Short answers, pulled from the story.
Robert Bresson was a French filmmaker who lived from the 25th of September 1901 to the 18th of December 1999. He is among the most highly regarded filmmakers of all time, placing seven films on the 2012 Sight and Sound critics' poll, more than any other director. He is known for an ascetic, minimalist approach using non-professional actors, ellipses, and sparse scoring.
Robert Bresson made only 13 feature-length films across a career that spanned fifty years. The small number reflected his painstaking approach, his non-commercial aims, and the difficulty he had finding funding. His first short film was Les affaires publiques in 1934, and his last feature was L'Argent in 1983.
Robert Bresson refused professional actors and called the people in his films 'models', drawn almost entirely from non-professionals. He had them repeat multiple takes of each scene until every trace of performance was stripped away. In Notes on the Cinematographer he wrote that human models move from the exterior to the interior, while actors move from the interior to the exterior.
Robert Bresson was a Catholic who said he would "rather be a Jansenist than Jesuit" because he believed in predestination, and he was unsure of the resurrection of the body. He stopped attending church services after the Second Vatican Council's transition to the Mass of Paul VI. He preferred secular subjects with religious undercurrents, saying he did not want to shoot something in which God would be too transparent.
Robert Bresson opposed the pre-war Tradition de la Qualité and is listed alongside Alexandre Astruc and André Bazin as a main influence on the French New Wave. François Truffaut named him a genuine auteur, and Jean-Luc Godard wrote that he "is the French cinema." He also influenced Andrei Tarkovsky, Martin Scorsese, Christopher Nolan, and many others.
Robert Bresson died on the 18th of December 1999 at his home in Droue-sur-Drouette, southwest of Paris. He was 98 years old and had been unwell for some time. His final film, L'Argent, was made in 1983.