Pickpocket (EOTWS)

End Of The Week Shorts #18 extract: Pickpocket (1959)

So perfect, so precise, so simple, so subtle, Pickpocket is Bresson just being Bresson. 

No other director comes to mind when I think of precision and control over cinematic language. And within Pickpocket Bresson puts on a true masterclass as he asks us to follow eyes, hands, slumped shoulders and all that they hide - and it cannot be understated just how excellent Martin LaSalle is in this film. But, all of this funnels into an impossibly expressive and striking exploration of immorality and nihilism at a very minute, realist scale. It is then without any flashing lights or loud noises that a film that defies articulation, to a certain degree, has been constructed. Whilst I could outline the themes and the possible ideas within, no essay could do this film much of a service; Pickpocket is a silent vacuum of a masterpiece.