Abstract

This chapter focuses on the cinematic representation of Christian values such as faith and love in Robert Bresson's films, Journal d'un curé de campagne (1951) [Diary of a Country Priest] and Les Anges du péché (1943) [Angels of Sin], as connected with the pathos of film characters by a kind of productive montage (Sergei Eisenstein), but also by sublime narratives, i.e., “invisible” movements (Gilles Deleuze). To understand those values and their correlative (im)perceptible movements, the chapter analyzes and discusses film sequences and considers Christian conceptual frames of reference—namely the stating and breaking of religious moral laws (e.g., sins), the possibility of redemption (e.g., confession, penitence, contrition and sorrow), and the ideas of salvation of a person's spiritual dimension as the state of being saved from evil and as an effect of Jesus Christ's death on the cross. Journal d'un curé de campagne and Les Anges du péché represent and describe these complex rational and emotional entanglements between people and their bodies and souls, throughout the course of their ordinary lives. That is to say, Bresson's “religious approach” deals with the role of religion in people's choices and behaviors, aiming to mirror and fight for good against evil—and God's transcendental love.