Bresson's relationship to Surrealism began to be discussed in the late 1980s when the Cinémathèque française discovered a negative of his first short, AFFAIRES PUBLIQUES (1934), a film long thought to be lost. Most commentators conclude that, although this slapstick comedy has a clear avant-garde style, it stands as an anomaly before Bresson's full maturity. Recent studies, however, have stressed shared commonalities between Bresson and Surrealism. Brian Price argues that Bresson developed a distinctive Surrealist aesthetic with AFFAIRES PUBLIQUES, surrounding himself with a group of like-minded artists and publishing Surrealist-influenced photographs during the 1930s. Even a later film such as PICKPOCKET EXPlores the world of illicit criminal activity, and expresses the kind of antisocial impulse celebrated by the Surrealists in Louis Feuillade's early crime serials. Acknowledging that, “the proximity between Bresson and the surrealists is too often neglected”, Amiel similarly argues that LANCELOT DU LAC follows the Surrealist dictum to rebel against societal mores by focusing on the disbandment and demise of the Knights of the Round Table. Amiel describes additional Surrealist characteristics in LANCELOT, with an emphasis on chance meetings, apparent contradictions, logical impasses, and improbable relationships. Furthermore, Colin Burnett examines Bresson's friendships in the 1930s with such Surrealist artists and writers as Jean Aurenche, Max Ernst, Jean Cocteau, and Louis Aragon. This study builds on these recent insights to offer a more complete picture of Surrealism's stylistic influence on Bresson.