Bresson, Sexuality and Religion

[Andre Jurieu]

Yeah, I'm voting that our next forum tagline should be "We're running a Stalinist 'show trial' over here".

So is it safe to infer that even some of the people that support the validity of a homosexual subtext and secular reading in Bresson's work are now shaking their heads in disbelief at what's happened here? I know I am.

[bunuelian]

At least no one has mentioned Nazis yet.

[David Ehrenstein]

Or Ozu.

[viciousliar]

I have one last question for the forum (and I've been asking myself this for a very long time.)

Who are WE??

You will be very greatly missed, Flixy, you were my No 1. poster of the entire membership. I am SO sad....what a tremendous loss to the Forum....

[David Ehrenstein]

Whatever the complexities of Bresson's sexuality, it seems evident that he didn't--in the period when he was making movies-- identify with the social and cultural category of "homosexual.".

Well who did? Not even Cocteau, if you check the record carefully. He published his most explicitly gay novel anonymously.

And his films contain few if any of the sort of coded appeals to gayness that would have available at midcentury (and which have been catalogued by film historians), so the "queer" readings of his films seem to me necessarily tentative and non-exclusive--and more interesting for that.

Not sure what you mean by "coded appeals" in this context.

[Napoleon]

He lived well through to 99, Cocteau went in 63. I'm sure that if Bresson wanted to make a statement about his sexuality one way or another he lived through tolerant enough times to do so.

As he never made a clear statement about it, it is safe to assume that he didn't feel it was either relevant or anyone else's business. What you are attempting to do is circumnavigate Bresson's own feelings of the issue and force it to be relevant. An action that few will find agreeable.

Carrying on like this will neither add nor detract from his legacy so why continue with it?


Oh, and flixy, please say that you were joking about that being your last post. What with your attitude and knowledge making you a god amongst posters.

[David Ehrenstein]

What you are attempting to do is circumnavigate Bresson's own feelings of the issue and force it to be relevant. An action that few will find agreeable.

It is my job as a critic to deal with artists and their work. Almost invariably that entails "circumnavigating" their "own feelings" to get at the truth. Truth does not need to be "forced" in order to be rendered "relevant."

[GringoTex]

As one with no "faith" who loves most of Bresson I want to ask other posters

I wanted to continue this discussion without further hijacking the Cannes thread. I'm choosing David's post to respond to because he's so perceptive, but I intend to address all the Bresson posts in the thread.

First, I think the recent controversy began by Indiana's Pickpocket liner notes and and answered by White and retorted by Ehrenstein and brought to task by Cummings, etc., etc., etc., has resulted in a mythological line drawn in the dust (ala Travis and the Alamo) separating "Christians" from "anti-Christians."

What it's boiled down to is that we're trying to apply our notions of the politics of 21st century American Christianism to the work of a clearly 20th century French filmmaker who would probably regard the likes of the 700 Club with total incomprehension.

That Bresson made films primarily concerned with questions of Christian ideology cannot be disputed. Despite the claims to the otherwise, you simply cannot read Balthazar outside of a Christian context, anymore than you can pretend Eisenstein was making films outside of a Soviet "communist" point of origin.

David, you seem to be implying that someone with no Christian faith approaches Bresson differently from a "believer," but certainly you know as much about the tenets of Christianity as any believer. You simply choose to reject it. But the knowledge is the same for everybody. I don't know of anybody who approaches Bresson's films as sacred texts (they may be out there, but would represent an extremist minority), so ultimately, we're all approaching Bresson on an equal footing. Bresson is surveying human experience within a Christian framework, and we all know what that framework is, whether we have "faith" in it or not.

I also want to address the supposed dichotomy between homosexuality and Christianity as it pertains to Bresson. The notion that the two are mutually exclusive is a recently constructed pipe dream. Cummings, a staunch defender of Bresson-as-Christian, fully welcomes gay interpretations of his work. Hell, anybody with a Catholic clue knows how many Catholic priests are gay. This is not a matter of denial or self-hatred. Homosexuality and Catholicism are entertwined. The set-up is perfect: priests can't marry.

And although I don't it's pertinent, I'll declare: I'm not a believer. My wife is Catholic as are my children. I take our priest out to dinner once a month. We drink and smoke and talk about beautiful women.

So with that overlong prologue out of the way...

what do you make of Laydu's struggle in Cure de Campagne?

Frankly, I've never understood any confusion about Cure de Campagne. Laydu is an idealist who can't reconcile the fact that he must also be a capitalist manager. He's morally superior to everyone around him and dies for it in a material world. I love it, but I've always found it Bresson's least interesting film.

do you find the death of Balthazar an "affirmation" (like the escape of Fontaine and Jost in un Condamne), or an expression of resignation to the meaninglessness of suffering?

