A new 35mm print of Robert Bresson's "Pickpocket" is playing at the Music Box; the movie has just been released on DVD in the Criterion Collection. Here is Roger Ebert's Great Movie essay on the film.
One of the early images in Robert Bresson's "Pickpocket'' (1959) shows the unfocused eyes of a man obsessed by excitement and fear. The man's name is Michel.
He lives in Paris in a small room under the eaves, a garret almost filled by his cot and his books. He is about to commit a crime. He wants to steal another man's wallet, and he wants his face to appear blank, casual. Perhaps it would, to a casual observer. But we know him and what he is about to do, and in his eyes we see the trancelike ecstasy of a man who is surrendering to his compulsion.
Or do we? Bresson, one of the most thoughtful and philosophical of directors, was fearful of ``performances'' by his actors. He famously forced the star of ``A Man Escaped'' (1956) to repeat the same scene some 50 times, until it was stripped of all emotion and inflection. All Bresson wanted was physical movement. No emotion, no style, no striving for effect. What we see in the pickpocket's face is what we bring to it. Instead of asking his actors to ``show fear,'' Bresson asks them to show nothing, and depends on his story and images to supply the fear.
Full Great Movies review here.
