650 A Man Escaped

[Matt]

A Man Escaped



With the simplest of concepts and sparest of techniques, Robert Bresson made one of the most suspenseful jailbreak films of all time in A Man Escaped. Based on the memoirs of an imprisoned French resistance leader, this unbelievably taut and methodical marvel follows the fictional Fontaine’s single-minded pursuit of freedom, detailing the planning and carrying out of his escape with gripping precision. But Bresson’s film is not merely process-minded—it’s a work of intense spirituality and humanity.

• “Bresson: Without a Trace,” a 1965 episode of the television program Cinéastes de notre temps in which the director gives his first on-camera interview
• The Road to Bresson, a 1984 documentary featuring interviews with filmmakers Louis Malle, Paul Schrader, and Andrei Tarkovsky
• The Essence of Forms, a documentary from 2010 in which collaborators and admirers of Bresson’s, including actor François Leterrier and director Bruno Dumont, share their thoughts about the director and his work
• Functions of Film Sound, a new visual essay on the use of sound in A Man Escaped, with text by film scholars David Bordwell and Kristin Thompson
• Trailer
• New English subtitle translation
• PLUS: A booklet featuring an essay by film scholar Tony Pipolo.

[domino harvey]

This is one of the few Bresson films that leaves me cold (and mystified by its elevated position amongst fans), but the Bordwell and Thompson visual essay sounds amazing

[matrixschmatrix]

Couldn't disagree more as far as the quality goes- this is the one Bresson that really felt like it had the nigh-transcendental profundity that he's known for, far more than Pickpocket or Diary of a Country Priest. I think what differentiates it, for me, is the sense that the drawn out, minutely observed style has a specific context and purpose- it reminds me a bit of Army of Shadows in that respect.

At any rate, this is the release I'm most excited for out of a generally very exciting month.

[domino harvey]

Oh, I know full well I'm in the minority. The Criterion should be a lovely opportunity to revisit and reevaluate, though!

[Finch]

Had the same experience with all three films like matrix. Seeing it for a second time and in HD might change things for you, domino. I'm glad we now have an alternative to the flawed French BD.

[colinr0380]

A Man Escaped has to be the quintessential Bresson for me. I still remember seeing it for the first time in a Moviedrome double bill following along straight after Sidney Lumet's (still underrated it seems) The Hill. I think that sense of seeing films so steeped in minutae of confinement and futility - one film showing total, almost sadistic pointlessness, the other film despite its title always threatening to end in tragedy at every step once the characters have committed themselves to the breakout (especially interesting when looking ahead to the really futile and beaureaucratically focused Trial of Joan of Arc, itself mostly set within one cell) - really made an impression on this impressionable 12 year old! It helped that they were tonally quite different films, which let them play together quite neatly too!

[Mathew2468]

Was the Gaumont all waxy-like in the same way Children of Paradise is? I've got it, noticed the waxyness but wasn't really bothered by it. Maybe it went through the same process? Either way I'm excited to finally see that interview with subtitles.

[Mr Sausage]

Couldn't disagree more as far as the quality goes- this is the one Bresson that really felt like it had the nigh-transcendental profundity that he's known for, far more than Pickpocket or Diary of a Country Priest. I think what differentiates it, for me, is the sense that the drawn out, minutely observed style has a specific context and purpose- it reminds me a bit of Army of Shadows in that respect.

At any rate, this is the release I'm most excited for out of a generally very exciting month.

I was likewise left cold by both Pickpocket and Diary of a Country Priest. Something about the Dostoevsky-esque guilt trip of the former and the Christ allegory of the latter didn't resonate with me. On the other hand, I thought Au Hasard Balthazar extremely affecting. So I don't really know what to think of Bresson. I'm seriously considering blind buying this on the off chance that, like Balthazar, this opens up Bresson for me. If not, I think I'll leave him alone as just being not for me.

[zedz]

I was likewise left cold by both Pickpocket and Diary of a Country Priest. Something about the Dostoevsky-esque guilt trip of the former and the Christ allegory of the latter didn't resonate with me. On the other hand, I thought Au Hasard Balthazar extremely affecting. So I don't really know what to think of Bresson. I'm seriously considering blind buying this on the off chance that, like Balthazar, this opens up Bresson for me. If not, I think I'll leave him alone as just being not for me.

If you're going to give Bresson one last chance, then this is definitely the film I'd recommend. It's almost a pure action movie, and works brilliantly at that level, so the 'Bressonian' subtext is much more gracefully (ouch!) worn than in Pickpocket. The blunt direct-from-Dostoevsky material in that film gets in the way of the transcendence for me too.

[warren oates]

Couldn't disagree more as far as the quality goes- this is the one Bresson that really felt like it had the nigh-transcendental profundity that he's known for, far more than Pickpocket or Diary of a Country Priest. I think what differentiates it, for me, is the sense that the drawn out, minutely observed style has a specific context and purpose- it reminds me a bit of Army of Shadows in that respect.

At any rate, this is the release I'm most excited for out of a generally very exciting month.

I was likewise left cold by both Pickpocket and Diary of a Country Priest. Something about the Dostoevsky-esque guilt trip of the former and the Christ allegory of the latter didn't resonate with me. On the other hand, I thought Au Hasard Balthazar extremely affecting. So I don't really know what to think of Bresson. I'm seriously considering blind buying this on the off chance that, like Balthazar, this opens up Bresson for me. If not, I think I'll leave him alone as just being not for me.

I think you might really like this one based on the sustained procedural attention to the process of escape alone. This is my favorite Bresson and I also think it's his best, but beyond that I find it to be the one that's easiest to get into whether you'd normally be inclined to like his work or not. I remember screening this for my father whose favorite film is The Great Escape by pitching it to him as "the greatest escape."

