"I Always Make What I Can and Not What I Want": Bruno Dumont on The Empire

With The Empire, French filmmaker Bruno Dumont's career is now evenly split between two modes. His first seven films operated within an identifiably Bressonian tradition, while the five films and two mini-series following operate in a more comic, slapstick register. Conversations surrounding the starkness of this pivot--which began in 2014 with miniseries L'il Quinquin--are understandable yet potentially overstated, as there is strong connective tissue through all of his work. The two hapless de...