Criterion Collection: Pickpocket [Blu-ray] [1959] [US Import]

Bresson is definitely an uneasy director, but only if you have conventional, common expectations and a positive, carefree vision of life.But sorry, no: he is an existentialist director, a spirit struggling between christianity and atheism. And in his stories you feel the dramatic emptiness of mankind not seeing any sense in life and finding a redemption only once they've been through their dramas and realized how incomplete and limited they are.Here it comes for a fascinating yet solitary and enigmatic thief, who is also an artisti and a bohemian, and this particular subject shows Bresson greatness and complexity: a cold and essential cinema that is yet so extraordinary spiritual, with a solemn and ellyptical style and narration that is also free and unpredictable (see the famous and incredible scene of the pickpocketing, who inspired many crime films so apparently distant from this one).In Bresson you can never tell in advance if a shot will last a second or half a minute, because he does not stick to a style (although he is always referred to as a slow and still director): all it matters to him and his decision if sticking on a scene of cutting away is to show and convey us a situation, a invisible state of mind, something going on underneath action.He is like the protagonist of this film: he guides our eyes to apparently meaningless details while he is working secretely to prepare us to the right moment to reveal the sense of what is going on.THe blu ray is stunning in his black and white

When i first saw his films Mouchette, A Hasard Balthazar & A Man Escaped i immediately came to the conclusion that Bresson is unique so there is no one else in the French cinema or to the best of my knowledge world cinema ( correct me if i am wrong please and do not just click not helpful but leave your full comment ) who we can compare to. Pickpocket is a blast. A rush. Again Bresson works with non professional actors but the result is stunning. The pickpocketeer leads a lonesome life, neglects his mother and also the only woman who has interest in him. He has nearly no friends and the police is suspecting him of being a pickpocket however each time he gets away with it. When the soil gets too hot under his feet he starts travelling throughout Europe but he ends up in Paris after all. Inspired apparantly by Crime & Punishment by Dostojevski Pickpocket is an essential must have in a Bresson collection. The 2nd disc contains lots of extra's like a rare and beautiful interview with Bresson & also interviews with 3 actors. Highest possible recommendation.

Looking like a French movie but sounding like Russian literature with all the furniture cataloguing removed, Pickpocket is from the days when Bresson still drew more naturalistic performances from his non-professional casts rather than turning them into stilted and self-conscious mannequins (although Marika Green falls into the latter category, always looking at her feet as if her lines were written on her shoes in classic Bresson automaton mode), and combines the sleek look of a studio policier with a pared down moral debate from Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment, with theft replacing murder.Unlike Bresson's more obviously spiritual films (A Man Escaped, Au Hasard Balthazar, Diary of a Country Priest), there's no religious quest here: instead, there's a determinedly atheistic one, with Martin LaSalle's would-be Prince of Pickpockets pursuing an ideal of intellectual elitism as justification for crime against society's morality, failing to realise that he's just another of the thousands of petty egotist in the criminal little leagues. He simply has the ability to articulate his own notions of superiority, completely unaware that he probably works harder at his criminal skills than he would ever do at a proper job.It's also possibly Bresson's most overtly cinematic work despite the underplaying of the dialog scenes. The fluidity of the railway station sequence, with its extraordinary display of tricks of the trade that seem more magic act than crime (the DVD also includes an extract from sleight-of-hand advisor and supporting player Kassogi's cabaret act) and the stylised nature of the sound that always keeps LaSalle at a slight remove from the world around him are much more exhilarating displays of technique than you usually associate with Bresson's more controlled and understated approach in his other films, as even he gets caught up in the LaSalle's addiction to the perfect high that only crime can give him. In that respect, it's the Bresson film you can safely recommend to people who hate Bresson fans without losing points with the faithful.The UK DVD is a good one, boasting an excellent transfer of the film on disc one with several interviews - including a virtual interrogation of a faltering Bresson on French TV and a trio of interviews with LaSalle, Green and the articulate and intelligent Pierre Leymarie that are all to often broken up by the interviewer's self-indulgent naval-gazing - as well as TV footage of Kassogi's cabararet act. The R1 Criterion disc also has an audio commentary and an introduction by Paul Schrader which didn't make it to this version.

Some slick slight-of-hand movements in this film, and some equally improbable relays of hot property - but that's about it.The lines are stunted for effect and the film pretty empty - as seems the life of the main character.Even though it is a 'classic', I'd still watch something else if I had the opportunity.

Great film, gripping, worth every penny.

Quite absorbing character study focusing on one man's addiction to petty crime.The film follows him from his early forays into pickpocketing to a level of skill that consumes him completely in the pursuit of illicit gain.But then he becomes noticed...Based on Dostoyevsky's Crime and Punishment, Bresson's minimalist style compliments (as it has to ) the limitations of his non-professional cast. He believed that trained actors brought false emotions whereas non actors came with a heightened sense of realism and emotional honesty.This theory works far better here than in say L'Argent but it is an acquired taste.Striking location work adds immensely to the film's appeal.

Perfect.

Very slow. Was a little disappointed. Not as noirish as I expected. Still worth watching, nevertheless.