SUBJECTS

Man-woman relationships -- France -- Drama, Suicide -- Psychological aspects -- Drama, Youth -- France -- Drama, Youth -- France -- Moral conditions -- Drama

The Devil, Probably

(Le diable probablement)

  • Lecture
featuring

Antoine Monnier, Tina Irissari, Henri de Maublanc, Laetitia Carcano,

Also screens (without lecture) in our Robert Bresson retrospective

This has been called Bresson’s most cynical film. It certainly offers his most fashionably cynical protagonist, Charles, a young Parisian whose suicidal despair is vaguely linked to, but not entirely explained by, all the ecological, political, and social disasters of the modern world circa 1977. This character makes an interestingly unsympathetic addition to Bresson’s gallery of self-sacrifices—his behavior toward his multiple lovers is far from saintly, and his aristocratic beauty can’t mitigate an infuriating, passive arrogance. But Charles’s life, which ends in the middle of an unexpressed thought (less sublime than he’d expected), takes on in retrospect the odd, compromised dignity of a thwarted spiritual search. It’s entirely possible to picture an alternate ending in which this dissatisfied youth becomes a Jesuit. The chic psychiatrist who tries to “cure” Charles’s indifference asks, “When it’s over, do you see yourself as a martyr?” The reply: “Only an amateur.”

Juliet Clark
FILM DETAILS 
Screenwriter
  • Robert Bresson
Cinematographer
  • Pasqualino De Santis
Language
  • French
  • with English subtitles
Print Info
  • Color
  • 35mm
  • 93 mins
Source
  • The Film Desk
  • Olive Films
CINEFILES

CineFiles is an online database of BAMPFA's extensive collection of documentation covering world cinema, past and present.

View The Devil, Probably documents  

Le Diable probablement (program note), Cinematheque Ontario/a division of Toronto International Film Festival Group, 1999

The poetry of precision: the films of Robert Bresson (program note), Cinematheque Ontario/a division of Toronto International Film Festival Group, James Quandt, 1998

Robert Bresson (press kit), Pacific Film Archive, 1998

The devil probably (distributor materials), New Yorker Films, 1995

The Devil, probably (distributor materials), New Yorker Films, 1995

The cure (review), Village Voice, J. Hoberman, 1994

The Devil probably (review), Boston Phoenix, Henry Sheehan, 1986

The Devil probably (program note), Mill Valley Film Festival, David Thomson, 1983

Le Diable probablement (program note), Los Angeles International Film Exposition, Eric Sherman, 1978

Le Diable probablement (review), Dimanche, 1977

Displaying 10 of 35 publicly available documents.


View all The Devil, Probably documentation on CineFiles.