A review of "The Devil, Probably" by Mireille Latil-Le-Dantec. Originally published in Issue 77, July-August 1977, of Cinématographe. Translation by Ted Fendt. Thanks to Marie-Pierre Duhamel.
"I challenge you all now, all you atheists. With what will you save the world, and where have you found a normal line of progress for it, you men of science, of co-operation, of labour-wage, and all the rest of it?
With credit? What's credit? Where will credit take you? [...] Without recognizing any moral basis except the satisfaction of individual egoism and material necessity! [...] It's a law, that's true; but it's no more normal than the law of destruction, or even self-destruction. [...] Yes, sir, the law of self-destruction and the law of self-preservation are equally strong in humanity! The devil has equal dominion over humanity till the limit of time which we know not. You laugh? You don't believe in the devil? Disbelief in the devil is a French idea,...
"I challenge you all now, all you atheists. With what will you save the world, and where have you found a normal line of progress for it, you men of science, of co-operation, of labour-wage, and all the rest of it?
With credit? What's credit? Where will credit take you? [...] Without recognizing any moral basis except the satisfaction of individual egoism and material necessity! [...] It's a law, that's true; but it's no more normal than the law of destruction, or even self-destruction. [...] Yes, sir, the law of self-destruction and the law of self-preservation are equally strong in humanity! The devil has equal dominion over humanity till the limit of time which we know not. You laugh? You don't believe in the devil? Disbelief in the devil is a French idea,...
- 3/31/2014
- by Ted Fendt
- MUBI
DVD Release Date: Sept. 18, 2012
Price: DVD $24.95
Studio: Olive Films
Antoine Monnier is down in The Devil, Probably.
Writer/director Robert Bresson’s (Mouchette) 1977 drama The Devil, Probably, the French filmmaker’s penultimate feature, is a dark story of disaffected French youth in modern Paris.
Four disillusioned young adults wander the city’s streets and hole up in tiny apartments while serving witness to what they see as society’s destruction of the planet. Charles (Antoine Monnier), the womanizing ringleader of the group, is haunted by an overwhelming sense of nihilism as he drifts through politics, religion and psychoanalysis and rejects them all. Once Charles realizes the depth of his disgust with the world around him, he decides that suicide may be his only option…
The late Bresson described The Devil, Probably as “a film about the evils of money, a source of great evil in the world whether for unnecessary...
Price: DVD $24.95
Studio: Olive Films
Antoine Monnier is down in The Devil, Probably.
Writer/director Robert Bresson’s (Mouchette) 1977 drama The Devil, Probably, the French filmmaker’s penultimate feature, is a dark story of disaffected French youth in modern Paris.
Four disillusioned young adults wander the city’s streets and hole up in tiny apartments while serving witness to what they see as society’s destruction of the planet. Charles (Antoine Monnier), the womanizing ringleader of the group, is haunted by an overwhelming sense of nihilism as he drifts through politics, religion and psychoanalysis and rejects them all. Once Charles realizes the depth of his disgust with the world around him, he decides that suicide may be his only option…
The late Bresson described The Devil, Probably as “a film about the evils of money, a source of great evil in the world whether for unnecessary...
- 6/25/2012
- by Laurence
- Disc Dish
"The Devil, Probably [1977], one of the great Robert Bresson's greatest, and least-seen, movies gets a week-long run (April 20-26) in the midst of BAMcinématek's Bresson retrospective — resplendent in a new 35mm print and hailed by no less an authority than Richard Hell as 'the most punk movie ever made.'" J Hoberman for Artinfo: "Like all Bresson's movies, The Devil, Probably is a drama of faith so formally rigorous and uncompromising as to border on the absurd — a Dostoyevskian story of a tormented soul presented in the stylized manner of a medieval illumination. At once chic and austere, The Devil, Probably is a generic youth movie set in a Parisian student milieu where long-haired panhandlers play their bongos by the Seine while sinister nihilists mock religion by planting pornographic photos in church documents. Opening with a newspaper headline (Youth Kills Self In PÈRE Lachaise Cemetery), it unfolds in flashback...
- 4/21/2012
- MUBI
IMDb.com, Inc. takes no responsibility for the content or accuracy of the above news articles, Tweets, or blog posts. This content is published for the entertainment of our users only. The news articles, Tweets, and blog posts do not represent IMDb's opinions nor can we guarantee that the reporting therein is completely factual. Please visit the source responsible for the item in question to report any concerns you may have regarding content or accuracy.