Film Review
Of the thirteen full-length films that Robert Bresson directed
Quatre nuits d'un rêveur is
the one that is most overlooked, certainly the most atypical and
possibly the hardest to pin down. Inspired by Fyodor
Dostoyevsky's short story
White
Nights (which had previously been adapted as
Le
Notti Bianche (1957) by Luchino Visconti), the film appears
to have far more in common with Bresson's New Wave contemporaries than
a filmmaker renowned for his spare depictions of suffering and
redemption. Guillaume des Forêts, who plays the central
character Jacques, has such a striking resemblance to Jean-Pierre
Léaud, the most emblematic actor of the Nouvelle Vague, that you
can easily deceive yourself into thinking the film was made by Rivette,
Godard or Truffaut, and the story it tells is one that would not be out
of place in the oeuvre of Eric Rohmer. And yet whilst
Quatre nuits d'un rêveur was
undoubtedly influenced by the French New Wave, and serves equally as a
homage, parody and critique of this movement, it is unmistakably the
work of Bresson, as intense, perceptive and flawlessly crafted as any
other film he made.
This is a film that, like many others of its time, reflects the
disillusionment that was widely felt in France in the wake of the May
1968 anti-government protests, a succession of strikes and
demonstrations that paralysed the whole country and brought it to the
brink of civil war before fizzling out like a damp squib.
Jacques, the main character, is the perfect embodiment of
soixante-huitard idealism, an abstract painter whose naive daubings (in
bold primary colours on ludicrously large canvases) reveal not only a
childishly free-spirited temperament but also an old-fashioned
romanticism founded on a concrete belief in the righteousness of basic
ideals. To surrender to a perfect notion of love, selfless and
inviolable, appears to be Jacques' sole quest in life, and it is clear
that this is what drives his art - submission to the absolute is, after
all, what love and art are all about.
How unfortunate that the woman Jacques falls for during his nocturnal
perambulations around Paris is one whose notion of love is more tied to
the physical than the spiritual plane. In the parlance of film
noir, Marthe is the archetypal femme fatale, the corrupting female
whose sole raison d'être is to lure the unsuspecting hero of high
ideals to his doom. Marthe's notion of love is sordid and shallow
compared with Jacques', a means of gratifying the body rather than
enriching the soul. When her former lover fails to return to her
as promised, it is as much her over-developed narcissism as a feeling
of rejection that leads her to attempt suicide (in the clichéd
manner of jumping into the Seine). Her idea of love is selfish
and destructive, whereas for Jacques love is something pure and
life-affirming, the magical lodestone that guides both his art and his
life. In the course of the film, both characters are led to
betray their ideals as they come to discover what love really is.
Whereas most of the films that Robert Bresson made during this last and
most revealing phase of his career are austere and grimly pessimistic,
Quatre nuits d'un rêveur has
a surprising warmth and lightness about it, although it is hard to tell
wither Bresson is being ironic or sincere in his portrayal of the
younger generation. Neither Jacques nor Marthe is a particularly
flattering depiction of modern youth - the one is a self-sufficient
dreamer who imprisons himself in a fantasy world; the other is a
self-centred hedonist who lives only for the moment. Both come
across as hippies who have yet to realise the fragility of their
illusions. For the present, happy, deluded children, they are content
living in that glorious spring of 1968, oblivious to the
disappointments to come. The failure of ideals would be the
central theme of Bresson's next film,
Lancelot
du lac (1974), a more scathing piece of post-68 commentary
implausibly framed as Arthurian legend.
© James Travers 2015
The above content is owned by filmsdefrance.com and must not be copied.
Next Robert Bresson film:
Lancelot du Lac (1974)
Film Synopsis
One night, a young painter, Jacques comes across a young woman, Marthe, who is about to
commit suicide by jumping off the Pont-Neuf bridge in Paris. Marthe is heart-broken
because her former lover, who left her a year ago, failed to keep their meeting on the
bridge. Jacques is instantly attracted to Marthe and asks if they can meet up the
following night. She agrees, and they spend the next few nights wandering the streets
of Paris, sharing their fantasies and dreams. By the fourth night, Jacques has fallen
hopelessly in love with Marthe, but then who should appear but her former lover...
© James Travers
The above content is owned by filmsdefrance.com and must not be copied.