Robert Bresson's Modernist Canvas: The Gesture toward Painting in Au hasard Balthazar

This article explores Robert Bresson's use of painting and development of a painterly style in his film Au hasard Balthazar (1966), focusing on the concern with figuration, reflexivity, the dynamic between stasis and movement, and the manipulation of actors, to whom Bresson referred as "models." Comparisons are made to the style and approach of Jackson Pollock, Jean-Antoine Watteau, Francis Bacon, Paul Cézanne, and the children's cartoon series by François Craenhals, Les aventures de Pom et Teddy (1953).