Books

Paris: Cahiers du cinéma, 1986.
Cahiers du cinéma. Collection Auteurs.
ISBN 2866420462

Sun & Moon Press, May 1997. Classics Series, No. 124.
136 pages. ISBN 1557133654 (paperback)

[ True 1st Ed. Gallimard, 1975 (PDF) ]
[ 1st English Ed. Urizen, 1977 (PDF) ]

Czech Edition © Dauphin, 1998. ISBN 80-86019-68-3.

[ dustjacket flap | masthead ]

Kokkola, Finland: Kokkolan Elokuvakerho Outolempi / Institute Chydenius, 1989.
194 pages. ISBN 951-9053-36-0. ISSN 0358-0148.

This is what Film Critic Hannu Björkbacka told robert-bresson.com (see also our October 11, 2005 news update): "I was one of the people in Finland forming the Kokkolan Elokuvakerho Outolempi (Cine Club Strangelove) in the little coastal city of Kokkola in the eighties. As part of our programme, we ran a week of Bresson films [1 | 2], and that gave us an idea of compiling a book of texts about Bresson into Finnish, because none was available at the time. So we found people to translate Paul Schrader's and Susan Sontag's essays on the subject plus other more recent writings. Then our Board Member, Mr. Pertti Hyttinen, sent a letter to Mr. Bresson asking permission to translate and add his Notes sur le cinématographe (1975) into the book."

[ Photo by Jaakko Tervasmäki | colofon | letter from Bresson to editor ]

New York: Urizen Books, 1981.
Three 5" × 8" paperbacks, translated by Leon Burch.
Pickpocket (PDF, 119 pp.); Diary of a Country Priest (164 pp.); A Man Escaped (215 pp.).

Paris: René Julliard, 1962.
Film script. Click the thumbnail for a PDF of this out-of-print book.

Paris: Cinémathèque française, 1997.
ISBN 2-900596-18-1.

[ contents 1 | contents 2 | page example | preface | references | rear cover | colofon ]

London: Studio Vista, 1969; New York: Praeger Publishers, 1970.
144 pages. ISBN 289 79605 9.
Click the thumbnail for a PDF of this out-of-print book.

[ rear ]

New York: Continuum, 2003.
224 pages. ISBN 0826414710 (h/c), ISBN 0826416055 (p/b).

This excellent book introduces Bresson's work to a broader audience. In a straightforward, jargon-free way it goes through his films in chronological order, giving detailed plot summaries and commenting on them through pertinent quotations from Bresson's Notes on the Cinematographer, published interviews, and sharp-witted critics such as Susan Sontag. Valuable both to newcomers and to those already familiar with his work.

Paris: Éditions Seghers, 1962.
Cinéma d'aujourd'hui series, No. 8.
223 pages, 6¼″ × 5¼″.

[ title page | rear ]

Cranbury, N.J.: Associated University Presses, 1986.
240 pages. ISBN 0-8386-3194-0.

Chapters devoted to narrative analysis of Une femme douce and Au hasard, Balthazar; character presentation in Four Nights of a Dreamer; sound and music in Mouchette; and the poetic design of Lancelot du Lac. Each chapter compares the film with its literary source and includes still photographs. An interview with Antoine Monnier (Le Diable probablement) appears in the appendix.

London: BFI Publishing, 1999.
96 pages. ISBN 0 85170 733 5.

[ rear ]

Boston, MA: G.K. Hall, 1983.
231 pages. ISBN 0816185026.

Though somewhat out of date, a very in-depth collection of references on Bresson scholarship, reviews, etc. Augmented twice by Shmuel Ben-Gad in the Bulletin of Bibliography (1984 and 2000). Click the thumbnail for a PDF of this out-of-print book.

Indiana University Press.
Cinematheque Ontario Monographs, No. 2.
624 pages. ISBN 0968296912 (paperback).

[ rear ]

Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2000.
French Film Directors Series. 166 pages.
ISBN 0 7190 5365 X (hardback), ISBN 0 7190 5366 8 (paperback).

[ rear ]

Berkeley: University of California Press, 1972.
194 pages. ISBN 0520020383 (hardcover), ISBN 0306803356 (paperback).

[ rear ]