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tells you what happens in the title, and it makes it no less suspenseful the entire way. You're literally feeling the sound of the gravel as he puts his foot down – those shots of the foot or the spoon going into the slot. All of these things, the editing of it, the character, the way he's using these actors who you don't really know, they just – you feel like they're real people. It's just so perfectly put together, and it's something where I kind of feel like I'm going along with the escape in a way that's just done by a master. In a weird way, I feel like
Bresson is the Fontaine character in that movie. But what's weird is I've watched it again recently, and I had a totally different feeling of it, where it was more about society and how people are talking to each other. And then you realize Bresson is just kind of making the same movie every time, just with different . One's World War II, one's Lancelot."
935:"I spent a lot of time reviewing the silent films for crowd scenes –the way extras move, evolve, how the space is staged and how the cameras capture it, the views used," Nolan tells Premiere Magazine. The director revealed that he brushed up on silent films such as Intolerance, Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans, and Greed, as well as the films of Robert Bresson (notably Pickpocket and A Man Escaped, to dissect the process of creating suspense through details), Wages of Fear, and, of course, Saving Private Ryan.
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auditory cover provided by passing trains, and descends into a courtyard, where he kills a German guard. He and Jost climb a building and hook a rope across the gap between the inner and outer walls of the prison compound, but
Fontaine loses his nerve and just sits there. Hours later, he finally shimmies across the rope and drops down into the streets of Lyon, and he and Jost walk away from Montluc undetected.
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Some of
Fontaine's fellow inmates begin to believe he may actually have found a way to escape from Montluc, and Orsini, who helped alert Fontaine to approaching guards while he was chiseling at his door, asks to come along. Fontaine shares his plan with Orsini, but Orsini thinks it is too complicated
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At first, Fontaine is placed in a cell on the ground floor of
Montluc. He communicates with his neighbor by tapping on the wall and is regularly able to talk to Terry, a member of a small group that is allowed to exercise in a courtyard unsupervised, from his window. Terry takes Fontaine's letters to
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In conversation with Jarvis Cocker for Q magazine, Walker said of director Robert
Bresson: 'When I see his films, it's a visual version of what I want to get. He never uses real actors. If a person is laying down their hand, he just wants you to know a human being is laying down their hand. It's the
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Shortly after learning he has been sentenced to death, Fontaine is given a cellmate. The young soldier, François Jost, says he has been convicted of desertion, but
Fontaine suspects he may have been planted by the Nazis to get information. Fontaine spends time feeling Jost out and ultimately decides
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After fifteen days, Fontaine is moved to a cell on the top floor of
Montluc, and he is no longer made to wear handcuffs. His new neighbor, Blanchet, is an elderly man who refuses to respond to his taps on the wall, but he gets to know several other inmates on his daily trips to empty his slop bucket
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Benny Safdie: "Then the second one – and let's say, this was in no particular order – but A Man
Escaped, the Bresson movie. That has to be my favorite movie of all time, just because it always makes me cry at the end, because I feel like I've achieved something that the character achieves. And it
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One day, Fontaine says his goodbyes and tells Jost his plan. Jost realizes he does not really have a choice, so he agrees and helps make some more rope. The pair go into the hallway that night and reach the roof via a skylight. Fontaine slowly leads the way across the roof, taking advantage of the
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Fontaine notices the wooden door of his cell is made up of thick boards joined together by a softer wood, so he sharpens the end of a spoon and begins to chisel away at the joints. After weeks of slow, silent, meticulous work, which involves keeping track of and disposing of every wood shaving and
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Fontaine makes more rope out of some cloth items he receives in a package, and
Blanchet even donates a blanket to his escape effort. As time goes on, however, the other inmates begin to doubt Fontaine will ever really try to escape, and another prisoner refuses to join his plan, calling it
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and instead tries to make a run for it one day as the inmates walk to empty their slop buckets. He is caught and returned to his cell to await execution, and he tells
Fontaine to fashion hooks to scale the prison walls from the frame of the lighting fixture in his cell.
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He employed Mozart, the Kyrie Elieson of the Mass in C Minor, music which had a 'colour,' he said, matching that of the film. ... The music is heard in seven sequences, in all of which the prisoners are communicating with the condemned man, when they are no longer
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is like a lesson in the cinema. It teaches by demonstration all the sorts of things that are not necessary in a movie. By implication, it suggests most of the things we're accustomed to are superfluous. I can't think of a single unnecessary shot in
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and wash his face, even though the guards regularly admonish them for talking. After Blanchet faints while emptying his slop bucket, he and Fontaine begin to talk to each other at their windows.
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camouflaging the damage he is doing to the door, he is able to get out of his cell into the hallway at will. He then makes some rope using most of his linens and the wire from his bed frame.
