There is a moment about twenty minutes into Robert Bresson’s 1959 masterpiece, Pickpocket , where the film stops feeling like a movie and starts feeling like a prayer meeting for sinners.
But if you have ever felt like an outsider in your own life—if you have ever tried to rationalize a bad habit into a noble calling—this film will haunt you.
Pickpocket is a film that dares to ask an uncomfortable question: The Lonely Logic of the Thief Michel is not a desperate man. He has a place to live. He has a friend, Jacques, who offers him honest work. He even has a devoted mother (off-screen, as Bresson rarely shows us the melodrama we expect). And yet, Michel steals. pickpocket -1959-
He explains it with a cold, existential logic. He believes that certain "superior" men—geniuses, criminals, artists—exist outside the normal moral framework. He isn't greedy for money; he is greedy for transcendence . For Michel, picking a pocket isn’t a theft; it’s a “sport” and a “science.”
Have you seen Pickpocket ? Did you find Michel a monster or a martyr? Let me know in the comments below. There is a moment about twenty minutes into
A perfect, austere diamond. Essential viewing for cinephiles, existentialists, and anyone who has ever secretly admired the grace of a magician.
Jeanne visits him. Through the bars of the visiting room, she leans in. And Michel—this creature of cold logic and nimble fingers—finally breaks. He touches her forehead through the grate. He whispers the last line of the film: "Oh, Jeanne, what a strange path I had to take to reach you." He has a place to live
It’s believing you don’t need anyone else to survive.
But he gets caught. Of course he does. The "superior man" ends up in a prison cell.