Journal d'un curé de campagne: An Ecclesiological Review

Note: This review focuses on two components of Bresson's film, which are relevant to ecclesiology. There is much more that could be said about Bresson's film as well as his entire body of work. For those interested in delving deeper I recommend Paul Schrader's Transcendental Style in Film.

Robert Bresson's 1951 Journal D'un Curé De Campagne (Diary of a Country Priest), is the story of a young priest, sent to a new parish in a small village in the French countryside. Though adapted from the Georges Bernanos novel of the same title, this is Bresson's film, through and through. He uses the story to explore themes of transcendence, the sacramental character of the physical (and with it a certain view of sacraments themselves), and the operation of grace apart from the worthiness of the minister. He accomplishes this through camera movement, actor direction, pacing, and narrative elements.

Bresson was committed to the idea that the transcendent could be found by seeing "through" the details of the physical. For him, artifice in acting was a barrier seeing. He dispensed with professional actors and instead found with the look that he wanted and trained them to execute precise movements. The performances are restrained. Facial expression is slight. Actors deliver lines in an unaffected manner.

Camera shots are long and movements fluid. Bresson strips every shot of extraneous detail, often placing the camera extremely close to an actor's hands or face. The pacing of the film is slow. In all of this Bresson sought to recreate the everyday - the quotidian, because he felt that it was in the everyday details, where one who looked carefully enough could see the transcendent. The result of all of these elements when combined is that the slightest expression becomes explosive.

Bresson’s stated intention in this style of filmmaking was to create moving icons. An icon is not intended as an object of contemplation in itself (which would make them into idols); it is intended to point beyond itself to something else - to the transcendent. This view of the material as being infused with the transcendent such that it can actually communicate the transcendent can be called a sacramental view of the physical and it has direct bearing on one's range interpretations of the Eucharist. In this film, the connection is made more explicit through elements of the story.

The young priest arrives in the village of Ambricourt and is largely ignored by his parishioners. They are reluctant to let him into their lives to minister. He is befriended by an old priest from a nearby parish and an unbelieving doctor.

The young priest is sick. The only food that can calm his stomach and that will sustain him is bread that has been soaked in wine. This physical situation - a man physically ill and weak sustained by bread and wine - is emblematic of a certain, sacramental understanding of the Eucharist - men spiritually weak sustained by the bread and wine of Communion. He keeps his illness from all but the doctor and priest of Torcy. The villagers, seeing him both consuming his wine-soaked bread and also staggering from weakness assume that he is a lush. We find out late the exact nature of his illness.

But the priest is also ill spiritually. He suffers from doubt and anguish which Bresson communicates through his narrated journal entries and through conversations with the priest from Torcy. He still "feels" his faith within him, but he doubts the grace of God towards him and his usefulness to God. This despair reaches its peak when the doctor is found to have accidentally shot himself in the woods. It is an obvious suicide.

Ineffective in his ministry, the priest is avoided by adults and taunted by the children of his parish. We have seen Bresson explore the physical as a means of grace. Here he explores the human as such.

It will be instructive here to take a detour towards early church history and the Donatist controversy. From 303 to 313 the emperor Diocletian persecuted the church and outlawed Scripture. Some Christians gave up their copies of the Scriptures and later, after the persecution returned to the church. The Donatists protested that since they had compromised their ministry would be invalid. Augustine countered the Donatists, insisting that the church is made up of both saint and sinner and that the efficacy of the sacraments depended upon Christ's worthiness (ex opere operatio). Can a doubting, ineffective minister be used by God?

God does use the priest of Ambicort in the life of a particular family in the parish. The Count we discover is having an affair with the governess, Miss Louise. The daughter, Chantal has confided in the priest and is being sent away by her father. The priest goes to the Countess to confront her, but finds her resigned to her situation and bitter towards God over the loss of another child. They have a drawn out battle of wills and in what turns out to be the longest conversation in the film. The Countess is unmovable for most of the conversation, when suddenly, in response to the priest's words, she drops her antagonism and surrenders herself to God. In light of the style of the film this scene, though restrained in comparison to most films, is incredibly moving. Here God uses the weak, doubting, ineffective priest to minister grace to another.

With regard to the view of sacrament expressed in this film, much can be said for understanding that the creation, though distinct from God bears His imprint. In fact, it is through the physical that God most often communicates grace in the world. Nevertheless, this is not what is happening in the Lord's Supper. The Lord's Supper is a memorial which commemorates the work of Christ on the cross and points us towards the coming feast in His Kingdom. It is not a meal whose physical eating sustains the spiritual life of believers, though it is a symbol pointing to the very true spiritual reality that it is the body and blood of Jesus - the substitution and sacrifice which they represent - which does sustain the spiritual lives of believers.

Regarding the worthiness of ministers, it must be said in accord with Augustine in response to the Donatists that, regardless of how the sacraments themselves work, it is the worthiness of Christ which makes grace effective and not the minister.

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