It’s always dangerous applying your judgment against artifacts from alien cultures, such as watching a film sourced from another nation, because the tell-tales employed by the movie makers, the short hand and cultural assumptions may or may not be recognized by the viewer.
Such is the possibly the case with Bresson’s Pickpocket (1959), a film considered to be a masterpiece and seminal. My Arts Editor and I found it to be obtuse and, frankly, a little dull. Perhaps, as moderately well-off Americans, we are unqualified to judge this film, as it concerns itself with a young Frenchman, Michel, in post World War II Paris, short of opportunities, his mother dying. What to do? He takes up the old trade of pickpocketing. The audience is introduced to the various skills, which is interesting if accurate. The police may or may not suspect him; frankly, the inspector appears to be less interested in catching him at a crime than in introducing him to the idea of growing up.
Michel is intensely in his own head, torn between his physical needs and the morality under which he grew up; the woman who might have been his girl or even wife, Jeanne, is completely ignored. He may play at philosophical games in which self-recognized supermen are permitted to break the law, but there is little enough to a specious argument. Paranoid concerning the police, he leaves Paris for a couple of years, and admits that while he was successful at crime, he was a wastrel, losing it in cards and to women.
Returning to Paris, Jeanne is now a single mother, just as despairing as before, and he promises to help. But he lets his greed overwhelm his judgment, and is caught in the act and arrested. Now he rests in prison, indulging in the self-indulgence of fatalism. The only person who cares for him is Jeanne, and he finally admits that he loves her.
But why? We couldn’t tell. Motivations were waved at in this film, and while perhaps the French would understand, we did not. It made for a frustrating time. Technically, the movie is well-made, being black and white and well-photographed and observed. The acting was somewhat repetitive. Perhaps his suit, over-large and all he seemed to own, was symbolic of something, but neither one of us could see it without being jarred by it a little bit.
And perhaps it’s just a pet peeve and most folk don’t care, but narration really annoys me. Now, I’ll grant that it worked quite well in the commercial release of Blade Runner (1982), although I also like the Director’s Cut of Blade Runner. But in Pickpocket, it’s an example of the standard error of amateur story-tellers, which is telling, not showing. It left me wondering just how much the story could have been enhanced if he’d just kept his mental yap shut and shown why, in a strongly needed instance, he was falling in love with Jeanne.
Watch at your own risk.
