Diary of a Country Priest
So I’m watching Robert Bresson’s 1951 classic Diary of a Country Priest, which is a wonderful movie, but I can’t get over the fact that the protagonist, a soft-spoken, painfully sensitive young man, bears an uncanny resemblance to the young Johnny Cash.
And while it doesn’t exactly interfere with my enjoyment of the movie (both men have health problems, struggle with issues of faith, and wear black all the time) I have to admit that every once in a while I find myself imagining the young priest, while struggling to counsel some troubled parishioner, picking up a guitar and launching into “Get Rhythm.” Which is probably not the effect the filmmaker intends.
I think Bresson was saving the “Get Rhythm” sequence for the Diary of a Country Priest Redux DVD extras…
The only Bresson film I’ve ever seen was Trial of Joan of Arc, which I saw back-to-back with Dreyer’s The Passion of Joan of Arc on TCM one night. I have yet to go back for more, but I suspect I will eventually.
Mystery solved
So that’s why this beautiful movie left me cold — it needed that old Memphis sound. And I thought it was because Bresson’s sensibility is so unwaveringly Catholic.
–Ed.
Re: Mystery solved
They should do a remake, starring Joaquin Phoenix and titled Diary of a Country Priest and the Tennessee Two.
Or just call it Diary of a Country & Western Priest
For that matter, Man in Black is a good title any way you look at it.