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in March 2013 on Region A Blu-ray and Region 1 DVD. Supplementary features included with this release include "Bresson: Without a Trace", the 1965 episode of the French television program
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put out a Region 2 release in the UK in April 2008, which contains a superior audio/video presentation and features the 1984 Dutch documentary
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as one of the best foreign films of 1956. Today, the work is sometimes considered Bresson's masterpiece, and it came 69th in the 2012
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was influenced by the film and ranked it as one of the top ten films that "affected" him the most. British-American filmmaker
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of 40 critics' reviews are positive, with an average rating of 9.3/10. The website's consensus reads: "
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his family and superiors in the Resistance and gets him a safety pin so he can remove his handcuffs.
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is blockbuster Bresson, a well-acted POW drama that builds with subtle, seat-gripping tension."
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734:"A Man Escaped: Quintessential Bresson - From the Current - The Criterion Collection"
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to trust the boy and escape with him, knowing he would have to kill him otherwise.
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released a Region 4 Australian DVD in July 2009, which contains a scholarly
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in 1943. Bresson had also been held by the Germans during WWII, though as a
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released the film on Region 1 DVD in 2004 (this release is currently
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named the film as his favorite of all time. American-British singer
811:"DVD Review: Bresson's A Man Escaped (1956) - New Yorker Video DVD"
696:. Toronto: Toronto International Film Festival Group. p. 300.
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Un condamné à mort s'est échappé ou Le Vent souffle où il veut
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that features the director's first on-camera interview;
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also listed the film as one of his all-time favorites.
860:"A Man Escaped movie review & film summary (1956)"
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The Films of Krzysztof Kieslowski - The Liminal Image
692:(1998). "Bresson and Music". In Quandt, James (ed.).
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949:"The Safdie Brothers' Five Favorite Films"
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1085:Robert Bresson: A Spiritual Style in Film
383:In an interview, Bresson said that, with
835:. British Film Institute. Archived from
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460:was influenced by the film (along with
342:Jean-Philippe Delamarre as Prisoner 110
1133:A Man Escaped: Quintessential Bresson
947:Jacqueline Coley (January 14, 2020).
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917:Leonard Pearce (February 28, 2017).
368:The film is based on the memoirs of
358:Leonhard Schmidt as the escort guard
321:Charles Le Clainche as François Jost
889:. Bloomsbury Academic. p. 26.
627:"Festival de Cannes: A Man Escaped"
348:Jacques Oerlemans as the head guard
269:in 1943, Fontaine, a member of the
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1410:World War II prisoner of war films
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1395:Films directed by Robert Bresson
980:"Scott Walker's favourite films"
978:Samuel Wigley (March 26, 2019).
833:"Votes for A Man Escaped (1956)"
536:by Professor Ross Gibson of the
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351:Klaus Detlef Grevenhorst as the
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345:CĂ©sar Gattegno as Prisoner X
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159:11 November 1956
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883:Joseph Kickasola (2004).
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1248:The Trial of Joan of Arc
1082:Cunneen, Joseph (2004).
986:. British Film Institute
738:The Criterion Collection
563:Cinéastes de notre temps
559:The Criterion Collection
428:National Board of Review
925:. The Film Stage, L.L.C
339:Roger Treherne as Terry
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785:"A Man Escaped (1956)"
318:as Lieutenant Fontaine
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813:. People.ucalgary.ca
714:. Festival de Cannes
583:The Essence of Forms
542:University of Sydney
530:Madman Entertainment
454:Krzysztof Kieslowski
414:Reception and legacy
146:Gaumont Film Company
136:Gaumont Film Company
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789:Stanley W. Rogouski
631:festival-cannes.com
567:The Road to Bresson
525:The Road to Bresson
507:Home video releases
226:. It is based on a
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1296:The Devil Probably
1149:TCM Movie Database
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316:François Leterrier
234:, a member of the
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85:François Leterrier
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1088:. A&C Black.
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1039:. amazon.fr
843:January 27,
817:14 December
795:14 December
769:14 December
743:14 December
575:Louis Malle
438:Roger Ebert
220:prison film
71:Alain Poiré
67:Produced by
36:Directed by
1350:1956 films
1344:Categories
1240:Pickpocket
1095:0826416055
1064:2021-03-06
1043:2011-03-18
990:16 October
955:. Fandango
869:2021-06-15
636:2009-02-08
613:References
463:Pickpocket
364:Production
179:99 minutes
163:1956-11-11
128:Production
46:Written by
1264:Mouchette
333:as Orsini
192:Languages
107:Edited by
1304:L'Argent
491:website
472:(2017).
408:, K. 427
216:John 3:8
117:Music by
81:Starring
57:a memoir
54:Based on
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902:23 June
552:Blu-ray
548:Gaumont
487:On the
476:of the
469:Dunkirk
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355:officer
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401:Mozart
353:Abwehr
228:memoir
208:French
187:France
399:from
396:Kyrie
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374:Lyon
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