Neither. The Man Who Escaped was a genuine hero- the one and only in a Bresson film. There was a definite good and a definite evil, and Fontaine used superhuman skill and determination to overcome the evil.

Balthazar is Jesus. Jesus posessed superhuman power, but chose to suffer evil as an animal would. Balthazar is that animal. It has nothing to do with "affirmation" or the "meaninglesness of suffering." Balthazar's suffering is very real - not meaningless - and his indefensibility leaves those who abused him with a very clear reackoning: there is no complexity in abusing a dumb animal.

Is the apparently complete ordinariness of evil in l'Argent an equivocation in spiritual thinking or a statement of lost faith? (I frankly have a lot of trouble with this movie in any case.)

I have a lot of trouble with this movie, too, which may be why it's my favorite Bresson. It's the first time Bresson allowed his sufferer to do the ultimate evil to a complete innocent. Ehernstein claims it is an embracement of atheism, but it's possible to see it as a fundamentalist embracement of the worthlessness of mankind. I think I need to see this again and again because I can't believe that Bresson believed in this worthlessness.

[HerrSchreck]

That Bresson made films primarily concerned with questions of Christian ideology cannot be disputed. Despite the claims to the otherwise, you simply cannot read Balthazar outside of a Christian context...
David, you seem to be implying that someone with no Christian faith approaches Bresson differently from a "believer,"

As much of the "best" of religion itself (yes even Christianity, though I'm agnostic at best) is not about religion itself (any more than the operating instructions for an electric drill are about the operating instructions themselves rather than the drill) but are rather about the pain and mystery of Being Alive, so is Bresson to me not an exposition of religion, or religious principle, or even religious iconography (as some Tarkovsky, for example-- see RUBLEV-- contain specific religious pictorial tableaux meant to trigger certain meditations), but rather reflections on the bleakness of the world for a heart maintaining a fidelity to a lifestyle, or an idea, that is quote-unquote salutary or substantial. Or even in simple opposition to the masses (as in the universality of the core idea DIARY-- re my post answering Dave in the Cannes thread).

Since most people's "beliefs" are mostly an afterlife insurance-policy type mechanical fulfillment of basic responsibility, or simple habit carried on out of family tradition, I think most even "Catholic" folks who view Bresson and get something out of him simply appreciate them (those more allegedly "Catholic" of his films) as works of ambiguous beauty which present a meditation on the aches & pains & injustices of being a harmless person: the characters of the GENTLE WOMAN, BALTHAZAR, THE COUNTRY PRIEST, MOUCHETTE. They're films about how the shits of the world fuck the life of decent folk who don't have a predatory bone in their body, and how those decent folks are urged towards insanity and death because of the relentless onslaught of the shits of the planet who cannot stick to their own lousy circumferences.

I also want to address the supposed dichotomy between homosexuality and Christianity as it pertains to Bresson. The notion that the two are mutually exclusive is a recently constructed pipe dream. Cummings, a staunch defender of Bresson-as-Christian, fully welcomes gay interpretations of his work. Hell, anybody with a Catholic clue knows how many Catholic priests are gay. This is not a matter of denial or self-hatred. Homosexuality and Catholicism are entertwined. The set-up is perfect: priests can't marry.

Disagree tremendously. Pie-in-the-sky demands for celibacy in a secluded, all-male environment is what is intertwined with male homosexuality. This manifests in the miltary, war trenches, prison, all forms of monkism eastern & western. Catholicism itself, as a doctrine, is about as divorced from homosexuality as is humanly possible-- arch-enemies, of course.

Balthazar is Jesus. Jesus posessed superhuman power, but chose to suffer evil as an animal would. Balthazar is that animal. It has nothing to do with "affirmation" or the "meaninglesness of suffering." Balthazar's suffering is very real - not meaningless - and his indefensibility leaves those who abused him with a very clear reackoning: there is no complexity in abusing a dumb animal.

See but calling Balthzar Jesus (rather than a saintly icon of human suffering of harmless souls who mind their own business versus the assholes of the world) nails all kinds of problems to the film. You need to maintain a special blind spot to see the idea through & make it work. How is Balthazar "the Christ"? How is his ministry and mission of redemption and salvation executed? A Christ is an active figure. A motionless donkey is a passive figure. The mere absorption of abuse, with some teasing hints of baptism by children playing, doesn't demand a reading of Balthazar as the Christ. Balthazar dies a hopeless death which is extremely painful to watch in it's loneliness, in the lack of reward and relief in a life spent in suffering. I don't see a salvation of the world or a cleansing of the sins of the world via Balthazars transit through life from birth to death. I don't see any wiping clean of the guilt of mankind. I see a film made by a director who had serious problems with humankind, and went through a phase where he wanted to show what unredeemable pieces of shit most people were.. an impulse which reached it's apex with the dismal & morose MOUCHETTE.

