The World Beyond BetterMost > The Culture Tent
Resurrecting the Movies thread...
oilgun:
I caught the last 30 minutes of Robert Bresson's PICKPOCKET (1959) and that's all I needed to rate the film a 10! I'm ashamed to say I have never this or any other of his films. The bright side is that I a lot amazing viewing ahead. (It helped that I fell in love with the lead "model" (Bresson's word) Martin Lasalle. There is a pickpocketing scene near the end that is positively erotic. The pickpocket's hand slowly moves up the jacket lapel of a mark standing behind him, just barely touching it, making its way to the inside pocket, had me breathing heavy. I couldn't believe it. Wow!
James Kendrick's review:
In a 1960 interview on the French television program Cinépanorama, writer/director Robert Bresson openly stated, “I’d rather people feel a film before understanding it.” This is a crucial sentiment and one that should be kept in mind when approaching Bresson’s work, which is often discussed in haughty academic terms as “austere,” “difficult,” and “minimalist.”
Yet, the fact that Bresson’s films tend to be intimate character studies of isolated human beings struggling with the world around them suggests that he is aiming primarily at the viewer’s emotions. He wants you to feel what it is like to be a young priest struggling in a rigid, isolated community in his first masterpiece Diary of a Country Priest (1954), and in Pickpocket, which many argue as the pinnacle of his art, he wants you to experience the life of a lonely thief whose self-imposed isolation and criminality are one in the same.
Pickpocket is certainly one of Bresson’s most readily accessible films, at least at the narrative level, because it takes the basic plot structure of a crime thriller and intertwines it with a redemptive love story. Martin La Salle plays Michel, a young Parisian who has turned to thievery as a means of survival. At first operating completely on his own, he later teams up with two other professional thieves, working complex sleight-of-hand jobs in which they nimbly pilfer wallets, cash, watches, and the contents of purses all over the city.
It is a profitable life of crime, and one that brings a kind of sly pleasure to Michel; it’s not for nothing that the scenes of thievery have been described by critics in sexual terms, with the final lifting of the wallet standing in as a kind of orgasm. Yet, it is ultimately an empty life, one that pays, but doesn’t fulfill. Michel’s real redemption lies with Jeanne (Marika Green), a young woman who lives next door to Michel’s dying mother. The love-as-redemption trope is certainly an old and arguably overused one, but Bresson breathes new life into it by setting it in a bleak, existential realm that turns love into the only true salvation. Bresson heightens the film’s prison ending into a moment of genuine transcendence; Michel’s body may be imprisoned, but his spirit is finally let free.
Pickpocket is arguably the film in which Bresson perfected his singular style, which at the time was so unusual that he felt the need to put a disclaimer at the beginning the film explaining it. Bresson eschewed traditional acting and referred to his actors as “models.” He did not want them to emote or express anything directly, but instead just go through the physical motions, thus becoming blank slates onto which the audience could project their own meanings. It is an amazingly effective approach that works only because it’s not as extreme as it sounds; even though the actors are certainly passive, they never come across as wooden or false. Perhaps this is just because the film invites so much projection from the viewer, but it may also be because the very nature of the material infuses itself into the actors’ words and actions, giving them a sense of life despite the lack of conventional “acting.”
Bresson also eschewed psychological explanations. Although there is an explanatory voice-over narration, we never know much about Michel’s past or why he turned to pickpocketing or even why he does certain things in the film itself. Like the flat acting style, Bresson wants us to fill in the gaps, to create our own meaning. In a way, this makes Pickpocket a highly personal film, not just for Bresson, but for each individual who sees it. Bresson’s style is certainly challenging and perhaps not even for all tastes, but for those who are willing to give themselves to it, it can be an immensely rewarding experience, as close to transcendental as the cinema could be.
http://www.qnetwork.com/index.php?page=review&id=1572
southendmd:
Wow, those eyes! Those lips! Those nose! Thanks, Gil, for the recommendation.
Meanwhile, tonight, for Halloween, it's time for Donnie Darko and The Rocky Horror Picture Show!
Penthesilea:
--- Quote from: Bunny Darko on October 31, 2012, 01:02:38 pm ---Meanwhile, tonight, for Halloween, it's time for Donnie Darko and The Rocky Horror Picture Show!
--- End quote ---
Good choices!
Chez nous, it'll be MIB III. Aliens are halloween-ish, no?
oilgun:
My Halloween viewing:
And the end of:
oilgun:
Here's an 12 minute clip of PICKPOCKET. Just because:
[youtube=425,350]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wd77TaeSjSU[/youtube]
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