This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. These cookies ensure basic functionalities and security features of the website, anonymously. I found it fascinating.Necessary cookies are absolutely essential for the website to function properly. “Pickpocket” is that special type of film that tries to explain the reasons behind the psychology that goes into being a criminal and actually touches on important issues such as the true meaning of life. She ends up being the catalyst that will allow the film to attain a viewpoint and a heart, resulting in a wonderful ending that allowed me to reflect on everything else that had transpired in the film. There is a girl who is a neighbor of Michel’s Mother and is used to signify the goodness that exists in his world. There is a police detective who is on to Michel and vows to arrest him. Most of the movie is narrated through the thoughts of Michel and the film has more style then actual plot. Quite and then small noises are effective ways of purveying the suspense and emotions of what is occurring on the screen. The sounds are also what Bresson uses to emphasize tension. Most of the scenes emphasize the actual sounds of the people moving and their surroundings without any music to interfere. As is the case in all of Bresson’s films, there is very little background music in the movie. Michel and his team are working a crowded train station and Bresson uses eloquently cut close ups of faces, hands, pockets, thieves and victims, all inter cut with a such a gentle rhythm that I felt I was watching some sort of artistic dance, rather than a crime. One particular scene is marvelous in its poetic beauty. The hands slide and slip into pockets and around waists in such a concentrated and intense fashion that at the end of the act Michel seems almost exhausted as if he just finished having sex. Pickpockets need to get very close to their victims and the physicality of the act is shown as being tender and almost erotic. It is only after teaming up with professional thieves that he learns the art of elegant thievery which is how his pick pocketing is displayed in the film. His first attempt at being a pickpocket is actually clumsy. Michel thinks he is better than other people and is obsessed with stealing from them. For me it was amazing as to how much actual emotion is invoked through Bresson’s quiet use of following the characters through their thoughts and with very little dialogue. Later in the film we are shown true grief through his feelings towards his mother. We know this because after being told that she is dying or very sick, he still refuses to visit her. We know that his mother lives in a poor neighborhood and that he is ashamed of her. Throughout the film I kept thinking as to his self-view of himself and as to what the actual reality is. He is poor, educated, always wears a suit and tie and sees himself as some sort of privileged intellectual. Our anti-hero is Michel played by Martin Lassalle, in this same bland and straight forward fashion. For this reason he mostly used nonprofessional actors in his films. It is widely known that Bresson believed that any kind of forced acting would distract the viewer from the story. As in almost all of Bresson’s films, the acting is almost non-existent as all the characters spout their lines in mummified trance like fashion. Very few French criminals are physical brutes and Robert Bresson, epitomizes this so eloquently in the character study of his self-titled, “Pickpocket”. The French thief is suave, elegant and intelligent. Especially when criminal activity is involved. Similar to what John Travolta’s character in, “Pulp Fiction”, stated in his conversation about Europe, the French have the ability in making everything seem classier.
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