[David Ehrenstein]

Christianty is blathered about ceaselessly in the U.S. -- to the point where its become what Barthes would call "an empty signifier."

Today it'sjust meaninglessright-wing twaddle and a church that has banrupted itself -- both financially and morally -- in pedophile scandals it has been forced by the courts to respond to. It can claim no moral authority whatsoever.

Bresson's Christianity proceeds from a rich and complex tradition of intellectual Catholicism whose most signal artistic figures include Montherlant, Gide, and Klossowski.

Both Klossowski's

It's not for nothing that Pierre Klossowski was cast as the nasty farmer who forces Anne Wiazemsky to sit in his lap in Au Hasard Balthazar.
Balthazar is the name of the donkey protagonist. It's also the first name of Pierre's brother, the painter known as Balthus. The visual style and erotic concerns of Balthus can be found in that film as well as Une Femme Douce and Le Diable Probablement.

Regarding sexual orientation, Montherlant and Gide were gay. Pierre Klossowski was in his youth Gide's petit ami for a time. In adulthood powerful dominating women overtook his fantasy AND real life (ie. his wife, celebrated an fetishized in Robert de Soir and other writings.)

In short, there's nothing Au Hasard about Balthazar.

Is [Dreamgirls Bill Condon's] attempt to move out of the gay director ghetto?

Was George Cukor in a ghetto? How about Charles Walters? (Today's his brithday, BTW.) How about Robert Bresson? Yasujiro Ozu? Patrice Chereau? James Whale?

Kinsey was great, BTW.

Dreamgirls is closest to Strange Behavior.

[tavernier]

Is this his attempt to move out of the gay director ghetto?

Was George Cukor in a ghetto? How about Charles Walters? (Today's his brithday, BTW.) How about Robert Bresson? Yasujiro Ozu?

Uh-oh....outing Bresson and Ozu after they're dead and can't defend themselves? Shame, shame.

[David Ehrenstein]

"Defend themselves?" From what?

Ozu's gayness is well-known in Japan, BTW.

[Jeff]

kidding about best picture potential, but nah, i dont see how this will be able to compete with departed

While I plan to see Dreamgirls, it's not the type of picture that usually ends up in my top ten or anything. That said, most oscar prognasticators have called it the favorite for Best Picture for most of this year, and the recent screenings didn't do anything to change their minds.

Uh-oh....outing Bresson and Ozu after they're dead and can't defend themselves? Shame, shame.

Ehrenstein wrote the book on outing the dead.

Literally.

[tavernier]

Uh-oh....outing Bresson and Ozu after they're dead and can't defend themselves? Shame, shame.

Ehrenstein wrote the book on outing the dead.

Literally.

You'd have thought Bresson and Ozu, having avoided Hollywood, would have escaped his clutches.

[David Ehrenstein]

Ozu didn't have to "avoid Hollywood," seeing as he ruled Japan.

As for Bresson, he was very interested in Hollywood. In doing my research for my book I was examining the wealth of mateiral George Cukor left to the Academy Library -- scripts, notes, letters, et.al. Among the letters I found a listing for "Correspondance with Robret Bresson." Cukor saw Diary of a Country Priest in France when it opened and passed on through a freind who knew Bresson that he loved the film. Bresson wrote back and Cukor helped get it a U.S. release. Then in 1963 Bresson wrote Cukor again. He was about the make Lancelot du Lac and wanted to cast --

(wait for it)

Burt Lancaster and Natalie Wood!

That this famous opponent of professional acting wanted the two biggest stars in Hollywood is mazing, but true. Sadly it didn't happen -- leaving Bresson to make the film his usual way many years later.

[Barmy]

You can't compare Ozu and Bresson to Condon. Prior to DG, Condon has done two films, both gay, one of which was quite good. In their entire careers, Ozu and Bresson didn't do any gay films, other than, arguably, "Ohayo" and "Bois de Boulogne" (OK, "Lancelot" too), respectively. It's mildly tiresome when gay directors settle into making gay films. That's all.

[Michael]

It's mildly tiresome when gay directors settle into making gay films.

Huh? I'm not getting this. It's like if I'm saying that it's mildly tiresome when straight directors settle into making straight films. Why even bother mentioning it? What's your point?

