Spiritual Impression of Time in The Diary of a Country Priest

In order to have a thorough understanding of Bresson’s style, particularly in The Diary of a Country Priest (1951), it is crucial to study the film through the perspective of time. Bresson’s treatment of time in this film is very different than that of the typical narrative cinema. He provides his audience an unusual impression of time; one that removes any sense of real-time versus onscreen-time relation. Philip Lopate describes his first viewing experience of the film:
Suddenly I had the impression that the film had stopped; rather, that the time had stopped. All forward motion was arrested and I was starring into eternity. Now, I am not the kind of person, readily given to mystical experiences, but at that moment I had a sensation of delicious temporal freedom (Lopate, 27).

What Lopate calls “delicious temporal freedom,” is the spiritual sensation that transcends any notions of real-time; a sensation that is achieved by a multiplicity of temporal, and non-temporal effects. A multiplicity that slows down all the bodily and mental processes and prepares the spectator for the use of intelligence at the correct moment. Unlike Brechtian distanciation this multiplicity, does not disregard emotions, rather, as Sontag puts it, disciplines them (Sontag, 59).

The most significant way in which Bresson treats time is through editing. He places the cuts at the exact moments, highly uses dissolves, fade-ins and fade-outs, but never abuses them. He creates certain unique tempos and rhythms, and then in a larger scale collages different ones skillfully together. Most scenes in this film are cut short. Bresson never leaves any unnecessary extra time within a scene. He takes you right at a point of a conversation that is important, and doesn’t leave any room for extra dialogues. By this he achieves a minimalism that frees the film from any extra cliché , focus the attention of the spectator on the key elements of the novel, and presents every scene with an equal importance to the narrative structure.

In The Diary of a Country Priest Bresson repetitively uses dissolves. This consistent use of dissolves gives the film an exclusive temporal sensation, and creates a flow, that blurs the boundaries between separate shots and slows down our impression of time. The experience of specially first thirty minuets of the film is perhaps temporally very disorienting. The combination of the dissolves and short scenes, creates this effect that on one hand the experience of onscreen time would seem very slow, and yet relatively to the real-time fast. In other words when watching the first thirty minuets of the film, the movie would feel to have a very slow pace, however one would never guess that s/he has been sitting through half an hour of it. That is because the story is uncovered very fast, while a multiplicity of aesthetics slows down the impression and affect of it.

The constant use of dissolves also gives the normal cut a new effect: the power to accentuate. Because of the dissolves that have been used frequently, in times a cut gains such a disruptive power that it breaks the flow of the editing rhythm, and consequently results in a powerful self-reflective focusing of attention of the audience. For instance, when the country priest meets the priest of the Torcy in the hut, the scene opens with a fade-in, a cross dissolve from black to a long shot of the two men from back. This shot dissolves into a medium shot of the two men inside the hut both facing one direction yet talking to each other. This shot is kept, and it cuts to a reverse angle shot only before the priest of Torcy delivers the line: “you don’t pray enough, you suffer too much to pray. That’s how I see it.” At this point Bresson adds a dolly in towards country priest’s face, reframing him in a close up, when he replies with guilt: “But I can’t pray.” This cut does not provide us any new visual information. It only switches the orientation of the two characters in respect to the camera. Therefore because of the dissolves that precedes this cut, and also the very minimal visual differences between the two connecting shots, this cut appears much more radical than a normal cut, and highlights the part of the conversation that follows it.

One of the critical techniques that Bresson uses in the treatment of time is compression and expansion of onscreen time with relation to each other. He compresses time in the sense that he eliminates some parts of the action within a shot, mainly transitioned by dissolves. For instances in the scene where the priest visits the specialized doctor in Lyle, we are only shown the doctor’s sign which is dissolved into a shot of the priest leaving the clinic. What happens behind the doctor’s blurry doors is too significant to be eliminated. However by doing so, Bresson achieves three effects; First he avoids an emotionally climactic scene where the priest learns about his cancer. Second, he creates a sense of suspense that awaits the audience for the result of doctor’s diagnosis. And third, he compresses time, by not showing us a period of time that its existence is surely indicated to us.

Another way, in which Bresson is able to compress the experience of time, is by starting a scene from a central point of a conversation, long after the actual beginning of it. In several occasions he just throws the audience in a middle of a conversation, and emphasizes this fact by a line in dialogue. For instance, in the scene where the priest meets the countess for the second time, without and introduction or preparation, Bresson takes us to a significant part of the discussion: the priest expressing his worries for Chantal’s suicidal tendencies. As audience, we are aware that such a line could not have been delivered without any conversational build-up, and as a result, subconsciously become perceptive of the undepicted time. By this technique not only Bresson gives time a new sense within the shots’ relation, but he also achieves what his known for as a minimalist: the elimination of the unnecessary segments, and accentuation of the key points.

Bresson also manages to expand time by very fine techniques. A major method through which he expands audience’s sense of time is the use of the voice over narration. In many parts the voice over narration exceeds its position as a verbal reading of the diary, and becomes a subjective reflection of priest’s thoughts. A good example of how employment of such method would expand time, is the scene where the priest of the Torcy, visits the priest in his home. When the priest of Torcy commands the country priest to sit down, a low angle shot of the priest of the Torcy is cut to a reverse shot of the country priest, depicting him from a slightly higher angle. While his eyes stare at a point near the camera, he says “No.” Then he closes he eyes, followed by a very gradual dolly in camera movement. During the dolly in, a voice-over narration, which can be regarded as a reading of the diary, presents us the country priest’s inner feelings. In this segment of the scene, which lasts for about ten seconds, both characters are silent, in order to create room for the voice-over. This break within such important ongoing conversation, gives the impression that the time has stopped in order to expose us to the priest’s subjective feelings.

