101 mins |
Rated
TBC
Directed by Robert Bresson
Starring François Leterrier, Charles Le Clainche, Maurice Beerblock, Roland Monod, Jacques Ertaud, Jean Paul Delhumeau, Roger Treherne
7:00pm “Suspense Beyond the Hitchcockian Tradition” - Brief lecture by Dr. Rick Warner, followed by book signing.
7:30pm A Man Escaped (dir. Robert Bresson, 1956, France)
Set in a labrynthine prison during the German Occupation of France in World War II, A Man Escaped keeps us on the edge of our seat despite the fact that its very title gives away the plot’s outcome in advance. We are anxiously made to feel as though we share the compact prison cell of Fontaine (François Leterrier), a French resistance fighter who attempts a daring escape using only the meager wood and metal materials at his disposal. The legendary director Robert Bresson’s austere and exacting style heightens our sensitivity to the slightest sounds of danger as the Gestapo guards ambiguously lurk just beyond the edges of the frame. With its cramped frames and mysterious offscreen sounds, A Man Escaped is a perfect example of how suspense can arise in an acutely visceral sense regardless of our levels of knowledge concerning the plot. The film is an example of an arthouse style of suspense that unnerves us not by amping things up, but, rather, by dialing down and pulling back from us. A Man Escaped is what the director Kelly Reichardt, a professed disciple of Bresson’s minimalism, would call a “thriller with a lowercase t.”
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7:00pm “Suspense Beyond the Hitchcockian Tradition” - Brief lecture by Dr. Rick Warner, followed by book signing.
7:30pm A Man Escaped (dir. Robert Bresson, 1956, France)
Set in a labrynthine prison during the German Occupation of France in World War II, A Man Escaped keeps us on the edge of our seat despite the fact that its very title gives away the plot’s outcome in advance. We are anxiously made to feel as though we share the compact prison cell of Fontaine (François Leterrier), a French resistance fighter who attempts a daring escape using only the meager wood and metal materials at his disposal. The legendary director Robert Bresson’s austere and exacting style heightens our sensitivity to the slightest sounds of danger as the Gestapo guards ambiguously lurk just beyond the edges of the frame. With its cramped frames and mysterious offscreen sounds, A Man Escaped is a perfect example of how suspense can arise in an acutely visceral sense regardless of our levels of knowledge concerning the plot. The film is an example of an arthouse style of suspense that unnerves us not by amping things up, but, rather, by dialing down and pulling back from us. A Man Escaped is what the director Kelly Reichardt, a professed disciple of Bresson’s minimalism, would call a “thriller with a lowercase t.”