[jorencain]

And I'm tired of seeing so many black guys in Spike Lee films! Yawn. It's like, come on, I've already seen a bunch of black people before. Move on to white stories, Spike!

That's just a ridiculous statement, Barmy.

[David Ehrenstein]

Ozu and Bresson didn't do any gay films, other than "Ohayo" and "Bois de Boulogne" (OK, "Lancelot" too), respectively.

You're blithely overlooking Un condamne a mort s'est echappe -- his gayest film. Then there's the climactic mototcycle ride in Diary of a Country Priest and the babe-a-licious casting in Au Hasard Balthazar, Four Nights of a Dreamer and Le Diable Probablement.

There's a clip of Bresson on YouTube (hope it's still up) Quite the coquette.

The old men who congregate for supper together in I think Late Spring (though I may be thinking of another Ozu of the same period) discuss a colleague who was tossed out of school for writing love letters to another youth. This actaully happened to Ozu himself.

Ozu died not long after completing his last film The Taste of Autumn Mackrel (known in the West as An Autumn Afternoon) Ozu was exceptionally superfond of one of the male leads of that film -- the actor who played the golf-crazy son. When he died shortly afterwards there was a considerable scnadal as his widow broke down at the funeral screaming "Ozu has taken him with him!!"

[Barmy]

You're right, we can add "Escaped" and, possibly, "Priest" to Bresson's gay oeuvre (no comment about his ass film). That's still less than 50%.

[Steven H]

The old men who congregate for supper together in I think Late Spring (though I may be thinking of another Ozu of the same period) discuss a colleague who was tossed out of school for writing love letters to another youth. This actaully happened to Ozu himself.

Are you talking about Early Summer? I'm having a hard time remembering the moment you're bringing up. A good excuse for myself to go back and rewatch all the post Late Spring films.

And about getting kicked out of school, I swear I've read or heard about this elsewhere. Is this out of his (the Ozu that everybody on this board would be on about, that is) memoirs? I hope those get translated at some point, as I can't think of anything regarding Ozu I would rather read. From what I understand there's a great deal of insight to be had from them.

I've always been slightly partial to the "Noriko is gay" reading of Late Spring, and knowing what I do about Ozu, I don't think him being a closet homosexual is too out there. He was definitely a "bachelor".

As for Bresson, this entire thread was a long hashing out in regards to his sexuality. I hope we don't retread too much.

[jguitar]

This entire discussion has recalled for me a question I've always meant to ask Jonathon Rosenbaum but never got around to. In his review of The Umbrellas of Cherbourg for the Chicago Reader, he makes a comparison between Ozu and Demy. One of the ways in which they were similar, he says, is that Ozu and Demy were both closeted gay men who made closely observed films about everyday middle-class domesticity (sorry that this may be badly paraphrased: I'm working from memory here). He further goes on to say that Demy died of an AIDS-related illness. Officially, Demy died of leukemia.

Basically my question here is, how does he know this? This wouldn't be exactly shocking news about Demy, but after looking at the two extant books on him (both in French) and reading a fair amount of journalistic writing on him, I can't really find anything concrete aside from Rosenbaum's remark. Does anyone else have a take on this?

[David Ehrenstein]

How about first-hand reports? I knew Demy slightly and his lover David Bombyck (producer of Witness and several other Hollywood films of note) even better. They took up together during the shooting of Lady Oscar. Both died of AIDS.

Jacques was bisexual and VERY late coming out to himself about his feelings for men. His coming out was a shock to Michel Legrand who was professionally estranged from Demy for a time. It's why Une Chambre en Ville was scored by Michel Colombier.

Jacques son Mattieu starred in Ducastel and Matineau's AIDS musical Jeanne and the Perfect Guy as a tribute to his father.

Jacques favorite director was Bresson. There are hommages to Les Dames du Bois de Boulogne in Lola -- in which Elena Labourdette plays an older version of herself in Bresson's film.

[Guest]

Jacques favorite director was Bresson.

Was he indeed? Watching LOLA one feels that Ophuls is Demy's favorite director.

It's really quite entertaining to hear people uncomfortably accepting the "gay subtext" in some of Bresson's work. The gayness in UN CONDAMNÉ Ã€ MORT S'EST ÉCHAPPÉ is in no way hidden or subtext, it's in your face. That reminds me of people who claim the social critique in DAWN OF THE DEAD is subtle.

[David Ehrenstein]

Pickpocket is "in your face" too. The tour de force pickpocketing sequence is practically an orgy.

In the interview with Bresson on YouTube (I hope it's still there) he's asked re Pickpocket if he ever met a thief. Bresson responds as if he's being asked whther or not he's gay.