by Conan Simmons – September 3, 2020 – 2:14 am
Moving confidently through the train station Kassagi and his accomplices expertly swipe wallets from pockets and purses from arms. From mark to mark the sticky fingered thieves glide with well-practiced ease. The denizens of the station are blissfully unaware of what is conspiring around them. The details of the crimes are captured in loving close ups with slight pauses to emphasize the techniques of the entrepreneurial criminals. This is how the famous sequence from Robert Bresson’s 1959 film ‘Pickpocket’ plays out.
Bresson’s fifth film is an examination of petty crime focused on career criminal Michel played by Martin LaSalle in his film debut. Michel is a semi-professional pickpocket who spends his time studying techniques when he’s not out robbing people, getting caught half the time. His aspirations outweigh his talent as he develops a compulsive behavior to steal bringing him a sense of connection to the world around him. Attempting to support himself solely on his criminal endeavor he can afford to rent no more than the smallest of rooms.
Michel unwittingly gets chummy with a police inspector who is keeping a close eye on him. This doesn’t stop Michel from seeking out and befriending professional pickpocket, Kassagi. Learning advanced tricks of the trade Michel joins Kassagi in a crime spree at a train station. Feeling the heat closing in from the long arm of the law Michel leaves for England. He continues his criminal ways and eventually returns to Paris.
Bresson’s minimal realism is on full display. Martin LaSalle’s performance is stripped down to the point that it seems at first he is awkward being in front of the camera. This is deliberate providing the director’s desired effect of focusing on the character’s detachment from his surroundings. As LaSalle’s Michel executes each crime his elation is much more at the forefront and emits naturally.
‘Pickpocket’ is a crime film that should be better known. Where some movies in this genre get criticized on release for being a how-to this one lives up to the hype. The professional pickpocket Kassagi is essentially playing himself, he was a pickpocket in real life. As he demonstrates techniques to Michel these techniques and more are greatly emphasized in the train station sequence. While there aren’t any big dramatic moments the film does well keeping firmly focused on Michel’s obsessive compulsion.
The crime genre in film was having a heyday in Hollywood at the time with the golden age of film noir coming to an end by the late 1950’s. In France the group of filmmakers from Cahiers du Cinema were becoming known as the New Wave. Robert Bresson belonged to neither film movements. Having begun making feature films during the Nazi occupation of France he had already made several films by the time the New Wave came into being. ‘Pickpocket’ never goes into noir territory but the obsessive aspect of Michel does place the film on the fringe.
For fans of crime movies ‘Pickpocket’ is a must see. It is almost a docudrama in the way it presents its subject without ever pushing a condemnation or condoning. Robert Bresson would go on to make several more classics of French cinema for the next couple of decades. Martin LaSalle soon moved to Mexico and continued acting for more than 50 years into the early 2010’s.