Pickpocket French Movie

[Filomeno Robles]

Pickpocketis a 1959 French film written and directed by Robert Bresson. It stars Martin LaSalle, who was a nonprofessional actor at the time, in the title role, and features Marika Green, Pierre Leymarie, and Jean Plgri in supporting roles. The film is generally considered to be one of Bresson's greatest films.[1]

Michel goes to a race at Longchamp Racecourse and takes some money from a woman's purse. He leaves the track confident he was not noticed, but is suddenly arrested. At the police station, the chief inspector releases him because it cannot be proven that he stole the money.

The next day, Michel goes to visit his sickly mother, who he has not seen in a month. Her neighbor, Jeanne, offers to let him into the apartment, but, instead, he gives her money to give to his mother and leaves. Michel goes to meet his friend Jacques at a bar and asks for help finding a job. He sees the chief inspector and Michel explains his theory that certain superior men should not be bound by the same laws as everyone else.

After spending a week in the subway picking pockets, Michel is caught, so he lies low for a few days. He notices a mysterious man lurking outside, but is interrupted when Jacques shows up with Jeanne, who tells Michel that his mother is ill. Michel sends Jacques to see his mother in his place and goes out to find the mysterious man. The man turns out to be a pickpocket, and he teaches Michel several new techniques.

When she is on her deathbed, Michel finally goes to see his mother. She says she is not worried about him and he says he is sure she will get better, but she dies soon after. Michel and the mysterious man begin to work together, and they eventually bring in a third man.

On a Sunday, Michel goes to a carnival with Jacques and Jeanne. While they are on a ride, he wanders off. Jacques finds him at his apartment cleaning himself up, having fallen during his escape from a man whose watch he stole. Michel asks if Jacques and Jeanne love each other, and Jacques leaves.

Michel and his two accomplices undertake coordinated pickpocketing sprees at crowded locations, and one day he gets to Gare de Lyon station and sees his accomplices being led away in handcuffs. He goes home, and the chief inspector comes by to tell him that, a month before he was arrested at the racetrack, Jeanne reported some money had been stolen from Michel's mother, but the complaint was withdrawn the next day. Deeming it unlikely Michel will turn his life around, the inspector indicates he is going to start watching Michel more closely.

Jeanne tells Michel that the police recently asked her to confirm his mother is the one who withdrew her complaint, which shows Michel that his mother knew he robbed her. Jeanne had not understood this, and Michel explains. Although she is appalled, she tearfully hugs him before he leaves and asks if he is going to run away before the inspector catches him, giving him the idea to do just that.

Michel spends two years in London "pulling off good jobs", but he blows all of his money gambling and on women and returns to Paris. He goes to see Jeanne and discovers she and Jacques had a child, who she is raising alone because she did not want to marry him. Michel offers to help her support the child by getting an honest job, and he does so. He is feeling good, but is drawn to a man reading the racing form and finds himself accompanying the man to Longchamp. Although suspicious when the man seems to win a bet he should have lost, Michel still tries to steal his money and is arrested, as the man is a plainclothes officer.

At first, Michel is mostly just upset he was caught. He cannot understand why Jeanne visits him in jail, but, after she does not come for three weeks, he finds his hands shaking as he reads a letter explaining that her child has been sick. When he sees her again, she seems lit up, and he realizes he loves her.

Bresson said Pickpocket "was written in three months and shot in the midst of crowds in a minimal amount of time."[2] The resulting disorder proved to be a challenge during shooting, but was sometimes used to the crew's advantage, as in the Gare de Lyon pickpocketing sequence.[3]

The French-Tunisian pickpocket Henri Kassagi acted as technical advisor on the film, as well as appearing as instructor and accomplice to the main character.[4] After Pickpocket, Kassagi's face and techniques were too well known for him to continue with his old trade, and he changed career to become a successful stage magician.[5]

Roger Ebert saw echoes of Dostoyevsky's Crime and Punishment in Pickpocket, writing: "Bresson's Michel, like Dostoyevsky's hero Raskolnikov, needs money in order to realize his dreams, and sees no reason why some lackluster ordinary person should not be forced to supply it. The reasoning is immoral, but the characters claim special privileges above and beyond common morality. Michel, like the hero of Crime and Punishment, has a 'good woman' in his life, who trusts he will be able to redeem himself. ... She comes to Michel with the news that his mother is dying. Michel does not want to see his mother, but gives Jeanne money for her. Why does he avoid her? Bresson never supplies motives. We can only guess."[8] Additionally, in the film Michel gets caught up in a game of cat and mouse with a police inspector, much as Raskolnikov does in Dostoyevsky's novel.

