The Transcendent is beyond normal sense experience, and that which it transcends is, by definition, the immanent

Like transcendental art, the criticism of transcendental art is a self-destructive process. It continually deals in contradictions—verbalizations of the ineffable

of chiaroscuro, non-“flat” lighting, although this is very rare even in early Ozu

In the everyday Bresson uses contrapuntal sound not for editorializing, but to reinforce the cold reality. The soundtrack consists primarily of natural sounds: wheels creaking, birds chirping, wind howling.

Through the use of repeated action and pleonastic dialogue Bresson “doubles” (or even “triples”) the action, making a single event happen several times in different ways.

After an unsuccessful catechism class the priest enters in his diary, “But why the hostility of these little ones. What have I done to them?”

Stasis is the quiescent, frozen, or hieratic scene which succeeds the decisive action and closes the film

Whether that “something superior” is called “extraordinary currents,” “the invisible hand,” or “God,” it transcends immanent experience and may be called, if only for practical purposes, the Transcendent.

To some of Bresson’s critics, both admirers and detractors, he is not only the consummate stylist but also the consummate oddball: morbid, hermetic, eccentric, obsessed with theological dilemmas in an age of social action.

Intertwined with the abjuration of the body in Bresson’s films is the vexing problem of suicide: If the body enslaves the soul, why not destroy the body and be free?