard’s clipped
movements, Arnold’s near immobility at times. Their callousness is
a thoughtless byproduct of indifference. Through its restraint, “Au
hasard Balthazar” accumulates an extraordinary power, and
Balthazar, even though he seldom actually “does” anything,
becomes one of the most memorable characters in all of cinema,
achieving a sublime grace through the terrible suffering he endures.
This is Quandt’s paradox again: the denial of emotion produces
overwhelming emotionality. “Overwhelming” is the key word here.
“Au hasard Balthazar” possesses a potent affective force that
will stick with you for days, weeks, maybe even the rest of your
life.
Bresson’s films demand an active
audience. Bresson stated, “The flatter the image is, the less it
expresses, the more easily it is transformed in contact with other
images.” The flat images can also be transformed by the audience; a
key to the power of Bresson’s work is that the emptiness of the
image invites the viewer to fill it with his or her own meaning.
Balthazar’s big, round, empty eyes are the film’s most enduring
image and you will either see in them great profundity or merely the
vacant stare of a dumb animal; which you see depends in large part on
your degree of engagement with the movie. Bresson’s films are
living texts which change with each viewing and yield great rewards
to the attentive, involved watcher.
Bresson was a master of rhythm and
tone, and few directors ended their films on such perfect notes as he
consistently did. I will not spoil the ending of this deceptively
simple story that improbably transforms into a spiritual journey save
to assert that is one of the most poignant and moving endings I have
ever seen. On the first viewing, I was shaken by the final scene, and
on the third viewing I wept openly, not out of sadness but from
something more powerful. I can only describe it as the sense of
witnessing the infinite or perhaps the ineffable (I have a similar
reaction to the ending of “2001: A Space Odyssey which I have
always thought of as a spiritual film for the atheist.)
Some commentators (most notably Paul
Schrader) have described Bresson as a transcendental director. I
don’t agree with that label, but if there is a transcendent moment
in Bresson’s films, it is here, as this gentle little donkey kneels
down in a field, with a flock of sheep milling about him, the bells
on their collars chiming a mournful chorus. It is an ending both
beautiful and terrible to behold and I often think it is the single
greatest achievement world cinema has ever produced.
Video:
The DVD presents the film in its
original theatrical aspect ratio of 1.66:1. The black-and-white
photography is crisp, with richt contrast. Often when we describe
cinematography as beautiful, we mean that the film offers gorgeous,
ravishing imagery: sweeping landscapes, deep focus, etc. Such
pictures would be out of place in a Bresson film, yet the photography
is beautiful nonetheless and the new transfer more than does justice
to it.
(Added 9/24/15: However, a decade after
Criterion released this fine DVD, we still await a North American
region Blu-ray upgrade. Here's hoping we don't have to wait much
longer.)
Audio:
The DVD is presented in Dolby Digital
Mono. I did not even attempt to describe the soundtrack in my review
because it would require at least another thousand words just to
scratch the surface. Bresson made use of sound perhaps more
effectively and expressively than any other director (only Kubrick
and Lynch spring to mind immediately as contenders) and it is
probably not possible to preserve the full texture of the sound on a
DVD, but this sound transfer is certainly an admirable effort. The
sound effects are well-mixed and separated. The film makes notable
use of Schubert’s sparse and moving Piano Sonata no. 20 which
sounds just right here. Optional English language subtitles support
the audio.
Extras:
If ever a Criterion release desperately
called for a commentary track, it is “Au hasard Balthazar,” but
we do not get one here. However, the other extras are worthwhile
offerings. A twenty-minute interview with scholar Donald Richie
(getting a rare chance to talk about a non-Japanese film) serves as
an excellent introduction into the Bressonian oeuvre.
“Un metteur en ordre: Robert Bresson”
(70 min.) is a 1966 French television program about Bresson and the
making of “Au hasard Balthazar.” Godard, Louis Malle and the cast
of the film also appear. It is clear from watching this extra that
Bresson was already firmly established as a cult director whose
status bordered on beatification.
In the spirit of Bresson, I will keep
it simple: “Au hasard Balthazar” is a masterpiece. Possibly the
greatest film ever made. I undersell it by a wide margin, of course.
No comments:
Post a Comment