WAR HORSE

I couldn't help but think of Balthazar while viewing War Horse last night. While Spielberg's film is based on a novel, I'm sure he had to have seen Balthazar; some of the parallels are uncanny, especially with the relationships between horse and owners. Of course this is "vague Bresson" since Spielberg discards any of Bresson's techniques - particularly the "point of view" and reaction shots of the horse, something R.B. avoided, but AT LEAST there's some influence of Bresson permeating mainstream cinema, and War Horse happens to be maybe the best film of 2011.