Robert Bresson Quotes & Sayings

The greater the success, the closer it verges on failure. — Robert Bresson

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

The true is inimitable, the false untransformable. — Robert Bresson

The crude real will not by itself yield truth. — Robert Bresson

Prefer what intuition whispers in your ear to what you have done and redone ten times in your head. — Robert Bresson

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

Master Precision. Be a precision instrument myself. — Robert Bresson

Bring together things that have not yet been brought together and did not seem predisposed to be so. — Robert Bresson

In the NUDE, all that is not beautiful is obscene. — Robert Bresson

Cinematography is a writing with images in mouvement and with sounds. — Robert Bresson

The faculty of using my resources well diminishes when their number grows. — Robert Bresson

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

Model. Two mobile eyes in a mobile head, itself on a mobile body. — Robert Bresson

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

Empty the pond to get the fish. — Robert Bresson

Hostility to art is also hostility to the new, to the unforeseen. — Robert Bresson

Be the first to see what you see as you see it. — Robert Bresson

Ten properties of an object, according to Leonardo: light and dark, color and substance, form and position, distance and nearness, movement and stillness. — Robert Bresson

My movie is born first in my head, dies on paper; is resuscitated by the living persons and real objects I use, which are killed on film but, placed in a certain order and projected onto a screen, come to life again like flowers in water. — Robert Bresson

One recognizes the true by its efficacy, by its power. — Robert Bresson

Films can only be made by by-passing the will of those who appear in them, using not what they do, but what they are. — Robert Bresson

Practice the precept: find without seeking — Robert Bresson

Create expectations to fulfil them. — Robert Bresson

Let nothing be changed and all be different. — Robert Bresson

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

The eye solicited alone makes the ear impatient, the ear solicited alone makes the eye impatient. Use these impatiences. Power of the cinematographer who appeals to the two senses in a governable way.
Against the tactics of speed, of noise, set tactics of slowness, of silence. — Robert Bresson

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

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

Provoke the unexpected. Expect it. — Robert Bresson

To create is not to deform or invent persons and things. It is to tie new relationships between persons and things which are, and as they are. — Robert Bresson

Rid myself of the accumulated errors and untruths. Get to know my resources, make sure of them. — Robert Bresson

The ear is profound, whereas the eye is frivolous, too easily satisfied. The ear is active, imaginative, whereas the eye is passive. When you hear a noise at night, instantly you imagine its cause. The sound of a train whistle conjures up the whole station. The eye can perceive only what is presented to it. — Robert Bresson

Cinematography, a military art. Prepare a film like a battle. — Robert Bresson

Two types of films: those that employ the resources of the theater (actors, direction, etc ... ) and use the camera in order to reproduce; those that employ the resources of cinematography and use the camera to create — Robert Bresson

Ideally, nothing should be shown, but that's impossible. — Robert Bresson

The point is not to direct someone, but to direct oneself. — Robert Bresson

The future of cinematography belongs to a new race of young solitaries who will shoot films by putting their last penny into it and not let themselves be taken in by the material routines of the trade. — Robert Bresson

A film is born in my head and I kill it on paper. It is brought back to life by the actors and then killed in the camera. It is then resurrected into a third and final life in the editing room where the dismembered pieces are assembled into their finished form. — Robert Bresson

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

Nothing more inelegant and ineffective than an art conceived in another art's form. — Robert Bresson

Make visible what, without you, might perhaps never have been seen. — Robert Bresson

The things one can express with the hand, with the head, with the shoulders! ... How many useless and encumbering words then disappear! What economy! — Robert Bresson

When you do not know what you are doing and what you are doing is the best
that is inspiration. — Robert Bresson

For me, film-making is combining images and sounds of real things in an order that makes them effective. What I disapprove of is photographing things that are not real. Sets and actors are not real. — Robert Bresson

Be sure of having used to the full all that is communicated by immobility and silence. — Robert Bresson

The thing that matters is not what they show me but what they hide from me and, above all, what they do not suspect is in them. — Robert Bresson

Unbalance so as to re-balance. — Robert Bresson