Pamphlet distributed at the film's release in 1974
Interviewer: What do you want to do with this subject?
Robert Bresson: To extract from our myth. There is also the following specific scenario: The knights return to Arthur's castle without finding the Holy Grail. The Holy Grail is the Absolute: God.
Interviewer: The Holy Grail, a Christian symbol...
Bresson: Yes, but the Holy Grail has long existed in the non-Christian legends of the Celts. Interestingly, in the twelfth-century text Le Chevalier de la charrette ( Le Chevalier de la charrette ) you can also find references to the Greek mythology of Orpheus and Eurydice.
Interviewer: Is this film a big production?
Bresson: There were horses, there were knights in armour, there was a jousting... everything was as anachronistic as possible.
Interviewer: Anachronism?
Bresson: If you want to make it believable, you have to bring the past into the present.
INTERVIEWER: Did the medieval you create cost a lot?
Bresson: Generally speaking, a big budget doesn't bring good luck to a film writer. Fortunately for Lancelot on the Lake, having money doesn't mean luxury.
Interviewer: We can expect a lot of cruelty, a lot of violence...
Bresson: As in the British legend, the blood was everywhere on the ground.
INTERVIEWER: We can still predict, I think, a love story...
Bresson: Lancelot and Guinevere are like Tristan and Isolde, but without the love potion. A doomed love, a passionate love, in the face of difficult obstacles. This love and its fluctuations provide the driving force for the film.
INTERVIEWER: You wrote it completely on your own?
Bresson: Yes, because from the beginning a man must be the absolute master of his ideas. At least - and even more so - when the person is improvising.
Interviewer: You do a lot of improvisation?
Bresson: I am more and more convinced of the need for improvisation.
Interviewer: What about the dialogue?
Bresson: I wrote it a long time ago. I modify it as I make it, bit by bit.
INTERVIEWER: Are you looking for a challenge?
Bresson: They work for me. So is speed. I often find that what I can't do on paper, I can do on set, while shooting, and it turns out so much better.
Interviewer: Wasn't it difficult to photograph horses, knights in armor, and lots of extras?
Bresson: Contrary to what people think, if you can work with little, you can work with a lot. However, having more means didn't stop me from paying attention to detail, hinting without showing, and giving more power to the sound. A jousting is almost entirely edited for ears...in a sense, all scenes.
Interviewer: You don't have any real problems with the horses?
Bresson: They are not hired, they are bought and trained for a long time. They are young and hard to tame. And I have great knights.
INTERVIEWER: Great knights are not actors. Some say you hate actors.
Bresson: It's ridiculous... The best friend I have is an actor. That would be like saying "he's a painter, so he doesn't like sculptors". I love drama, I love actors. But I can't work with them. I'm not saying that others are going to do the same.
INTERVIEWER: Last question: What do you think of the people you call "models"?
Bresson: Previously, I would choose people based on their moral similarity to my character. It takes a long time to find it. Now, as long as nothing seems unacceptable, I make decisions quickly.
Interviewer: Why?
Bresson: The characters we created were all too organized. Reality is full of strangeness that only manifests later. I'm returning more and more to intuition, to chance. Of course, there are voices, and it's divine. On its own, as a part separated from the body, it is almost an entirely reliable way of making choices.
INTERVIEWER: How did you coach your actors? I mean your "model".
Bresson: It's not about coaching anyone, it's about coaching yourself. The rest is telepathy.
Notes:
Artus or King Arthur, a character in medieval history and stories who led the Britons and Brittany armorican against Saxon invaders in the late fifth or early sixth century. There is controversy over its historical basis, including the origin of its name.
The Celts are a European Indo-European ethnolinguistic group distinguished by their Celtic language and cultural similarity.
Le Chevalier de la charrette , also known as Lancelot ou le Chevalier de la charrette ( Lancelot ou le Chevalier de la charrette ), is a narrative poem written between 1176 and 1181. Written by Chrétien de Troyes (1135?-1185?), also believed to have been written by Godefroi de Leigni following the theses abandoned by Troyes , and it is also believed that Lenny is a fictional character of Troyes. It is about Lancelot's series of adventures to rescue Guinevere who was kidnapped.
Orpheus (Ancient Greek name Ὀρφεύς) was a musician, poet, and prophet in ancient Greek religion and mythology. The main narrative is his ability to captivate all living beings, even stones, with his music, his journey to the underworld to save his wife Eurydice, and his murder by those who cannot hear his music. He is one of the most famous classical mythological characters in Western culture.
Eurydice (Greek name Εὐρυδίκη) is a Greek mythological character, daughter of Apollo and wife of Orpheus. She was bitten by stepping on a poisonous snake while avoiding Aristaeus, who was pursuing her, and died immediately, and descended to the underworld.
Lancelot legend, first seen in Chrétien de Troyes' epic Érec et Énide (c. 1170). He is one of the knights of the round table, good at swordsmanship and horse riding, and is a good partner of King Arthur. Until her fornication with Queen Guinevere was discovered, Mordred took the opportunity to start a civil war that led to the overthrow of the Arthurian dynasty.
Tristan and Isolde refers to the protagonists of the romantic story Tristan et Isolde, which appeared orally in Britain as early as the ninth century and was translated into French in the twelfth century. About an adulterous love, generally believed to have influenced the later story of Lancelot and Guinevere. Among them is the scene in which Tristan escorts Isolde and the two fall in love after drinking a love potion.
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