L'Argent, based on a story by Tolstoy, follows the trail of a counterfeit bill as it destroys the lives of those who touch it. When it comes to the delivery man Yvon, the buck stops and Bresson's searing hard-luck tale begins. Accused of passing the phoney money, Yvon plunges into a miasma of which unemployment is just the beginning...and murder, the end. Although L'Argent, more so, for instance, than Bresson's Pickpocket (1959), deals with the stuff of its story--money, and the human wretchedness that it bespeaks--still, what we are dealing with here is the systematic destruction of a soul, as innocent in its way as Balthazar and Mouchette, but in today's urban society far less capable of redemption. And while the film has more action--bank robberies, car crashes--than any of the director's other works, like the others, it takes place on a plane that has little to do with action; Bresson continues to instruct his non-professional actors to suppress all outward signs of emotion. L'Argent shared the “Grand Prize for Creation” at the 1983 Cannes Festival and premiered in the U.S. at the 1984 New York Film Festival.