The slippery slope theory is real; at least it was in Richard Bresson’s 1983 film L’argent. The premise of the film is that the quest for attaining money leads humans into a chain of terrible events all interconnected to each other. Essentially the film is the story of money, as the title so appropriately translates in English into. This was a film that I had to watch twice in order to truly appreciate the specific nuances and details that are often overlooked by modern moviegoers. This was an interesting film to watch as there really were no extroverted displays of emotion. This gave the film a feeling of purity, something that I hadn’t seen in cinema in a long time. That is to say there were no emotions, no actions, no music, none of the "artificiality" that has normally been associated with current film making. Bresson's style was new to me and I truly appreciated his minimalist techniques. Although, I had serious reservations regarding the quality of acting in the film, I was truly impressed by Bresson’s “freezing” of certain moments in the film to garner more attention and give more power to the scene. It almost felt that the scenes were more powerful because of the lack of music and “special effect” noises that I’ve become accustomed to in watching modern day movies, i.e. Inception. The ending of the movie, Yvon committing the murder, was so much more powerful and shocking because there was no accompanying music.
It was clear that Bresson, who I was unfamiliar with prior to watching this film, had a particular notion of how money corrupts humanity. And he displayed this belief through a film of sequential, terrible chain of events. That was obvious to me; everything began with the forged 500-franc note which had then unleashed a series of horrible and undeserved events, to the most unlikely victim, Yvon Targe, a shy gas station attendant. This led me to think of the indiscriminate nature of money. With money, bad things can happen to everyone, regardless of the character of the person.
The film gave me a feeling that Bresson was attempting to portray a manifest destiny with money, a predetermined fate for people handling money, that the evil chain of events is unstoppable and predetermined. If this was truly the belief he was attempting to reveal, then money, in Bresson’s eyes is evil. My understanding of Bresson’s theory was that evil does not lie in every human, but rather that evil lie in inanimate things such as money. It was quite clear to me that Bresson in the beginning of the film was attempting to show the viewer that Yvon was a good, morally righteous man. It was not the case that evil stemmed from Yvon, but rather the circumstances that money placed Yvon in, transformed Yvon, from the good man into Yvon the murderer.
Although, I truly appreciate the film for what it stood for, and the lessons told by Bresson, I can’t help but think that the idea of L’argent may have been greater than the film itself. I truly respected the cinematic devices employed by Bresson, however, the story could have been better visualized. I can imagine a better adaptation of this film. A producer could revision this film to fit today’s standards given the grotesque situation this nation currently finds itself in. Such a film could have a profound effect on Americans given the existing zeitgeist of emotions and sentiments towards Wall Street, large corporations, and capitalism.
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