(aka 'Balthazar' or 'Min vän Balthazar' ')
France 1966
(written in September 2003 just before the U.S. October 2003 theatrical run of
Balthazar)
Although Robert Bresson's 1966 Au Hasard, Balthazar instantly attained its
status as a classic, the current revival run at New York City's Film Forum
(October 17 – 30, 2003) actually represents the first theatrical release for the
film in the United States. Au Hasard, Balthazar has continued to intrigue film
critics and scholars (it missed placing in the Top Ten during the 2002 Sight &
Sound poll of international critics, but it made it into the Top Twenty), but it
is one of those classics that remains virtually invisible to the public at
large, certainly in this country. (For the record, Au Hasard, Balthazar tied
with two other films at Number 19: Truffaut's
Jules and Jim and Antonioni's
L'Avventura.)
The circumstances of the making of Au Hasard, Balthazar were anomalous in the
extreme. Mag Bodard, the French producer whose company Parc Films was actually a
very small, independent concern, had just had a huge international success with
Jacques Demy's
The Umbrellas of Cherbourg (1964); Demy was an avowed disciple of
Bresson (Elina Labourdette, who played Cecile's mother in Demy's first feature,
Lola, had been the ingenue in Bresson's
Les Dames du Bois de Boulogne; stills
from Bresson's film are used in
Lola to represent the character's past); Demy
put Mag Bodard in touch with Bresson for the express purpose of producing
Bresson's next film. Since the mid-1950s, Bresson's dream project had been a
film about the legend of King Arthur, but the budget for that project proved too
much for Bodard's limited finances. Turning to an anecdote from Dostoevsky's The
Idiot, Bresson came up with an original script about the turmoil of an
adolescent girl in a small border village; the trick was that the story of Marie
would be contrasted with the life of her pet, a donkey she has named Balthazar.
The financing for the film would be part of a deal involving coproduction money
with Svensk Filmindustri; the only requirement was that there had to be some
Swedish personnel involved. (This was the same deal which also brought about
Jean-Luc Godard's Masculine Feminine for George De Beauregard's Rome-Paris
Films.) By the end of 1965, with a script ready and the film cast, Bresson set
about the production of Au Hasard, Balthazar, only the second "original"
screenplay of his career (his previous works had been adaptations of novels or
nonfiction, with the exception of Pickpocket).
Excerpt of Daryl Chin's article found on Robert-Bresson.com
Posters
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Theatrical Release: May 25th, 1966 - France
Reviews More Reviews DVD Reviews
DVD Review:
Nouveaux Pictures - Region 0 - PAL
Big thanks to Trond Trondsen of Masters of Cinema for the screen captures!
| DVD Box Cover |
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CLICK to order from:
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| Distribution | Nouveaux Pictures - Region 0 - PAL | |
| Runtime | 1:31:24 | |
| Video | 1.63:1
Original Aspect Ratio Average Bitrate: 6.29 mb/s PAL 720x576 25.00 f/s |
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NOTE: The Vertical axis represents the bits transferred per second. The Horizontal is the time in minutes. |
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| Audio | French (Dolby Digital 1.0 Mono) | |
| Subtitles | English (non-removable) | |
| Features |
Release Information:
Edition Details: • Bresson Filmography
• Photo Gallery |
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| Comments: |
This DVD has been
mastered from the newly restored print. The transfer is simply
breathtaking, as the screengrabs below also bear witness to. The
contrast is perfectly balanced, and you'll be hard-pressed to find
traces of dust or scratches. I probably haven't been as excited over the
visual quality of a DVD since I first saw Criterion's
L'Avventura, Asmik Ace's
Suna no onna, and Tartan's
Winter Light. The audio has some
minor problems with subtle humming, whirring, and whistling at various
odd frequencies. The English subtitles are excellent. There are a few
minor typographical blunders, and the subtitles unfortunately cannot be
turned off. There are no significant extras, but who cares, really, in
the face of such an excellent representation of a cinematic masterpiece.
This is probably one of my favorite DVDs thus far! Support DVDBeaver and
click the Amazon link above, NOW! --Trond Trondsen, mastersofcinema.org |
out
of 
(due
to inability to turn subs off)
Recommended Reading for Robert Bresson fans (CLICK COVERS or TITLES for more information)
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Robert Bresson: A Spiritual Style in Film by Joseph Cunneen |
Robert Bresson (French Film Directors) by Keith Reader |
Robert Bresson by Philippe Arnaud, Alain Bergala |
Transcendental Style in Film: Ozu, Bresson, Dreyer (Da
Capo Paperback) by Paul Schrader |
Notes on the Cinematographer by Robert Bresson |
Robert Bresson (Cinematheque Ontario Monographs, No.
2) by James Quandt |
Proces de Jeanne d'Arc by Robert Bresson |
L'Argent (Bfi Modern Classics) by Kent Jones |
Check out more in "The Library"
DVD Menus
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Subtitle Sample
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Screen Captures
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| DVD Box Cover |
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CLICK to order from:
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| Distribution | Nouveaux Pictures - Region 0 - PAL | |
Mail cheques, money orders, cash to: or CLICK PayPal logo to donate!
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Gary Tooze
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Many Thanks...
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