Paris: Gallimard: 1975

Small 8vo, pp. 140. Original printed stiff paper wrappers, printed in red and black to panels and spine. French text. Wrappers a little marked, spine intact and unbroken and binding tight. An unread, very well preserved copy.

First edition of this key text of auteur theory, INSCRIBED BY BRESSON TO THE FILM CRITIC, THEREOTICIAN, AND ARDENT BRESSONIAN DAVID WILSON: ‘Pour David Wilson, en toute sympathie, Robert Bresson’. Bresson’s only book, Notes sur le cinématographe is a collection of epigrams on the pursuit of excellence in film-making, drawn from the career notes of one of cinema’s most revered auteurs. Bresson’s films — Journal d’Un Curé de Campagne (1951); Pickpocket (1959); Au Hasard, Balthazar (1966); Mouchette (1967) — regularly adorn the Sight and Sound Greatest Films of All Time lists. And if you’ll permit me an opinion, Au Hasard, Balthasar is the only time a miracle has been captured on film.

This copy of the bible of film theory is inscribed by Bresson to David Wilson, variously contributor, assistant editor and editor at the Monthly Film Bulletin in the 1960s and early 1970s, and in 2000 the editor of a selection of writings from the 1970s era of Cahiers du Cinéma.

A very well preserved copy, very rarely found inscribed, and with an excellent association.