11/22/2023 0 Comments Pickpocket movie 2012![]() LaSalle, who plays the film’s protagonist, is probably the most interesting subject, who now lives in Mexico and still gets work there. Filmed separately the three recall working on the film and Bresson’s style of working with actors (unsurprisingly he was pretty hands on with their performances). Models of Pickpocket is a 52-minute documentary from around 2003, which finds its filmmaker, Babette Mangolte, tracking down three of the actors (“models”) from Pickpocket, Pierre Leymarie, Marika Green, and Martin LaSalle. ![]() It’s a fine enough examination of the film and Bresson’s style, working as a sort of primer for first time viewers. He finds the film language of Bresson fascinating: it feels wrong in how unconventional it is, but it ultimately works. This of course led to the “blank acting” that his work is accused of containing, as well as his refusal for using music (at least in a typical way). He then goes into detail about Bresson’s style and his refusal to manipulate viewers by using conventional film making methods. He starts off by explaining how he first saw it, the impact it had on him (even influencing him when developing the script for Taxi Driver). Paul Schrader also provides a 15-minute introduction to the film. Despite the fact it feels like he’s reading from a script or at least a collection of notes, I generally enjoyed the scholarly track, which is a breeze at 75-minutes. He also comments on what he considers the film’s weaknesses, primarily a subplot involving a detective that admittedly feels like it’s from a different movie, but mostly sticks to what he admires and loves about the film. Quandt spends most of the track talking about his interpretations of the film, which includes what drives the character of Michel (of course pointing out all sexual undertones found throughout) while also making literary connections (Dostoyevsky probably being the most obvious), and focusing on Bresson’s visual language (which was pretty revolutionary at the time) and use of actors, which he used more as models and/or interpreters, humourously stating that Martin LaSalle (Michel) probably has the best dead pan look since Buster Keaton. First is the same audio commentary by film scholar James Quandt, covering the film’s production, style, and impact. In either case, whether looking to get this for the Blu-ray or DVD, they both offer a very big improvement and the upgrade may be worthwhile just for the new presentation.Ĭriterion ports over everything from the previous DVD edition, presenting the features on both the Blu-ray and DVD. The Blu-ray does an excellent job in handling the film’s grain structure, keeping it natural, while the DVD doesn’t do too shabby a job as well, though the format still limits it and it can look more like compression than actual film grain. Contrast is also improved and the occasionally murky look of the old DVD is now gone. ![]() The improvement detail is also significant, with textures come through so much clearer here, look far more natural on the Blu-ray’s presentation. ![]() The image found here on both the DVD and Blu-ray is substantially sharper (the Blu-ray much more so as one would hope) and damage is now limited to more specs and debris scattered about but barely noticeable. ![]() Though the image on the previous DVD held up well overall, it still had its fair share of damage and could have a fuzzy, somewhat indistinctive appearance on occasion. Though Criterion’s previous DVD looked pretty good the upgrade found here-a new 2K scan of the original 35mm camera negative, as opposed to the 35mm interpositive used for the original DVD-on both the Blu-ray and the DVD offers a substantial improvement in comparison. The image for the latter has not been window boxed. The included Blu-ray features the film in a new 1080p/24hz high-definition transfer on a dual-layer disc, while the DVD presents a standard-definition version, sourced from the same transfer, on a dual-layer DVD. The Criterion Collection upgrade their DVD edition of Robert Bresson’s Pickpocket to a new dual-format edition, presenting the film in its original aspect ratio of about 1.37:1. ![]()
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