Why Le Trou is perfect for Hollywood
At the beginning of the film, an actor (in character) talks to the screen and tells the camera that everything they are about to see is real and happened to him in 1947. His mannerism is everyday and gives the viewer what they are about to see is the details of history and nothing more. At first we are happy with this approach because early Robert Bresson shows there is something sustainable in documenting the full details of things like a prison break. In Man Escaped, there is a fascination in how the camera crawls with every inch that a man has to take in getting out a prison. The things he has to do are elaborate and would put the details of the escape in Shawshank Redemption to shame. The film is a method process of strict realism and fine on levels, but what happens in the film allows it to be interesting on other levels. The Shawshank Redemption shares the details of how Andy Dufraine escapes, but what he has to do only takes 5 minutes of explanation. A large percentage of A Man Escaped has to show how the escape is done.
Similar to Bresson’s film, Le Trou is about the full details of how a prison escape is attempted. The only difference is that there is more context of relationship between the characters. As much as the film is about the small details of how they craft and organize a plot and make it workable, it is also about a betrayal and how everything comes unglued in the plot. There are deeper levels of inter-personal human relations and how emotions play into what comes to. By the end, everyone is captured in dramatic ways and the viewer is left with the sense that something overly dramatic has happened. In this sense, the dramatic context is different than what Bresson is interested in. Bresson never makes the feelings of his protagonist matter enough to be the cause of his escape. It is a film about someone who just does escape, but Le Trou is interested in a humanist vision of an escape at a realist level of documentation.
The realist charade isn’t necessary. The film is right in slowing the story down, but the film quickly becomes repetitive when the actions of the prisoners are based on back and forth relays with supplies and other things. In the Hollywood 60s movie, The Great Escape, a lengthy tunnel is achieved by the imprisoned soldiers. There are repetitions there as well, but the film also quietly starts injecting montage sequences to quicken the pace. It isn’t heavy handed like today when a movie will jump every storytelling gun to get through the details of something so it can get to the relevant dramatic point. It is adequate enough, but the film does take all the necessary points of its to be realistic. It uses non-professional actors and the film was made in real locations when studios for grainy locations were still common. These elements are outdated today, but endear the film to critics who want to preserve the attributes of the film and see something more in the filmmaking.In an article for the Criterion DVD, Chris Fujiwara says there is a deeper element at play for the director, Jacques Becker, for telling the story the way he does:
It’s because of Gaspard’s apartness that we perceive and value the others’ closeness; his alienation makes us realize the importance of their fellowship, just as his sense of not fully participating in the group drives him to take the measure of his solitude. The bonds between the original members of the team are celebrated again and again in relays of looks and smiles that express mutual trust, respect, and appreciation.
One does have to admit a subtext of solitude described here would not be as feasible in a Hollywood film, but I also do not believe this subtext is that meaningful. First, the story takes into all elements of the characters and how they bind together. Fujiwara is explaining how their bonding helps show one person’s solitude, but the depths of his personal story is relayed but still documented by corrosive methods of realism over story for character. When Robert Bresson made A Man Escaped, he avoided personal context and focused at the situation of hand with the prisoner’s interests to escape. This structure implies a limitation of outreach by the director in how much they can accomplish. There could be numerous reasons why someone would limit the personal, but the story is about a prison escape only and Becker is doing a minor job of imitation in his filmmaking to extend the realist strand. The only problem is that the escape in this context is about the idea of one. It is about how prisoners plot to escape but their own foils with each other and the law is what brings them down.
The idea of a prison escape makes it perfect for Hollywood. Of course, this is under the idea that Hollywood would be restrained with the story the way they were with Shawshank and The Great Escape, but a Hollywood venture that abandons the realist strands is what would make the final revelation scene (shown above in the clip) even more dramatic. There would be build up, more nuance to the character relationships on a superficial and emotional level and a full release by the end. The reason that is importance is because the revelation scene of all the guards is a superficially defining moment. I know people who like Le Trou for simply that moment (and I consider myself part of this fray) but the scene is the only major moment in the entire film. If Becker was interested in stunted emotions and burrowing them under the carpet of the film’s structure and style, the scene wouldn’t have been a huge and defining moment. The lack of context for anything but structural order in organizing the story is what allows for the scene to stand out. Even if Becker did not intend for the scene to overshadow the film, the fact that it does makes it the reason why the body of the film does not flesh with the finish.
Film Splatter 