Touching the world: a way of making meaning in film

Abstract

This thesis explores different aspects of touch and the role of the body in three works by Robert Bresson: Un condamné à mort s'est échappé (1956), Pickpocket (1959) and Une Femme Douce (1969). It intends to show how affective qualities can complement our understanding of the director’s meanings. Drawing from recent phenomenological scholarship it focuses on the experiential elements of Bresson’s works and the thematic threads linked to them. By exploring touch, the unusual treatment of bodies and other material elements that Bresson incorporates in different kinds of visual, audible and haptic juxtapositions, it exhibits the director’s imaginative meanings grounded in physicality and materiality.