Classic DVD: Pickpocket (1959)

November 22, 2010 in Film | Permalink

Michel often studies "Prince of the Pickpockets," Richard Stanton Lambert's 1930 book about 18th-century thief (and, later, cop!) George Barrington.

Franςois Truffaut famously said that Robert Bresson’s 1959 drama, Pickpocket, was the greatest date movie ever made, though he might have added that it helps if you’re dating an existential thief. The film’s anti-hero, Michel, is a Parisian intellectual who could easily earn his own way, but he believes, as if he were sprung from the pages of Camus or Nietzsche, that he needs to defy the laws of God and man and make other people’s watches and wallets his own.

Morose Michel (Martin LaSalle) lives a sluggish, threadbare existence, spending all his time perfecting his illicit technique and furthers his education when he falls in with a pack of more experienced thieves. As his obsession with the “craft” grows, Michel halfheartedly plays a cat-and-mouse game with an acquaintance who happens to be a police chief (Jean Pélégri). Equally lackadaisical is his (perhaps) budding romance with Jeanne (Marika Green), his sickly mother’s beautiful neighbor.

When the criminal tries to explain to the police inspector that some men should be allowed to transgress society’s rules for the good of society, the lawman will have none of it. “That’s the world upside down,” he points out.  “It’s already upside down,” retorts Michel. And from that moment on it’s a briskly paced race to see if Michel’s hands will end up holding Jeanne’s or in handcuffs. (Available from Netflix and other venues.)

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