A few of my favorite quotes from Robert Bresson’s legendary collection of filmmaking axioms, a companion piece, of sorts, to Eno’s Oblique Strategies:
“Unbalance so as to re-balance.”
“One forgets too easily the difference between a man and his image, and that there is none between the sound of his voice on the screen and in real life.”
“Empty the pond to get the fish.”
“Your camera catches not only physical movements that are inapprehensible by pencil, brush or pen, but also certain states of soul recognizable by indices which it alone can reveal.”
“A locomotive’s whistle imprints in us a whole railroad station.”
“See beings and things in their separate parts. Render them independent in order to give them a new dependence.”
“Absolute silence and silence obtained by a pianissimo of noises.”
“Build your film on white, on silence and on stillness.”
“Obvious traveling or panning shots do not correspond to the movements of the eye. This is to separate the eye from the body. (One should not use the camera as if it were a broom.)”
“Hide the ideas, but so that people will find them. The most important will be the most hidden.”
