L’Argent **** (1983, Christian Patey, Sylvie Van den Elsen, Michel Briguet) – Classic Movie Review 9817

Inspired by Faux Billet by Leo Tolstoy, the 1983 crime drama L’Argent is the 13th and last film directed by French master Robert Bresson (1901–1999).

Robert Bresson uses Leo Tolstoy’s story The False Note about the cashing of a fake 500-franc banknote in a shop, then deliberately passed from person to person and shop to shop, as the basis of a typically rigorous and austere look at class, crime and conscience,  in his 1983 film L’Argent.

Christian Patey plays Yvon Targe, the innocent worker hero destroyed by the people with money.

There are no false notes from Bresson, one of the cinema’s most important directors, who films naturally, easily and un-self-consciously, yet with great strength, vigour and conviction.

Bresson was nominated for the Palme d’Or but won the Best Director award at the Cannes Film Festival in 1983 (tied with Andrei Tarkovsky for Nostalgia [1983]).

Also in the cast are Caroline Lang, Vincent Risterucci, Marc Ernest Fourneau, Sylvie Van den Elsen, Michel Briguet, Bruno Lapeyre, Béatrice Tabourin, Didier Baussy and Jeanne Aptekman.

L’Argent is directed by Robert Bresson, runs 85 minutes, is made by Eôs Films, Marion’s Films and France 3 Cinéma, is released by AMLF (1983) (France), Artificial Eye (1983) (UK) and Cinecom Pictures (1984) (US), is written by Robert Bresson, is shot by Emmanuel Machuel and Pasqualino De Santis, is produced by Antoine Gannagé (executive producer), Jean-Marc Henchoz, Daniel Toscan du Plantier, with music by Johann Sebastian Bach, and production design by Pierre Guffroy.

It is part of the Criterion Collection.

The films directed by Robert Bresson: Angels of Sin (1943), Les Dames du Bois de Boulogne (1945), Diary of a Country Priest (1951), A Man Escaped (1956), Pickpocket (1959), The Trial of Joan of Arc (1962), Au Hasard Balthazar (1966), Mouchette (1967), A Gentle Woman (1969), Four Nights of a Dreamer (1971), Lancelot du Lac (1974), The Devil, Probably (1977) and L’Argent (1983).

© Derek Winnert 2020 Classic Movie Review 9817

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