Four Nights of a Dreamer (France-Italy, 1971) 87 min color DIR-SCR: Robert Bresson, based on “White Nights” by Fyodor Dostoyevsky. PROD: Gian Vittorio Baldi. MUSIC: F.R. David, Louis Guitar, Christopher Hayward, Michel Magne. DOP: Pierre Lhomme. CAST: Isabelle Weingarten, Guillaume des Forêts. (5 Minutes To Live)
This, the least seen of all of Bresson’s films, is one of his most lighthearted. Unlike Mouchette, Une femme douce or The Devil Probably, this one only ends in a near-death. Jacques (Guillaume des Forêts), a socially withdrawn young man who expends more energy in his painting, encounters Marthe (Isabelle Weingarten, one of Bresson’s rare players to have a substantial career afterwards), who is contemplating throwing herself in the Seine because of what she feels is unrequited love from another young man.
The film explores this strange relationship over the course of four nights while she awaits the reciprocation (or not) from this third party. Based on Dostoyevsky’s 1848 short story “White Nights” (itself filmed previously by Luchino Visconti), and updated to current times, this may seem more like a Truffaut picture than one by Bresson. The framework for this film follows Truffaut’s traditional love triangle where everyone loves someone else who does not reciprocate. (One of Marthe’s lines to Jacques: “I love you because you don’t need me.”) Some dislike this film, however I rank it right beside Mouchette as one of the director’s first-tier masterpieces. Perhaps I took this as a delightful surprise, because it for once doesn’t wallow in death and depravity, but the framing and ineffectual performances make it trademark Bresson.
The unknown actors deliver their lines in that typically detached, mechanical prose, but this suits the material, as both of our lead characters are socially bankrupt, albeit for different reasons. Their time spent together however shows just how much promise the big world holds outside of the shells they have created for themselves. The film ends without any great revelation or consequence, but it makes sense, as people’s life lessons come from the most subtle of things.
This comes as close to filmic poetry as anything Bresson has ever done- as it is filled with lovely quiet moments in which these two learn more about the world and each other. I especially love those long sequences with the musicians in the riverboat.
This masterpiece deserves to be seen in better condition than the horrible 5 Minutes To Live DVD I’ve seen- their “print” looks like it was filmed from a wall projection! Hopefully Criterion or New Yorker will do this film justice and give it a proper presentation. It would make a great double bill with Truffaut’s Stolen Kisses.
Originally published in Vol. #1, Issue #16. Still no DVD as of this writing. Sigh.
Greg Woods
Greg Woods has been a film enthusiast since his teens, and began his writing "career" at the same time- prolific in capsule reviews of everything he had watched, first on index cards, then those hardcover dollar store black journals, then an old Mac IIsi. He founded The Eclectic Screening Room in 2001, as a portal to share his film love with the world, and find some like-minded enthusiasts along the way. In addition to having worked in the film industry for over two decades, he has been a co-programmer of films at Trash Palace, and a programmer/co-founder of the Toronto Film Noir Syndicate. He has also written for Broken Pencil, CU-Confidential, Micro-Film, and is currently working on his first novel. His secret desire is for someone to interview him for a podcast or a DVD extra.