Pickpocket
1959 Directed by Robert Bresson
Synopsis
Pick Pocket is a corporation drama from French avant-garde director Robert Bresson about a pickpocket thief.
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At a light 75 minutes Pickpocket packs a fast pace combined with the skills of a master at work, both within the movie itself and behind the camera. Its depiction of the wily thief Michel is highly ambigious and the movie largely refrains from judging him based on his criminal activities. His reasons for what he does are neither driven by desperation nor malevolence, they are deeply rooted in the character and not until the end become clear to the audience. Robert Bresson created a highly intriguing character and even though the film itself is fairly distanced from Michel I found myself warming to his intentions a little while also being hugely impressed by his undeniable skill as a thief.…
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72.
There's a moment in this movie--where Jeanne, our Heroine, reveals an alcoholic household, among other problems--that seems designed to be overlooked, smoothed into the Puritan aesthetic of this very Catholic film. It's emblematic of Bresson's overarching need to cut away all theatrical excess until only The Act, the documented and true motion, remains. Motivation and narrative logic are beside the point, and yet paradoxically emotion is exactly the point; that is, Bresson wants to have his cake and eat it too, to divulge from all conventional means at arriving at catharsis or revelation or what have you, and merely suggest at the realities he's disinterested in. So the fact that these crucial details of Jeanne's sadsack life are swept…
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Compared to the other Bresson films I've watched so far, there's something about the dialogue and exchanges in "Pickpocket" that can feel a bit...stilted. Perhaps it's an issue with the translation. Then again, if I compared most movies to "Diary of a Country Priest," they'd come up wanting.
And while "A Man Escaped" would likely make a better entryway into Bresson's work for those just starting out, "Pickpocket" is still requisite viewing for fans of the director as well as anyone with an interest in existentialist philosophy. The lead character Michel reminded me more than a little of the protagonist in Camus' "The Stranger."
Despite the brief runtime, the viewer is plunged into a shadowy side of real life, which Bresson conveys through his familiar style: crisp storytelling, sober-faced performances, and a restrained use of music. The pickpocket scenes literally dazzle the eyes.
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Bresson's Pickpocket stands as the only film of his so far that I haven't been astounded by by its conclusion. I'm not entirely sure why that is. It is a film that made a dramatic impact on its release in 1959, and its reach extended prominently into the 80s (with influential film makers riffing off its visual turn of phrase), but I have to admit, as much as I admire the film, for me it is too sketchy to be completely successful.
I guess that sketchiness shouldn't come as too much of a surprise. I have to applaud Bresson's ambition in attempting to encapsulate Dostoyevsky's 'Crime and Punishment' in just 70 minutes but I can't help but feel he picked…
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Pickpocket is not pulpy enough to be a noir, too sleepy to be a thriller and not interesting enough to be an effective drama. It creeps along at a lengthy 76 minutes with some skillful cinematography during a few clever pickpocket montages that pop with overtly sexual energy, but largely sits lifeless on the screen. The attempts at philosophical exploration through the simple story are particularly ineffective. A handful of snappy pickpocket montages are the highlight in an otherwise spiritless film.
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The film postulates that humanity cannot find salvation without first making a lot of dumb and irrational mistakes. I do not disagree with this assessment.
Salvation for our eponymous compulsive thief comes from a woman who, at the time it is safe to assume, was the most attractive woman on the planet (Malika Green, who apparently is Eva Green's aunt).
Three things struck out at me visually while watching this brand spankin' new 35mm print of the film:
1) The director favours his actors constantly walking at the camera from the long distance in a single unbroken shot. It happens often enough that it has to be intentional. I'm not sure what that means in terms of story, but it…
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Pickpocket is something like Crime and Punishment crossed with a strange breed of procedural Noir, in which a reverse-Horatio-Alger-myth is played out with clinical dissection. It is both extremely tense and filled with existential angst and melancholy; as if it isn’t enough that none of the characters ever so much as crack a smile, “protagonist” Michel seems to show almost no emotion at all, making the scenes where he does break out into tears or angry shouts all the more shocking by contrast. Like Crime and Punishment he purports to follow a Nietzschean philosophy of the superman, free from the ordinary morals of lesser men, and like Raskolnikov he is obsessed with flirting with danger, with rubbing his crimes in…
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Thought provoking, although the constant cutting to black screens became annoying and the plot at times felt too manipulated.
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72.
There's a moment in this movie--where Jeanne, our Heroine, reveals an alcoholic household, among other problems--that seems designed to be overlooked, smoothed into the Puritan aesthetic of this very Catholic film. It's emblematic of Bresson's overarching need to cut away all theatrical excess until only The Act, the documented and true motion, remains. Motivation and narrative logic are beside the point, and yet paradoxically emotion is exactly the point; that is, Bresson wants to have his cake and eat it too, to divulge from all conventional means at arriving at catharsis or revelation or what have you, and merely suggest at the realities he's disinterested in. So the fact that these crucial details of Jeanne's sadsack life are swept…
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Compared to the other Bresson films I've watched so far, there's something about the dialogue and exchanges in "Pickpocket" that can feel a bit...stilted. Perhaps it's an issue with the translation. Then again, if I compared most movies to "Diary of a Country Priest," they'd come up wanting.
And while "A Man Escaped" would likely make a better entryway into Bresson's work for those just starting out, "Pickpocket" is still requisite viewing for fans of the director as well as anyone with an interest in existentialist philosophy. The lead character Michel reminded me more than a little of the protagonist in Camus' "The Stranger."
Despite the brief runtime, the viewer is plunged into a shadowy side of real life, which Bresson conveys through his familiar style: crisp storytelling, sober-faced performances, and a restrained use of music. The pickpocket scenes literally dazzle the eyes.
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Theft as hobby or theft as art? To pick or not to pick? A little too hoity toity for me, but I thought it was very beautifully made.
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Pickpocket is an absolutely beautiful film, as far as the cinematography and visual sequences are concerned. The plot is simple and interesting, but drags on a bit and becomes a tad melodramatic. But the visuals that comes with these melodramatic scenes are so powerful that you tend to ignore it. Also, the different montage sequences of the characters pick pocketing were brilliantly directed, even if the victims were totally oblivious when a hand reached into their jacket. It kind of boarders on unrealistic, then again the avante-garde style of film making isn't too concerned about realism. All in all, Pickpocket is a wonderful film that is just short of being a complete masterpiece, but I would definitely recommend it.
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I could not get over how much Marika Green looks like Natalie Portman (and vice versa).
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Interesants stāsts un stāsta forma. Drāma ar film-noir elementiem. Vienīgais žēl, ka ārkārtīgi nejēdzīgais aktieru tēlojums, konstanti visu bojā.
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