Robert Bresson fans will be delighted they can now upgrade their collection with L’Argent. Following the Blu-ray release of Pickpocket (1959), the director’s 1983 film comes to Blu-ray next month.
Restored from the original negative, this energetic, enigmatic indictment of capitalism is a late masterpiece by Bresson. It won him the Best Director prize at Cannes that year. Imbued with a fierce cinematic power and tautly positioned amid the coldly structured complexities of human behaviour.
Extras include a discussion filmed during the recent Robert Bresson season at BFI Southbank, an interview with Jonathan Hourigan, Bresson’s former assistant and a video essay on L’ARGENT by Michael Booke.
Adapted from a novella by Leo Tolstoy, Bresson’s portrait of an ordinary man driven to ever-more extreme crimes by social and financial forces beyond his control probes uncomfortably beneath the surface of ‘civilised’ society. This compact, rigorously stylised film and the awkward questions it poses, about the nature of forgiveness and the possibility of redemption, is a rich testament to one of cinema’s greatest auteurs.
Related Post: Robert Bresson’s Pickpocket Getting A Blu-Ray Upgrade
Special features
- Restored from the original negative and presented in High Definition
- Style, Anti-style and Influence (2022, 22 mins): an onstage discussion between Geoff Andrew, Jonathan Hourigan and Nasreen Munni Kabir on the films of Robert Bresson, filmed at BFI Southbank
- First and Last (2022, 9 mins): film scholar Jonathan Hourigan, former assistant to Robert Bresson, compares the director’s first feature, Les Anges du péché, with his last, L’Argent
- The Root of All Evil (2022, 19 mins): writer Michael Brooke considers Bresson’s late masterpiece in this newly commissioned video essay
- Jonathan Hourigan on L’Argent (2007, 27 mins, audio only): an audio introduction to the film
- Value For Money (1970, 22 mins): David Blest’s dreamlike, experimental short film, featuring Quentin Crisp, visualises coin-operated connections between money and religion
- Theatrical trailer
- ***First pressing only*** Illustrated booklet featuring writing by Jonathan Hourigan an essay by Dr Martin Hall and a review by Tom Milne originally published in Monthly Film Bulletin in 1983; credits and notes on the special features
France / 1983 / colour / 84 mins / French with English subtitles / original aspect ratio 1.66:1 // BD50: 1080p, 24fps, PCM 2.0 mono audio (48kHz/24-bit)
Order/Buy your copy here.
BFI will release Robert Bresson’s L’Argent on Blu-ray on 8th August. Then iTunes and Amazon Prime release on 15th August
