a hospital window. A woman in bed yells ‘Stop!’, first in shock, then with a
comic swoon. What if your movie heart-throb really did spring to life from
a frame on your bedroom wall? Grant’s technique, much like Hitchcock’s,
is extravagant but it differs from convention only by degree. Hollywood
performances, especially in thrillers and dramas, criss-cross between filmic
character and the excesses of star persona, between acting and posing.^28
We see the opposite in the films of the French director Robert
Bresson, whose pared-down style avoids all excess. Bresson disliked the
very idea of stars and cast non-professionals, avoiding even the termactor
and its theatrical implications. He preferred the termmodel, which recalls
the still photograph or the painter’s studio. He had his models drain their
actions of as much theatre as possible, insisting they perform over and
over in rehearsal until they could do it without thought or self-conscious-
ness. Bresson wrote in his only book: ‘No actors (no directing of actors).
No parts (no playing of parts). No staging. But the use of working models
taken from life.being(models) instead ofseeming(actors)’. Later he
noted: ‘Nine-tenths of our movements obey habit and automatism. It is
anti-nature to subordinate them to will and thought.’^29 Pickpocket( 1959 )
may be Bresson’s most complete exploration of the approach, since what
happens on screen mirrors his own method. The film follows the career
of a pickpocket as he trains himself relentlessly, perfecting his technique.
48 The result is a performance in which everything and nothing looks
32 North By Northwest(Alfred Hitchcock,
1959), still.
33 Pickpocket(Robert Bresson, 1959),
still.
