Bresson and Tarkovsky

[Paul Murphy]

Tom Gorman writes:

>Well said, Dennis. By the way, I haven't heard of SAFE. I'd be much
>obliged to know who directed it and when it was released? Thanks.

Directed by Todd Haynes, released 1996, starring the redoubtable Julianne
Moore (now slumming in your local multiplex, in the staggeringly idiotic
_Lost World_).

In addition to Tom's well-annotated list of Bresson masterworks, I'll also
mention _Au Hasard, Balthazar_, the saddest film about a donkey you'll ever
see (it was made by Bresson right after making _Mouchette_, the saddest
film about a little girl you'll ever see). Just out on video (from New
Yorker Video, if I remember right) is Bresson's uncompromising film on teen
suicide, _Le Diable, Probablement_, which was championed by Godard,
Truffaut, and Fassbinder in the year of its release, then vanished in
distribution limbo for decades. Oh, and Bresson is no longer living, though
his aesthetic lives on through the films of Aki Kaurismaki and Jim Jarmusch
(to some extent).

As for Tarkovsky, I haven't seen _Stalker_, but I consider _Nostalghia_ and
_The Sacrifice_ among the greatest films I've ever seen. But I also like
Theo Angelopoulos, the bastard son of Tarkovsky and Antonioni, whose
_Landscapes in the Mist_ and _Ulysses's Gaze_ are slow to the point of
static. And I also like Jacques Rivette (speaking of watching paint dry).
Sometimes, slow is good.

Cheers,
Paul