080 - Pickpocket, 1959, France. Dir. Robert Bresson.

Tuesday, March 21, 2017

080 - Pickpocket, 1959, France. Dir. Robert Bresson.

Michel likes to lift things.

With his fingers.

He goes to the races.  Look at that woman's purse.  Let's see if I can get her pocketbook out of it.

He stands next to her.  Slides his hand over.  Looks out at the race track.  Acts coolly. 
Maybe she won't notice.

La la la.

Somehow he walks away with it.

Somehow he gets nabbed.

That did not work out.

He goes to jail.  He gets out.

He does it again.

He talks to the police inspector.  The police inspector is coy with him.  What does he know?

Michel pretends to know nothing.  The police inspector pretends to know nothing.

They have a philosophical conversation.

Remember that story that that Russian writer wrote about that criminal?

What was his name?

Dostoyevsky.  Crime and Punishment.

Yes.  That was the name of the writer.  But what was the name of the character?

Um . . . Raskolnikov.

Raskolnikov!  That's it.  Raskolnikov.  Remember him?  He deduced that not all crimes were the same.  We don't, for example, begrudge a man when he steals.

Maybe so, maybe not, but if we catch him, we still have to punish him.

I mean, look at our own literature, here in France.  Look at Victor Hugo.  Les Miserables.  Jean Valjean stole a loaf of bread to feed his family.  And Javert spent his life tracking him down.  That is not right.  Do we not believe in mercy?

Stealing is wrong.

Michel and the police inspector will continue this kind of conversation throughout the movie.

Sometimes with Michel's friend Jacques present.  Sometimes just the two of them.

Michel seeks to justify his behavior.

Just as Raskolnikov did.

Raskolnivok's vision was a bit more grand.  He contemplated the men who made history, such as Napoleon, and deduced that they killed thousands of people, sometimes millions, and became great men of history.

What is the difference between a common murder and a great man of history?  Is it the number of people he kills?  Is it the purpose with which he does it?  Raskolnikov tries to launch himself as a great man of history.  It does not work out.  He is a common murderer.

Michel just wants a little cash.

He tries it on the subway.  It is not easy.  In fact, it is quite difficult.  He takes a different route every day.  A different train.  He does not want people to recognize his face.

He practices at home, with newspapers, with watches, with jackets.

He reads George Barrington's book.  Barrington was the most famous pickpocket of the 18th century.

He gets so consumed by it that he neglects his mother.  Her neighbor, Jeanne, is looking out for her.  She sends a note to Michel to come see his mother.  He is distracted.

Jeanne takes care of La Mere, the mother, while Michel is gallivanting around.
 
He tries it again on the subway.  This time he gets one, a man's wallet.  He quickly removes the cash and dumps the wallet.

This will be his modus operandi for all of his efforts.  Whether it is a man's wallet or a woman's purse, remove the cash and dump the rest.  Without looking to see what else is in it.

Michel stumbles around at this thing for awhile until he meets his mentor.

The First Accomplice.  Played by a man named Kassagi.  A real pickpocket in real life.  Who really taught the actor playing Michel, Martin LaSalle, how to do it.

Martin LaSalle was actually not an actor.

Remember, two days ago, while watching Les Dames du Bois de Boulogne (The Ladies of the Boulogne Wood), we learned that it was the last film Robert Bresson would make starring professional actors.

For the rest of his career Bresson made movies with non-actors.  He found them, worked with them only once, and did not work with them again.

In LaSalle's case he did become an actor after this movie, but it took him another decade to get going.

Because Bresson worked with non-actors, his films take on a certain quality.

LaSalle plays Michel with no emotion.  He stands coldly with a blank face and says his lines plainly.  Or says nothing while we hear his voice in voice-over.

This works fine for a pickpocket.  He is trying to draw no attention to himself.  He is trying to be invisible.

It also works for a film that seems to have some existentialist thing going on with it.  Like Albert Camus' novel The Stranger, he does a thing because he does a thing, and the thing he does keeps him from feeling (or showing) emotion towards his mother, or others, or himself.

Some people watch this movie for those kinds of philosophical things.

But you can also watch it for the action of the pickpocketing.

The film's fun occurs when Michel and The First Accomplice start working together.

You think, how is this activity even possible?  How could someone be good at it?  How could someone get inside my jacket and remove something without my feeling it?

Bresson shows you how.

Prestidigitation.

You think, this seems similar to sleight of hand.  And sure enough, it turns out that many pickpockets are also magicians.

The First Accomplice teaches Michel how to pocket-pick on a professional level.

And we are treated to montages of their doing it.  With the camera in close-up on the jacket, the purse, the hands, the fingers, the cash.

First, they practice.

Then, they take it to the street.  At a taxi.  On the curb.

They split their haul publicly in a bar over a game of cards.  Because in poker it is no big deal to put cash on the table.

Then, they add a third party and things get going.

They board a train.  They go to the open square.  They get in a ticket line.

They take from this man, from this man, from this woman, from this woman, one after the next after the next.

The dodging art of the artful dodger includes not only lifting it from the pocket of an unsuspecting bystander but also slipping it just as quickly into the pocket of your accomplice passing on the other side of you.

If the bystander discovers it missing, and you are standing there, you do not have it.

Your accomplice has already disappeared with it.

Now do that with three people.  Each one lifting.  Each one passing.  Each one receiving.  Each one disappearing.

They clean out the whole square of people within minutes.

Meanwhile, Jeanne falls in love with Michel.

And her influence is working on him below the surface, even though we do not see it yet.

He goes to England for a couple years.  He lives the high life.  He returns.  We see none of that.  It is told to us in two sentences.

He picks back up.  He picks pockets.  He is picked up.

He goes to jail.

Jeanne comes to see him.

He loves her.

He appeals to her.