December 21, 1999 Robert Bresson, Film Director, Is Dead at 98 By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS ARIS -- Robert Bresson, the film director whose austere approach helped redefine French cinema and paved the way for France's New Wave movement, has died, French television reported today. He was 98. The LCI channel quoted members of Bresson's family as saying the director died Saturday. No cause of death was given. Often using untrained actors coached to speak in flat monotones, Bresson believed the most poignant stories defied words and were best told with images. Critics said Bresson played a unique role in the development of French cinema. A man who defied categorization, he was the ultimate loner, belonging to no particular school of cinematography. In "Pickpocket," (1959) widely regarded as his most brilliant film, Bresson pared down the compulsive art of lifting wallets to its barest psychological elements. Coinciding with the budding New Wave cinema, the film became a reference for the generation of young filmmakers spearheaded by Francois Truffaut and Jean-Luc Godard. In "La Femme Douce" (1969), starring the 19-year-old Dominique Sanda in her first screen role, Bresson painted an ironic tale of obsessive love. Using flashbacks, he allowed the viewer to unravel the mystery of the opening scene: a young woman who throws herself off a building. Bresson also was interested in extreme, real-life situations. "A Man Escaped," which won Bresson the best director award at the 1957 Cannes Film Festival, was based on the true story of a French Resistance fighter who escaped from the Gestapo's Fort Montluc prison in Lyon. Born on Sept. 25, 1901, in Bromont-Lamothe, the son of a military officer, Bresson first studied to become a painter. He made his first film in 1934, "Affaires Publiques" (Public Affairs), based on three days in the life of an imaginary dictator. During World War II, Bresson spent a year in a German prisoner of war camp. He returned home in 1943 to make "Les Anges du Peche" (The Angels of Sin) and "Les Dames du Bois de Boulogne" (Ladies of the Bois de Boulogne) in 1945. Bresson was known as a quiet, solitary, even secretive man. Critics said the turning point of his career came in 1951 with the film adaptation of the Georges Bernanos classic "Journal d'un Cure de Campagne" (Diary of a Country Priest), the story of an ailing priest who tries, unsuccessfully, to connect spiritually with his parishioners. Bresson's final work, "L'Argent" (Money) was based on a short story by Leo Tolstoy. It won the Grand Prix du Cinema de Creation in Cannes in 1983. Comparing it to a Greek tragedy, critics said it expressed Bresson's dismal vision of a society in which appearances count more than values. The film also won a major New York film critics' award in 1984. Bresson was married twice. Details on funeral arrangements and survivors were not immediately clear. ______________________________ gloria monti special assistant professor department of audio/video/film 318 dempster hall 111 hofstra university hempstead, NY voice mail: 516-463-6463 e-mail: [log in to unmask] http://pantheon.cis.yale.edu/~godard/index.html 12/21/1988: a bomb exploded, killing 270 people aboard a Pam Am Boeing 747 over Lockerbie, Scotland. I lost one Yale College classmate and 36 Syracuse students in the crash. ---- Screen-L is sponsored by the Telecommunication & Film Dept., the University of Alabama: http://www.tcf.ua.edu