This film, based on the true story of the escape by French Resistance fighter André Devigny, here named Fontaine, from the Gestapo's Fort Montluc prison in 1943, is unarguably one of the great works of cinema. Bresson was himself a prisoner of war for 16 months, so brings personal experience to bear on the film.
Bresson filmed in Montluc itself. His film begins at Fontaine’s lowest point after he has failed in his escape attempt, been imprisoned, beaten, handcuffed and left in his 3m x 2m cell. The remainder of the film is taken up by his preparation for escape and the camera scarcely leaves him. The smallest possessions he is able to garner take on enormous importance – a pencil, string, a handkerchief. This is a world in which a spoon is the difference between life and death.
One of the remarkable devices of the film is that it never repeats itself but instead always advances. Once Fontaine finds a solution to a problem, the film, along with Fontaine, moves on. With each step, the stakes for the next become higher. To escape is to gamble everything. The man in the next cell asks, ‘Why do it?’, to which Fontaine responds, ‘To fight against the walls, the cell, myself’.
Fontaine is constantly made aware of the world outside the prison by sounds of trains, bells, a scooter, owls. In Bresson’s sparing use of sound among the predominant silence he raises our own senses to a keen pitch, so that when they do occur, the cracking of a door or the crunching of gravel is almost deafening.
Fontaine’s stands for human ingenuity, resourcefulness, belief and spiritual as well as physical salvation. We care about what happens to Fontaine because it is these qualities of humanity that are at stake. God is on Fontaine’s side but Bresson’s presentation makes it clear that without faith in human effort, no escape could have happened.
A Man Escaped has been called ‘one of the truly great films about man’s spiritual and physical triumph over the forces of terror’. We know Fontaine escapes; reconciling this with how he does so is almost unbearably suspenseful. For anyone who has shied away from Bresson in the past, this is where to begin; it is thrilling cinema.
Road to Bresson (Leo De Boer & Jurriën Rood, 1984) - documentary by featuring Andrei Tarkovsky, Orson Welles and Paul Schrader.
Film Description
Based on the real-life escape of French Resistance fighter from the Gestapo's Fort Montluc prison in 1943, A Man Escaped depictis the protracted, painstaking escape with riveting minimalism. With a hypnotic, concentrated purity verging on the spiritual, this is an unquestioned masterpiece of world cinema.
I first saw "A Man Escaped" in my Introduction to Cinema Studies course during my first year at university. It immediately became one of the the greatest films I had e... more >
I first saw "A Man Escaped" in my Introduction to Cinema Studies course during my first year at university. It immediately became one of the the greatest films I had ever seen. Over time, my feeling on it has evolved to the point that it is now one of my favorite films as well. The new Artificial Eye DVD is a triumph; the picture is bright and clean, and the all-important sound is clear and crisp.
The documentary 'The Road to Bresson' is worth the price of the DVD alone. A Dutch production (with English subtitles), it examines the work of Bresson with an eye to revealing all that it can about the reclusive director. There is rare footage included of Bresson at Cannes, and a very wonderful surprise at the end.
I cannot sing the praises of Artificial Eye enough...I have posted similar reviews on several sites. If you are a fan of this film, you will not be disappointed. < less
wolfram parge on 9th June 2003
"This is a true story. I tell it exactly as it happened." Robert Bresson introduces this terrific film, inspired by the legendary French soldier Andre Devigny. Devigny... more >
"This is a true story. I tell it exactly as it happened." Robert Bresson introduces this terrific film, inspired by the legendary French soldier Andre Devigny. Devigny was a Resistance fighter imprisoned by the Nazis in 1943 on charges of spying and sabotage. He was meant to have been executed during the summer of that year, but staged a dramatic escape with a fellow inmate from the German Alcatraz at Montluc in Lyons. The late Devigny (he died in 1999) had advised Bresson on his film, and many of the scenes were shot inside the actual prison, including the prisoner's former cell. With a chisel ground from the end of a steel spoon, primitive barbed-wire hooks and rope plaited from cloth, this incredible human being escaped with his life.
