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Portrait of Robert Bresson

Robert Bresson

(1901–1999) Screenwriter

51 quotes in 172 categories

Robert Bresson was a screenwriter, best known for Notes sur le cinématographe.

Quick Facts About Robert Bresson

Born: September 25, 1901
Died: December 18, 1999
Profession: Screenwriter
Notable works: Notes sur le cinématographe

About Robert Bresson

Robert Bresson was a French filmmaker. Known for his ascetic approach, Bresson made a notable contribution to the art of cinema; his non-professional actors, ellipses, and sparse use of scoring have led his works to be regarded as preeminent examples of minimalist film. Much of his work is known for being tragic in story and nature.

Biography source: Wikipedia

Quotes by Robert Bresson · Page 2

It is in its pure form that an art hits hard.

Art

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Cinematography, a military art. Prepare a film like a battle.

Art

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The true is inimitable, the false untransformable.

Originality

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Cinema, radio, television, and magazines are a school of inattention: people look without seeing, listen without hearing.

Attention

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An old thing becomes new if you detach it from what usually surrounds it.

Novelty

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Be the first to see what you see as you see it.

Firsts

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Laugh at a bad reputation. Fear a good one that you could not sustain.

Bad reputation

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Bring together things that have as yet never been brought together and did not seem predisposed to be so.

Seems

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For me, film-making is combining images and sounds of real things in an order that makes them effective. What I disapprove of…

Actors

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Hide the ideas, but so that people find them. The most important will be the most hidden.

Ideas

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The point is not to direct someone, but to direct oneself.

Direct

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Two types of films: those that employ the resources of the theater (actors, direction, etc...) and use the camera in order to…

Actors

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In the NUDE, all that is not beautiful is obscene.

Beautiful

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The eye solicited alone makes the ear impatient, the ear solicited alone makes the eye impatient. Use these impatiences. Power of the…

Appeals

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Ten properties of an object, according to Leonardo: light and dark, color and substance, form and position, distance and nearness, movement and…

Color

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Catch instants. Spontaneity, freshness.

Freshness

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When you do not know what you are doing and what you are doing is the best - that is inspiration.

Inspiration

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The crude real will not by itself yield truth.

Crude

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Practice the precept: find without seeking

Practice

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Films can only be made by by-passing the will of those who appear in them, using not what they do, but what…

Cinema

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“be sure of having used to the full all that is communicated by immobility and silence.”

Silence

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“Rid myself of the accumulated errors and untruths. Get to know my resources, make sure of them.”

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Cinema, radio, television, magazines are a school of inattention: people look without seeing, listen in without hearing.

Cinema

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When a sound can replace an image, cut the image or neutralize it. The ear goes more towards the within, the eye…

Cutting

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The most ordinary word, when put into place, suddenly acquires brilliance. That is the brilliance with which your images must shine.

Brilliance

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Robert Bresson by topic

Cinema (9)