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A Man Escaped @ Robert Classic French Film Festival

With the simplest of concepts and sparest of techniques, Robert Bresson made one of the most suspenseful jailbreak films of all time in "A Man Escaped." Based on the account of an imprisoned French Resistance leader, this unbelievably taut and methodical marvel follows the fictional Fontaine's single-minded pursuit of freedom, detailing the planning and execution of his escape with gripping precision. But Bresson's film is not merely about process -- it's also a work of intense spirituality and humanity.

David Denby writes in the New Yorker: "Robert Bresson's 'A Man Escaped,' from 1956, begins with a shot of a young man's hands as he is taken to a prison in Lyon during the German Occupation of France, and it returns to those hands as they scrape, cut, twist, bend, climb, kill, and, finally, release a rope that leads to freedom. It is not only the greatest of all prison-break movies but also an astoundingly detailed account of the activities of homo faber -- man the toolmaker, or, in this case, man the escape artist, who begins with only a heavy spoon and, piece by piece, creates the means of his physical and spiritual liberation. The prisoner's lonely ardor is enhanced by Mozart's Mass in C Minor; the ending of the movie, as the music wells up, is pure elation."

With an introduction and post-film discussion by Pier Marton, video artist and self-designated unlearning specialist at the School of No Media.