Followers of the cinema of Robert Bresson,
whom Google's spellmarm demands that we
write, Breton, will recognize that the
beast on the Left is not a horse, and
hasn't the stature of glamor, or of many
other properties we'd associate with a
chevalier such as this. Balthasar suffers,
as Bresson's protagonist, and there is a
distribution of shame in his story which
builds with his recurring exposure to the
abuse which causes it; hence, Au hasard,
Balthasar. An unfortunate memory for a
Friday, but give us a day when bestial
cruelty seems acceptable and we'll have
a Presidency which has adopted it as its
frame of reference. Now, for Balthasar,
Democrats are summoned to be blamed, and
disturbingly quite freely by themselves.
The question is posed, of what sort of
guardian this chevalier is of the trust
in his hands. This is a defunct question,
where trust is as maldistributed as shame.
Rather, we freely concede, bestial cruelty
has achieved that, working a dual maldis-
tribution. The question for Democrats
is how to protect Balthasar in the midst
of widespread jubilation with his torment.
It is not whether to pretend that shame
can be of help, that remedial powers can
command good effect beyond their reach,
that frustration - stoutly proclaimed -
can turn Rome from the pleasures of the
Coliseum, the seat of all politics now.
Is it passivity that Mike Pence urges
his Christians to renounce, or shame?
The question is not, how futile a Dem-
ocrat can be blackmailed into being.
What can sustain him like shame, there-
fore what can substitute for sentimental
follies of rectitude? Can his endurance
answer for it, without his martyrdom?
Can trust defend itself the same way?
Mike Pence begs for it to be "easy" to
be Christian again, as if it ever were.
This the Donkey in Bresson never asked.
Robert Bresson
1966
Tony Pipolo
Robert Bresson
A Passion for Film
Oxford University Press, 2010©
