A Man Escaped (1956)
“A Man Escaped” is about a man named Fontaine, who worked for the French resistance, and is captured by the Nazis in a prison. Fontaine is held captive with other men and women, and they all don’t know what the fate will bring. Although Fontaine was malnourished and afraid, he planned to escape from prison, and succeeded in doing so. This movie is not about him finally escaping prison, or the war. Rather, it is about how he did it. The focus of the movie, as well as most of what happens in it, is narrated and displayed while Fontaine is in his cell.
In the opening scene, Fontaine tries to escape when he first is caught. From that point on, it was clear to me that he wouldn’t stop trying. When Fontaine is taking to the prison, the viewers watch him examine his cell. Due to detailed showings of his surroundings, the viewers are familiarized with the cell just as Fontaine is. They see how small his cell is, how thick and high the walls and doors are, and the location of the guards through camera work. The watchers also see how the guards can see Fontaine through a hole in the door. Not only are the viewers shown the details that Fontaine noticed when he arrived in prison, additionally Fontaine himself tells it all it in his inner voice. The camera only focuses on Fontaine and his surroundings. The viewers don’t see the guards clearly, even though they appear in some shots, they weren’t the focus of the camera. We also see some of the prisoners and become familiar with them only when Fontaine is talking to them or passing by them.
Fontaine doesn’t know who to trust in prison. However, he receives help from other prisoners. The prisoners seem to be kind to one another. An example of that would be a scene where Fontaine was talking to a man through his window, and he asks him for materialistic things. The man brings him what he needs even though he is risking his life. Fontaine himself says that prisoners will be killed if they are caught helping him, but they still do it. Fontaine then plans a way to pass through the door without his imprisoners knowing. He finds a spoon and decides to use it to pass through the door. Even though Fontaine believed he could escape, he was also quite afraid. His efforts to escape his cell are dependent on his cell not being checked by the guards, which means he could be unexpectedly seen at any moment. When his work was almost done, and he was ready to escape, a young man was put in Fontaine’s cell. Fontaine was suspicious of his new cellmate. They ended up escaping together.
Fontaine played his role perfectly and kept his viewers interested to the end. He seemed scared at some points, but he was brave, and optimistic. Although others told him he wouldn’t succeed and would never escape. The look on his face was terrifying, yet that never affected him in a negative way. While I was watching this film, I could see fear through his eyes, and I believe that the camera captured his emotions and struggles perfectly. Fontaine’s character was quiet and very patient. Yet hope, struggle, and his thinking of escaping were obvious and well shown through camera. In many scenes, he did not speak, but the viewers were able to hear his thoughts clearly. The way and where the film was shot, made the entire story believable and consistent with his situation. The film was shot in a prison, and that made it seem realistic. Some elements helped make the story seem more real, such as the focus of the camera that mainly focused on Fontaine in his cell, yet also on showing his surroundings all the time. The sound was the most important and noticeable element in this film which was the sound of prison life. An example of that would be the sound of key chains, doors, footsteps, and most importantly the sound of shots. Although men are killed in prison, the viewers don’t see it onscreen. They just hear sounds of shots. According to Gwendolyn Audrey Foster, “The soundtrack of A Man Escaped is mostly free of dialogue, with the very sparing use of Mozart’s Great Mass in C minor at key points in the film; but unlike most cinema, Bresson uses the sounds of prison life to create his own “musical” track.”
In the end, “A Man Escaped” is a movie with an undeniable match of its story to its title. Fontaine’s goal was to escape from prison without being caught. and that is what he accomplished successfully. He was patient and detail oriented, studying his environment so that he knows how to properly plan his escape. I feel as though the ending of the movie had that visual energy as it should have been in the first frame. Not always do we see movies like “A man Escaped” where the characters don’t end up dying, and the ending is sad. The fact that Fontaine and his mate escaped showed how truly lucky they were.
References
-http://sensesofcinema.com/2012/cteq/a-man-escaped/
-https://www.criterion.com/current/posts/2628-a-man-escaped-quintessential-bresson
-http://www.davidbordwell.net/filmart/manescaped_soundanalysis_filmart_293.pdf
-http://sensesofcinema.com/2012/cteq/a-man-escaped/
-https://www.criterion.com/current/posts/2628-a-man-escaped-quintessential-bresson
-http://www.davidbordwell.net/filmart/manescaped_soundanalysis_filmart_293.pdf