[colinr0380]

I still love that moment at the beginning when the hero has an escape attempt from the car taking him to the prison, with the camera just sitting, waiting, focused on the empty back seat until he gets pushed back into the seat again. That's a neat moment of Bressonian sparseness, or rather focusing on the inevitable without getting caught up in pointless diversions.

It is not just the procedural business of the escape but also of the daily routine of the jail and the methods of passing messages to one another, and so on. It is all beautifully observed, and I remember it works very well in kind of getting the viewer (or at least myself!) so ingrained in the routines that it feels a really shocking struggle to even contemplate escaping, let alone actually try and do it along with the main character.

I suppose that Le Trou is heavily indebted to this film too, though that gets much more into the sense of being institutionalised and seeing the outside world as kind of a frightening, ungoverned place. A Man Escaped on the other hand creates some of these feelings in the audience but the main character is far more relentlessly focused on his goal of escape.

[zedz]

Yeah (further to warren oates' post), this is the Bresson film that people who aren't at all interested in 'art films' can really get into. And generally they'll be so wrapped up in the narrative that they won't even notice that there's anything stylistically unusual about it.

[colinr0380]

david hare, do you see any influence of Un chant d'amour on this film, or am I just connecting them together because of their jailhouse settings? I don't really know how widely available the Genet film was before A Man Escaped.

[triodelover]

I was likewise left cold by both Pickpocket and Diary of a Country Priest. Something about the Dostoevsky-esque guilt trip of the former and the Christ allegory of the latter didn't resonate with me. On the other hand, I thought Au Hasard Balthazar extremely affecting. So I don't really know what to think of Bresson. I'm seriously considering blind buying this on the off chance that, like Balthazar, this opens up Bresson for me. If not, I think I'll leave him alone as just being not for me.

I feel pretty much the same way about the films you cite, positive and negative. And I agree with zedz and warren oates about A Man Escaped. It brings elements of a classic escape film like Le Trou to a solitary ascetic (in both the austerity and discipline of the main character) that's very Bressonian. And even if you don't choose to explore that aspect of the film, it's still a pretty damn good escape flick.

[Mr Sausage]

Alright, I'm sold. I'm preordering this one as soon as I can. Only problem is: you guys have got me really amped up about it, but it's not coming out until March! It's times like this I wish I were a patient fellow.

[triodelover]

Alright, I'm sold. I'm preordering this one as soon as I can. Only problem is: you guys have got me really amped up about it, but it's not coming out until March! It's times like this I wish I were a patient fellow.

There's the Gaumont Blu, which as David has said, is quite a bit more that good. I think Svet downrated it over a few instances of chroma in the early going, but overall it's a great image and consistent with what you would expect from the period.

[knives]

Alright, I'm sold. I'm preordering this one as soon as I can. Only problem is: you guys have got me really amped up about it, but it's not coming out until March! It's times like this I wish I were a patient fellow.

If you like this one, and I hope you do as like everyone else it seems it is my favorite, I hope you can be encouraged to see his later colour films which are drastically different in small ways. even just the trading of the christian guilt tripping for, as the adaptations indicate, something more Tolstoy should better fit with your taste. His films from before he discovered Melville might also suit you.

[zedz]

Colin, the simple answer is yes, definitely. And in place of the erect cocks and the transfer of smoke through the peephole you have Fontaine and the minutiae of the mechanics of escape. Even the passing of objects from the cell window to the people down below refers Genet.

Bresson's fetishization is a fetishization of necessity: obsessive attention to these details is literally a matter of life and death.

[Peacock]

The Gaumont BD is as bad as Children of Paradise in my eyes. If you need proof, look at the various caps on the review websites. Heavy banding in the shadows, nothing in focus, sharp digital grain laid on top, waxiness... I really don't understand why some people think this is source related or that it's an upgrade over the DVD.

[triodelover]

Isn't the Criterion likely to come from the same source as the Gaumont? As you say, it's pretty good in motion. Is it reasonable to expect the Crit to significantly improve on this?

[FerdinandGriffon]

Not one of the most affecting Bressons for me, but at the same time I'd be hard pressed to name a director I cherish more, so this is nothing but good news. Let's just hope they get Trial of Joan of Arc out soon, too (my personal favorite, followed closely by Une femme douce, Lancelot du Lac, and Mouchette).

His films from before he discovered Melville...

What are you referring to here, Knives?

[knives]

His films from before Diary of a Country Priest have a dramatically different style that is all together more conventional. It is only with that film that it seems we get Bresson as we know him (at least aesthetically though some themes and interests pop up for the first time there) and it was made years after The Silence of the Sea which was the first time those elements popped up during the period (though I think Dreyer had to have also been an influence).

[triodelover]

His films from before Diary of a Country Priest have a dramatically different style that is all together more conventional. It is only with that film that it seems we get Bresson as we know him (at least aesthetically though some themes and interests pop up for the first time there) and it was made years after The Silence of the Sea which was the first time those elements popped up during the period (though I think Dreyer had to have also been an influence).

I think you're confusing Melville's Le Silence de la mer with Bresson's first entry, Les Anges du péché

[knives]

I disagree as Les Anges du péché does not show the 'Bressonian' style instead going for something closer to the traditional melodrama presentation of the era which it shares with Les dames du Bois de Boulogne.

[triodelover]

I disagree as Les Anges du péché does not show the 'Bressonian' style instead going for something closer to the traditional melodrama presentation of the era which it shares with Les dames du Bois de Boulogne.

Knives, I apologize. Your post made it seem that your were assigning the Melville to Bresson. Mea culpa.