Edmond Bernhard

VERTAALD DOOR TRANSLATED BY TRADUIT PAR Sis Matthé

Born in Halle in 1919

(1) Dimanche (Edmond Bernhard, 1963)

“Nothing can fix the finite which lies between the two infinities that enclose and flee from it.” This formula by Pascal may very well apply to the films of Edmond Bernhard, the most brilliant filmmaker Belgium has ever known. His entire oeuvre essentially consists of five short films made between 1954 and 1972, less than two hours of screening time in total: Lumière des hommes (1954), Waterloo (1957), Belœil, ou Promenade au château de Belœil (1958), Dimanche (1963) and Échecs (1972).

In the work of this self-taught filmmaker (one should rather say poet or stylite), every part of the image and every detail of the light or the movement of the camera have been thought out, rigorously tested, and composed with the precision, intelligence and sensibility of a master, lending his films an astounding and truly spiritual splendour. A film by Edmond Bernhard is an important thing, not an object of consumption or art that is shaped more or less carefully according to current fashions.

While others wear themselves out making films without thinking, Bernhard questions himself like a yogi, his camera participating in his questioning. Lumière des hommes was a film about Mass. Sober and surprising. Bresson-esque. Waterloo and Belœil, which would have become banal tourist documentaries in the hands of anyone else, are poetic meditations on the vanity of things and life. Like an alchemist or a magician transfiguring reality, Bernhard turns the insignificant – a tree that has been cut down, a museum visit – into History and Time, dwelling rather on the dust that covers the windows, the meaningless words of a guide, the hair of a young girl admiring herself in a mirror, the dead leaves strewn over the ground or the sky-circling birds indifferent to the struggles and feelings of humankind.

Musical scores, one should say. Dimanche started out as an educational film about leisure. Bernhard “diverts” his commission and avoids the trap of a “thematic” film. Without resorting to commentary, by using a clever montage of extraordinary images that sublimate commonplaces (Sunday boredom, the changing of the guard, children playing, a runner in the woods, a football match...), he manages to construct an exceptional work on the feeling of emptiness and the fossilization of the world.

Edmond Bernhard has always searched out difficulty, dead ends, dead-end roads where he could lose himself ad infinitum. His labyrinthine leanings naturally led him to conceive a film about chess (Échecs). It’s an animated film. You don’t get to see the players. Just the progression and movement of the thirty-two character pieces over the course of a world championship game. The film’s originality lies in the fact that Bernhard tried to show the invisible, that is to say the game that is played in the minds of the opponents, who analyze, calculate and prepare their move before making it, which is just the result of a long reflection. These junctions, these “digressions”, these mental ramifications Bernhard has translated cinematographically by way of an ascetic mise-en-scène that avoids dramatization and psychological fictionalization. This is not a film for specialists, and you don’t have to be John Cage or Marcel Duchamp to appreciate this unconventional poem, which is more of a haiku or a zen garden than a film in the ordinary sense.

Edmond Bernhard’s chessboard probably ended his interference in cinema definitively. Everything is brought together and synthesized admirably, but also refined to its ultimate depth: the mystery of inner thought, the stroll into oblivion and indifference, the painting of nothingness, all of which was the substance of his earlier films. But in Échecs, there is no room for deserted museums, for muffled silences and decomposed skeletons. No more axe blows, no more bird flights. Nothing but black and white pieces moving through space and time. Emptiness and death. The very essence of cinema.

This text originally appeared as "Bernhard Edmond" in Guy Jungblut, Patrick Leboutte et Dominique Païni, dir., Une encyclopédie des cinémas de Belgique (Paris: Musée d’Art moderne de la Ville de Paris - Yellow Now, 1990).

With thanks to Boris Lehman and Guy Jungblut.

 

This text is published in the context of Seuls: Short Work 1’, tonight at 20:30 on Avila. You can find more information on the event here.

ARTICLE
10.03.2021
FR EN
In Passage, Sabzian invites film critics, authors, filmmakers and spectators to send a text or fragment on cinema that left a lasting impression.
Pour Passage, Sabzian demande à des critiques de cinéma, auteurs, cinéastes et spectateurs un texte ou un fragment qui les a marqués.
In Passage vraagt Sabzian filmcritici, auteurs, filmmakers en toeschouwers naar een tekst of een fragment dat ooit een blijvende indruk op hen achterliet.
The Prisma section is a series of short reflections on cinema. A Prisma always has the same length – exactly 2000 characters – and is accompanied by one image. It is a short-distance exercise, a miniature text in which one detail or element is refracted into the spectrum of a larger idea or observation.
La rubrique Prisma est une série de courtes réflexions sur le cinéma. Tous les Prisma ont la même longueur – exactement 2000 caractères – et sont accompagnés d'une seule image. Exercices à courte distance, les Prisma consistent en un texte miniature dans lequel un détail ou élément se détache du spectre d'une penséée ou observation plus large.
De Prisma-rubriek is een reeks korte reflecties over cinema. Een Prisma heeft altijd dezelfde lengte – precies 2000 tekens – en wordt begeleid door één beeld. Een Prisma is een oefening op de korte afstand, een miniatuurtekst waarin één detail of element in het spectrum van een grotere gedachte of observatie breekt.
Jacques Tati once said, “I want the film to start the moment you leave the cinema.” A film fixes itself in your movements and your way of looking at things. After a Chaplin film, you catch yourself doing clumsy jumps, after a Rohmer it’s always summer, and the ghost of Akerman undeniably haunts the kitchen. In this feature, a Sabzian editor takes a film outside and discovers cross-connections between cinema and life.
Jacques Tati once said, “I want the film to start the moment you leave the cinema.” A film fixes itself in your movements and your way of looking at things. After a Chaplin film, you catch yourself doing clumsy jumps, after a Rohmer it’s always summer, and the ghost of Akerman undeniably haunts the kitchen. In this feature, a Sabzian editor takes a film outside and discovers cross-connections between cinema and life.
Jacques Tati zei ooit: “Ik wil dat de film begint op het moment dat je de cinemazaal verlaat.” Een film zet zich vast in je bewegingen en je manier van kijken. Na een film van Chaplin betrap je jezelf op klungelige sprongen, na een Rohmer is het altijd zomer en de geest van Chantal Akerman waart onomstotelijk rond in de keuken. In deze rubriek neemt een Sabzian-redactielid een film mee naar buiten en ontwaart kruisverbindingen tussen cinema en leven.