Home
search
more | tips
IMDb > Quatre nuits d'un rêveur (1971)

Quatre nuits d'un rêveur (1971) More at IMDbPro »


Overview

User Rating:
8.0/10   311 votes
MOVIEmeter: ?
Down 8% in popularity this week. See rank & trends on IMDbPro.
Director:
Robert Bresson
Writers:
Robert Bresson (writer)
Fyodor Dostoyevsky (short story "White Nights")
Contact:
View company contact information for Four Nights of a Dreamer on IMDbPro.
Release Date:
29 June 1971 (West Germany) more
Genre:
Drama | Romance more
Plot:
The 'dreamer' is Jacques, a young painter, who by chance runs into Marthe as she's contemplating suicide on the Pont-Neuf in Paris... more | add synopsis
Plot Keywords:
more
Awards:
2 wins & 1 nomination more
User Comments:
Have you heard about the lonesome loser? Beaten by the Queen of Hearts every time. more

Cast

  (Complete credited cast)
Isabelle Weingarten ... Marthe
Guillaume des Forêts ... Jacques
Maurice Monnoyer ... Marthe's Lover
Lidia Biondi ... Marthe's Mother
Jérôme Massart ... Jacques' Visitor
Patrick Jouané ... Gangster (segment "Amour - quand tu nous tiens")
more
Create a character page for: ?

Additional Details

Also Known As:
Four Nights of a Dreamer (USA)
more
Runtime:
87 min
Country:
France
Language:
French
Color:
Color (Eastmancolor)
Sound Mix:
Mono
Certification:
Finland:K-16 | Sweden:15

Fun Stuff

Quotes:
Marthe: What's the matter?
Jacques: I love you. That's the matter.
more
Movie Connections:
Referenced in La maman et la putain (1973) more

FAQ

This FAQ is empty. Add the first question.
7 out of 29 people found the following comment useful:-
Have you heard about the lonesome loser? Beaten by the Queen of Hearts every time., 21 February 2000

An art-school kid meets a sad-faced girl on the Pont-Neuf; she's about to leap. It seems her beau left for Yale, swore he'd meet her one year later to the day--and he's blown her off. Love ensues between the couple on the bridge; Joe Yalie fails to make his appointment; and all seems to be heavenly for the two young lovebirds. Until, of course, days later, Joe Yalie comes a-callin'...

The relationship between a painter's self-torturing love life and his efflorescent work life was explored with a riotous, blasting, punk-rock yet p**s-elegant glee by Martin Scorsese and company in the short film LIFE LESSONS. Bresson's version of a similar tale is, to put it lightly, less communicative. Late Bresson--from THE TRIAL OF JOAN OF ARC on--puts a premium on mum's-the-word. But in a late, underappreciated masterpiece, UNE FEMME DOUCE, Bresson's deliberate muteness worked: this adaptation of a Dostoevsky story about a blinkered husband decrypting his wife's suicide prods at the question "What do women want?" with comic and sensuous tactics unseen elsewhere in Bresson. And the emphasis on the unreadable--made literal in Bresson's concentration on shoulders, hands, backs of heads--fit the material like a glove.

The Dostoevsky source material for FOUR NIGHTS OF A DREAMER is simpler stuff. And more psychological stuff, too--which, mated with Bresson's deliberately dime-store-Indian, anti-acting style, makes for incoherence. You can't make out just exactly what Bresson thinks this movie is about, except a touching, and not altogether lecherous, affection for Today's Youth. It has freaky asides, like his other unhinged youth movie THE DEVIL PROBABLY: an art student pontificates on his moral agenda for painting in a bowlegged scene that suggests Bresson standing up in the movie theatre and reading from a tract. It has bits of rock music performed live that take you back to the with-it-ness of Otto Preminger's SKIDOO. And it has the hero's weird, unfinished, Pop Art-meets-Matisse paintings, everywhere. And it ends with a sadder-but-wiser shrug.

You get the feeling Bresson's heart and soul slammed painfully into every frame of this movie. It's also inscrutable and not absorbing in the least. Is this the fate of all master directors who make it to a ripe old age--they keep their chops, but they simply have no more stories they're impassioned to tell?

Was the above comment useful to you?
more

Message Boards

Discuss this movie with other users on IMDb message board for Quatre nuits d'un rêveur (1971)
Recent Posts (updated daily)User
Why has this film disappeared off the face of the earth? stowbury
You can find a rental copy of the film in Los Angeles... dancingbearfilms
more

Recommendations

If you enjoyed this title, our database also recommends:
- - - - -
Au hasard Balthazar Titanic Edvard Munch La science des rêves Frida
IMDb User Rating:
IMDb User Rating:
IMDb User Rating:
IMDb User Rating:
IMDb User Rating:
Show more recommendations

Related Links

Full cast and crew Company credits External reviews
IMDb Drama section IMDb France section Add this title to MyMovies

You may report errors and omissions on this page to the IMDb database managers. They will be examined and if approved will be included in a future update. Clicking the 'Update' button will take you through a step-by-step process.