In Keith Reader's book Robert Bresson (2000), he mentions that Jean Sémolué, in Bresson ou l'acte pur des métamorphoses (1993), calls Bresson's first feature Les Anges du péché 'Bresson avant Bresson'. In recognition of this quotation, Reader's first chapter is called 'Bresson Before Bresson', in which he mainly covers the first two features Les Anges du péché and Les Dames du Bois de Boulogne, after very briefly saying a few words about the oddity which is Affaires publiques (which didn't initially have a definite article).
Affaires publiques is set in the imaginary République de Crogandie with the Chancelier (the Moldavian clown Béby) inaugurating several ceremonies and Marcel Dalio playing four parts. Reader mentions Chaplin and Keaton as influences, although certainly Max Linder was a major influence on Chaplin himself. Included in the short are dancing girls, a plane crash, arsonist firemen, a yawning statue which sends the audience to sleep, and a bottle of champagne which refuses to break in the launching of a ship.
This is all so contrary to what we have come to know as Bressionian austerity, but then what would we expect from 'Bresson avant Bresson'? Sémolué also (on the surface slightly paradoxically) added that the earliest Bresson was already Bresson, in other words that – much like the plane – Bresson was ready to take off.
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