Watching 'Pickpocket'

A reader re-marked that he doesn’t have the time to read books or watch movies, so when he reads a review, the opinions stated in it become his own. It’s sad, but he is being honest. If people read reviews as a substitute for the real thing, then the least I can do is to try to describe the movie as if you were seeing it for yourself. If you have to bluff about a movie, at least pick a good one.

Pickpocket was made by Robert Bresson in 1959. Bresson is regarded as one of the greatest filmmakers who ever lived, but he never got the kind of attention in his lifetime that Fellini or Bergman got from the critics or the arthouse audience. Many viewers regard his work as cold and remote. There is no “acting” the way we think of acting, yet every scene is radiant with passion. There is no suspense: you know how things will turn out. You are detached from the action: you don’t feel what the character feels, you think about what he feels. You don’t think, “That guy is me.” This Is Not About You. That’s probably why audiences didn’t embrace Bresson.

Pickpocket is set in Paris in the 1950s. The first things you see are a notebook, a pen moving across the page, and the hand holding it.

Naturally there are lots of shots of hands. The hero, Michel, is recalling his career as a pickpocket. We hear his words as voiceover narration. Voiceovers are usually regarded as a form of cheating — some lazy director not doing his job — but this is different. Michel is telling us the story after it’s already happened, and at the same time he’s describing scenes before they take place. It’s as if he were saying, “You weren’t there. You weren’t a participant.”

If that’s the case, why make a movie? There are easier ways to alienate people. But Pickpocket is a movie about what’s going on inside Michel’s mind. What’s going on outside does not interest the filmmaker. Michel goes to the racetrack; we hear the clattering of horses’ hooves, the noise of the crowd, and the voice of the announcer, but we only see Michel and his quarry.

Michel is a young man with sad eyes. He wears the same old suit throughout the movie. After some hesitation he slips his hand into a lady’s handbag and takes her money. A minute later he gets caught by two cops and taken to the police station for questioning. But they have no evidence, so they let him go.

He returns to his rented room, which he doesn’t bother to lock. It contains a bed, a chair, some books. Michel, exhausted, falls asleep.

Why does he steal? Is he desperate? His only friend Jacques tells him things will get better, and gives him a list of job openings. We learn that Michel is intelligent and capable. Why has he chosen to be a thief?

Michel goes to visit his sick mother, whom he hasn’t seen in a month.

He meets a beautiful girl named Jeanne, the neighbor who’s been looking after her. He suddenly decides not to see his mother; instead he hands Jeanne some money. Then he goes off and steals. He tries new tricks for picking pockets and undoing watchstraps. He works the train station and the subway.

A more experienced pickpocket “adopts” and trains him. They are joined by a third thief. No words pass between them. Instead we get a lovely sequence in which the pickpockets practice and perfect their trade: hands, feints, pirouettes and drops, like a ballet. Michel gets a thrill from stealing: it makes him feel invincible. It wards off despair and feeds his pride.

The kind policeman — is he following Michel, or is it Michel’s conscience that causes him to imagine he is being followed? — visits the cafe where Michel hangs out. Michel tells him that there are individuals who can do whatever they want, supermen who are above conventional morality. Clearly he’s referring to himself. Why is he confessing?

The pickpocket’s tranquil, almost blank exterior suggests that he doesn’t care about anything. That can’t be right, so you watch his face for some glimmer of what he feels. His outer calm conceals his inner turmoil. He longs for emotional contact, but the only contact he allows himself is with the people he robs. He is alone, shut inside himself where his mother, Jacques, and Jeanne cannot reach him.

No wonder he gets such a charge out of stealing. The stolen objects fill the void in his soul. Michel will not admit that he yearns for the people he “touches” to touch him back. Look at how he stares into his victims’ eyes, as if he were daring them to stop him. You realize that he wants to get caught.

Michel, Jacques and Jeanne spend time together, and Jacques falls in love with Jeanne. It looks like Jeanne has feelings for Michel, but he does nothing. He continues picking pockets. One day he arrives late for “work” and sees his partners being led away by police. He leaves for Milan, then London, where he spends the next two years at his trade. His absence from Paris takes up two sentences in the voiceover narration.

When he returns, he discovers that Jeanne has had a child by Jacques, whom she refused to marry. She didn’t love him, so he left. Michel promises to support the child. He gets a proper job and lives honestly for a while, but one day at the racetrack he is tempted to steal again. The victim turns out to be a cop; Michel is arrested and thrown in jail. He’s furious at himself for taking the bait, but he’s also relieved at losing his terrible freedom. He confesses everything and accepts the punishment for his crimes.

Jeanne visits him regularly, but suddenly she stops coming to the prison. Has she abandoned him? He can bear his sentence, but not that.

Then a letter arrives from Jeanne: the baby had been ill but he’s fine now, and she can resume her visits.

When she finally comes to see him, he sees the light shining in her face. “Oh, Jeanne,” he thinks, kissing her through the bars, “to have reached you at last.” The strangest thing has happened. Prison has set the pickpocket free.

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