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Pickpocket

DVD
Criterion Coll.

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ON ORDER
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$32.99 (17% off)
List Price: ~~$39.99~~

When new special editions or price reductions are announced.

Synopsis

Robert Bresson’s masterful investigation of crime and redemption tells the story of the young, arrogant Michel (Martin LaSalle), who spends his days learning the art of picking pockets in the streets, subway cars, and train stations of Paris. As Michel grows bolder and more adept, so too grows his fear that his luck is about to run out. But despite the pleadings of his sick mother and the lovely Jeanne to return to the world of the honorable, he is consumed by his compulsion to steal. Tautly choreographed and stylistically rigorous, Pickpocket reveals Bresson at his enigmatic, virtuosic best. (French with English subtitles)

Review

Director Bresson paints a picture of self-conscious obsession in Pickpocket, an unadorned and spare examination of a haunted young man (LaSalle) who schools himself in light-fingered theft. The film employs a quasi-documentary style as the thief Michel roams the subterranean concourses of the Paris Metro, looking for easy marks, or casing fat handbags at the races. At once determined and conflicted, Michel seeks philosophic justification for his actions in discussions at coffee bars, yet cannot visit his ailing mother to face her concerns for him. Only the young woman who looks after his mother provides him a direct confrontation with the realities of his activities. In only 75 minutes, the emotionally riveting Pickpocket provides a multilayered character study within a tale of personal despair and ultimate redemption, creating an in-depth portrait with a minimal of brush strokes.

Product Format Information

DVD : $32.99 (Criterion Collection)

Availability: ON ORDER
Ships when stock arrives
Region Code: 1
UPC: 037429209523
Catalog #: DV1144332
Studio: Criterion
Languages: French Dolby Digital Mono (Primary) , English Subtitles
Aspect Ratio: 1.33 Original Aspect Ratio
Extras: Trailers
Features:
Audio commentary: by film scholar James Quandt
New video introduction by writer-director Paul Schrader
Documentaries: The Models of “Pickpocket,” a 2003 documentary by filmmaker Babette Mangolte, featuring actors from the film
A 1960 interview with Bresson, from the French television program "Cinépanorama"
Q&A on Pickpocket, with actress Marika Green and filmmakers Paul Vecchiali and Jean-Pierre Améris fielding questions at a 2000 screening of the film
Footage of sleight-of-hand artist and Pickpocket consultant Kassagi, from a 1962 episode of the French television show "La piste aux étoiles"
New essay by novelist and culture critic Gary Indiana
New and improved English subtitle translation