The Diary is an absolute key narrative and mise-en-scene element that creates a continuous flow and connection between different shots, forms a unique temporal quality, reveals priests subjective inner conflicts, and establishes an association to Bernanos’s adapted novel. Bresson juxtaposes the diary shots in a way that it mesmerizes any sense of their temporal position within the narrative. In most cases it is very hard to realize, at what point of the timeline it is that the priest is writing down his thoughts. In some parts we see him writing down his reflection of a scene that just preceded it, in some other parts we see him reflecting on the state he is in at that moment, and in other parts he writes about an action that is going to appear on the screen later on. Therefore the relation between the temporality of the diary shots, and the narrative time, is not fixed.

On the top of the visuals the voice-over as well contributes to the diary’s temporal ambiguity. The voice-over appears in four different kinds of relation with the image. In some scene the voice-over starts in a shot prior to that of the diary and continues through the shot of the diary and matches the diary. Sometime the voice over starts with the depiction of the diary and ends as the shot ends. In some other scenes, the voice over reads the diary and then continues through the next shot, as if the shot of the diary has been a flash-forward. In many scenes without any depiction of the diary we get the voice over explaining to us the priest subjective thoughts.

Considering Bresson’s interest in the interior conflicts of characters he uses the diary as a tool to demonstrate the priests inner feelings. But using the motif of the diary, Bresson detaches any sense of omni-science voice over narration, and transforms the voice over into readings of the diary, a more intimate subjective approach to the matter, through the point of view of the priest. In several points he even uses the diary as a visual tool to depict the priest’s feelings. For example, Bresson provides us the image of the priest tearing out some of his diary’s pages, which indicates his regret for some of his misjudgments, or later in the film where he is leaving the country for Lyle we see he packing his all his diary notebooks while Chantal is there, which somehow implies his guard toward his privacy, and his fear of Chantal’s interference in his private life.

Bresson has been well known for his use of sound in cinema. In The Diary of a Country Priest sound serves as a major element, influencing the overall impression of time and performances. In this film Bresson avoids using any ambient sound, therefore any onscreen or offscreen sound would seem isolated. This effect not only triggers a self-reflective response, but contributes to the minimalist touch of Bresson as well. It also gives the film certain quietness that perfectly matches the rhythm and the flow produced by editing, and also the performances and gestures.
The digetic offscreen sound in this film has been skillfully utilized to avoid certain visual redundancies, set a particular mood, and to produce the doubling effect. Bresson uses the offscreen sound to avoid any superfluous image that might add a climactic feel, or disrupt the narrative flow. For example, before the priest learns about the death of the country doctor, we hear an offscreen sound of a gunshot, while the priest is walking with his bike in the countryside. It is only in the following shot that we are hinted about the source of the shot. This way the narrative element is there, while the harsh image is concealed.

Bresson invest a great attention in keeping a consistent use of the camera. The camera movements, camera angles, and the depth of field of the shots has been carefully chosen and kept in a consistent fashion that has created a language of its own. Every time we are exposed to the priest’s inner thoughts we are provided with a dolly in camera movement. The camera often moves in a very subtle way. Sometimes the movements are very minimal yet effective. These delicate camera movements are another key element in shaping the way spectator experiences time. They blend perfectly within the flow that has been created by editing, and contribute to the process of slowing down the experience of time.

The camera angle has been used very cautiously is suggesting the amount of authority. Those who are in a higher position, or in control of a conversation are always shot from a lower angle, than the other. More interestingly, in several scenes as the conversation carries and the authority of characters shift, the camera angle also changes accordingly. For example when the priest meets the countess for the second time, we have this constant shift of control over the conversation. In times the countess seems to be the one in control, but as the issue of her dead baby is brought up, the priest gains a more authority over the conversation. Bresson brilliantly changes the camera angle depiction of the characters by the having them sitting and standing through the conversation. That is, while they talk seated, they are depicted from a high angle, and when stood up, from a low angle.

It has been said that Léonce-Henri Burel, who was the cinematographer for this film has only used a 50mm lens throughout the film, in order to have a higher control over the depth of field, and maintain a consistency over the film. Most shots in The Diary of a Country Priest are in a medium range of depth of focus. We rarely get any shots with a deep or shallow focus. By this steady way of treating the depth of field, Bresson focus our attention on certain characters or objects that are in focus, and he provides only a slightly blurry milieu surrounding the character. The surroundings are out of focus to the degree that they can be identified, yet not receiving any particular attention.

Susan Sontag mentions the Brechtian Aspect of the performances, but on the top of the self-reflective effects of the performances, there relies a more temporal effect that is mainly dependant on movements and gestures. Bresson has directed all actings, body movements, and gestures in way that they perfectly complement the rhythmic flow of the film. Apart from few exceptions we are never given a fast, or aggressive body movement. All gestures are executed is a meditated way. That does not mean they are necessary slowed down, rather, there has been a great attention to the micro movements within movements. The movements of the eyes, specially those of the priest, carry a lot of the expressions’ weight. They tell us a lot about a person inner conflict while the rest of their face is rather less expressive.

As argued above Bresson uses a multiplicity of elements, in achieving an affect that disorients our notion of time, and challenges our cinematic viewing experience. This multiplicity which is the result of skillful editing, sound treatment, camera movement, body choreography, along with some narrative elements and techniques, gives the temporal form of this film a meditative, spiritual and self-reflective feel; One that perfectly compliments the theme of its content.

References:
Susan Sontag, “Spiritual Style in the Films of Robert Bresson” Robert Bresson. Ed. James Quandt. Toronto: Cinématheque Ontario, 1998. 57-72.
Phillip Lapote, “Films as Spiritual Life” Film Comment. v. 27, n. 6, Nov 1991. pg. 26-30.