L'Argent (1983 film)

Infobox_Film
name = L'Argent


caption =
writer = Robert Bresson
starring = Christian Patey
Béatrice Tabourin
Didier Baussy
Vincent Visterucci
director = Robert Bresson
producer = Jean-Marc Henchoz
distributor = New Yorker Films
Cinecom International (original release)
released = March 23, 1984 (New York City)
runtime = 83 min
language = French
budget =

"L'Argent" ("Money"), inspired by the Leo Tolstoy short story "The Forged Coupon", is the final film by French film director Robert Bresson.

It earned its maker the Director's Prize at the 1983 Cannes Film Festival.

Plot

Bresson's modern retelling begins as a bourgeois youth enters his father's study to claim a monthly allowance. His father obliges, but the son presses for more, citing a debt at school he must pay. The father dismisses him and an appeal to his mother fails. This leads him to pawn off his watch to a friend who, instead of paying him, provides him with a forged 500-franc note. After the trade, the youth lingers to peruse an album of nude art, with similar images to appear throughout the film.

The boys take the counterfeit to a photo shop and change it on the pretext of buying a picture frame. When the store co-manager finds out, he scolds his partner for her lack of wariness. She chides him in return for having accepted two forged notes the previous week. He then vows to pass off all the forged notes in their possession at the next opportunity, which arises when a gas man comes in with a bill.

Although the film's basic plot is inspired by the Tolstoy story, it contains many references to Dostoyevsky's "Crime and Punishment". Yvon's cellmate spouts the sort of Nietzchean Superman ideology that Raskolnikov was fond of, and the final scene, with Yvon confessing and then being led out past a gaping crowd is a direct quotation from the conclusion of "Crime and Punishment".

External links

*gutenberg | no=243 | name=The Forged Coupon and Other Stories
* [http://www.mastersofcinema.org/bresson/Posters/LArgent/LArgent.html Gallery of international poster art] at Masters of Cinema website
*imdb title|id=0085180|title=L'Argent
* [http://www.mastersofcinema.org/bresson/Words/LARGENT_Intro.html An introduction to the film by Tim Cawkwell] at Masters of Cinema website