A Man Escaped

I just watched Robert Bresson's A Man Escaped (1956).  In a nutshell, it's the true story of a french prisoner in a Nazi war camp who went to great and methodical strides to ultimately escape.  What sets this film apart from others escape stories (which, incidentally, I have a soft spot for and a sister soft spot right next to it for Steve McQueen) is the quote that serves as the opening frame of the film.  The quote is by Robert Bresson and, I'll paraphrase, says basically that he's telling the story as he heard with no adornment or embellishment.

Leave it to a french director to open his film with a quote by himself.  It does create an interesting alchemy in the story as it unfolds because so many films now that are "based on a true story" are essentially one or two scenes from a person's life that inspired a two hour work of fiction.  So as I watched A Man Escaped, I'd wonder to myself, "Is this true?"  Then I remembered, "Oh yeah, this is Bresson's account of true events," which served as a way for filmmaker to keep his thumbprint visible on the film the whole time.  I like that.  I get the sense that he's not trying to sweep me away with theatrics, but sitting across from me, looking me in the eye, and telling the story as honestly as he can and letting the story's power be what it is.  That direct style of storytelling is what Bresson is known for.  It's refreshing.

Of course, Bresson had to make decisions.  One notable decision that appears immediately is that we enter the story with a man who is hell bent on escaping any prison he is confined to.  There is no explanation for what sets this man apart from the others in the prison who do not try to escape.  This seems to me something that is easily swallowed in France where there seems to be a common belief that the French are born with a chromosone that will activate at puberty and rebel against any authority that asserts its will over an individual.   This was harder for me swallow.  I do not believe that humans are necessarily born with a built in rejecting mechanism for imprisonment.  I don't mean that every human in their heart doesn't desire freedom, but I mean that we are hard-wired to serve some master.  We will serve a master: money, family, insecurity, love, career, God, sex, drugs, something.  The question is: are we serving ourselves or others?

It's hard for me to relate to the hero I'm watching when their only motivation for this doggedly constucted escape is to be out.  That's it?  I'm in and I must be out?  To be honest, I consider that motivation a bit selfish.  The master I serve is my own sense of what will make me free, but free for what?  Maybe it's an American thing, but I see an escape for freedom not as a dash to simply no longer be confined, but to escape one confinement so that I may be confined to that which makes me noble.  For instance, I escape prison because I know that my freedom from that prison is necessary for me to confine myself to the nurturing of my family.  Freedom is only necessary when there is an other, a master that if I do not get to and serve it, the world will suffer in some way.  If the master is myself and I escape a prison for the sake of pure escape, then I've escaped to nothing but my own self-centered desires, which I had back when I was in prison.

Robert Bresson is a master director, there is no question.  He is a must see for any film lover.  But with this particular metaphor, the prison escape, which is so central to our lives (for we all have a prison), I think it is important to not only understand that there is an escape but know what it is we are escaping to.  We will continually escape serving one master to serve another.  What is it?

Comments

[dvd]

I think your criticism has a rather Nietzchean fallacy to it, in that you suggest one form of imprisonment is really no better than the other. While it's true that an ostensibly free man may still be indebted to something, that latter sense of servitude is (ideally) directed towards his own well being and sense of self worth; family, work - or, in the case of the character in this film, politics; i.e. those things which give one's life purpose. Imprisonment is the forced submission of purpose. That one man chooses to escape while others do not is not selfish, but simply indicative of an internal logic dictated by a strong sense of purpose. From his perspective, his cause is just, therefore he did no wrong; his cause is too great to ignore, therefore he must escape.

[Paul Moore]

Ol' DVD has a point. And although I feel Nietzchean fallacy has some sting on it, I am flattered that my writing aroused your passions too much to whine. I knew I was stepping into some choppy waters criticizing Robert Bresson. But still I feel that escape for freedom just for the sake of one's own sense of purpose is still too narrow. I obtain freedom, but freedom to do what? I escape to fulfill what I see as my purpose, but purpose to do what? I guess what I'm trying to say is that most people-- preachers, teachers, mothers, dictators, psychopaths--have a deep sense of the rightness around their own purpose. Hitler was convinced of the rightness of his purpose as much as Jesus was. So even if a man believes in the rightness of his cause and must escape prison to fulfill that purpose within him, if that purpose is self-serving he has never really escaped anything. He is his own prison.

[dvd]

I think my main problem with your criticism, then, would be its seeming judgementalism; but never fear, I don't hold it against you for criticizing Bresson. I'm beginning research for a paper that will (discounting any revalations discovered in the process) compare him unfavorably (if only slightly) to Bergman.

[Paul Moore]

If you have a minute, I'd like to hear about how the above post came off judgemental. Not because I'm defensive, but I enjoy reading your particular take on things, DVD. Like I said, if you have time.

Thanks for the response.

[dvd]

Well, my initial criticism was that your argument seemed somewhat nihilistic. In your response, you suggested that a man's own sense of right is not enough to merit escape - and you used the similarities between Hitler and Jesus as examples. It seems to me, though, that this implies that a man's goals can only be validated by judgement of a third party. Mustn't there be some benefit of the doubt?

This is all semantics, of course, in the larger scheme of things - I'm certainly not condoning escape from prison; and indeed, I doubt many incarcerated individuals have convictions strong enough to back up an attempt on the scale of Bresson's character (another more mainstream example would be Tim Robbins in The Shawshank Redemption.)

[George]

I am compelled to take issue with you, Paul, on several points about this film I love and have loved for nearly fifty years. The text is long enough that I have posted them on my own site today. If you are of a mind, the discussion can be continued either there or here.

[FreeStoring]

hay!!
good project :)
senks :)