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Various elements must be measured properly in order to procure the correct style and imagery of a film. Time, focus, and information are components which director Robert Bresson did not trifle with through his career in cinema. Originally beginning as a painter, Bresson’s adherence to detail and style throughout his work is palpable if not colorful. Mastering audience engagement, Bresson’s work is never loud or on the scale of grandiose. He offers a sense of realism within the diegetic space of his films.

A video essay by The Discarded Image analyzes and discusses the style of Robert Bresson as the antithesis of over-stylized. A pure image onscreen, Bresson’s direction married the manipulations of images and sounds. Noting works such as “A Man Escaped,” “Pickpocket,” and “L’argent,” among others, Bresson expresses through his work an innate style that is mastered by what he shows on screen.

The ability to withhold information can often be a gamble in storytelling. But what if the impact is far greater by the reveal? In this way, Bresson made a career of holding back the experiences of his characters. Instead of throwing audiences into a battle sequence, tossing them out of a moving car to escape, and traveling through Western Europe only to circle back home, Bresson creates a static and detached way of relaying his stories. Seeing horses running away from a battle rather than witnessing the carnage first hand, only gives audiences the ability to understand within the diegetic space what could have possibly taken place.

Bresson’s style of direction is one that extends a hand to audiences, asking them to work with him. As opposed to simply bearing witness to stories and events on screen, audiences are made more active in Bresson’s pictures by filling in gaps where Bresson leaves them. Releasing audiences from this relationship in its final moments, each film adopts the mainstream cinematic style of employing sweeping music. The practice is a distortion of the purity of image Bresson created as if with a brush stroke.