On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, 93% of 46 critics' reviews are positive, with an average rating of 9.0/10. The website's consensus reads: "Narratively spare and told with clockwork precision, Pickpocket is a carefully observed character study that packs an emotional wallop."[9]

Pickpocket has been paraphrased by other films, such as Leos Carax's Les Amants du Pont-Neuf (1991).[20] The Dardenne brothers' 2005 film L'Enfant has also been said to have been influenced by the film.[21] Christopher Nolan said he studied Pickpocket, along with Bresson's earlier film A Man Escaped, when making his 2017 film Dunkirk, to study how Bresson created suspense through details.[22]

It has happened to me before and it leaves an unpleasant taste. Admitting you've lost something (often items of value) is bad enough, but it's even worse when you feel you might have been able to avoid it.

What I find really helpful is wearing a cross-body purse, also called an anti-theft purse. There are many brands but I prefer Pacsafe (I have three different models). I bought my first one after I was robbed - and never leave home without one.

The main one? If you're a thief, try getting into them! The straps are lined with titanium, the material is slashproof, there are locking loops and tabs, and they're RFID safe so no one can steal your identity.

My goal here today is to help you enjoy Paris the way you should by making you more attentive and telling you which scams to watch out for, where pickpockets congregate, and what to do when sticky fingers begin rifling through your pockets or bags.

Third, there is a portion of petty crime that is handled by organized gangs that prey on tourists and that may even work internationally, rotating thieves between countries when their faces become too known to French police. This, too, can be deterred, although with greater difficulty.

Yes, Paris has its share of pickpockets but with a bit of caution, you can emerge unscathed from your visit. Victims of pickpockets are often robbed because of carelessness or lack or awareness or simple ignorance. Understanding these pickpocketing Paris tips will go a long way towards protecting you but in truth, there are no guarantees and no matter how well-informed you are, things can still happen.

Pickpocket techniques are extremely creative but even so, their approaches and scams tend to belong to certain categories: once you know these categories, avoiding pickpockets becomes a lot easier, as does adapting your solutions to pickpocket techniques.

Usually this kind of approach will happen in a crowd, where something distracts you, like loud music or a shove. It can be quick and professional, and you can be pickpocketed and the thief long gone well before you have an inkling you've been robbed.

It can also happen while you're sitting at one of those impossibly romantic Parisian cafs: you've just snapped that viral Instagram shot, you put down your phone, and someone distracts you, with a petition or a newspaper or a question. By the time you realize what's happened, your phone is gone.

The "ring scam" is so old one wonders how it continues to work, but it does. Someone bends down to pick up what looks like a gold ring and asks if it's yours. While you're being bamboozled, there's every chance an accomplice is searching for your wallet. If you say it isn't yours, they'll offer to sell it to you at a bargain price. While you're negotiating, that accomplice is busy robbing you.

Another classic is the "interview" or "NGO fundraiser" to help animals or refugees: the obvious approach will be someone, who often looks like a student, approaching you with a petition on a clipboard. Some of these may be legitimate, sadly, but you can't know which. The clipboard may be used to hide the theft, or the manoeuvre will be used to distract you while someone else picks your pocket.

An increasingly popular trick is dressing up as a tourist to gain your trust. Sometimes, they're indistinguishable from the real tourist, selfie stick and all! But if they get close to you, robbery could be their motive.

Or they may be gangs of female adolescents, some barely in their teens, some even younger, who work together picking pockets and passing the money among themselves so as not to be caught. One or two may distract you, while the others take your things.

Museums are attractive for pickpockets, especially the extremely popular Louvre or Muse d'Orsay. While you're gazing admiringly at an Impressionist painting, someone may be gazing admiringly at your unprotected purse or wallet.

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