Back to Classics, Back to Cinema: Pickpocket and Drive

“Back to classics, back to cinema” is a personal journey through the movies. For every older movie I am going to talk about, I will  go to the cinema and watch a new one. Because if the classic movies and their directors teach you one thing, it is:

Go to the movies.

Pickpocket-Robert Bresson-1959

The film follows a young pickpocket who seems to have chosen that “profession” as if it was some job like any other and because he simply kind of likes it. He learns it like a trade, exploring different techniques to be effective. By constant voice-over narration he tells us about his fears and makes the audience an accomplice. Martin LaSalle plays this thin and struggling young man with understatement, always staying cool on the surface. Except the voice over narration he does not give any insight view into the character. This adds to the feeling of dealing with an emotional maladjusted person. But the distance, dispassion and simplicity are also reflected in the style of the director.

Bresson (who is not for nothing a big idol of Michael Haneke ) is a calm observer. He is as far away as one might be from judgmental story-telling or artificial dramatization. It is almost impossible to note something special in terms of cinematography, editing, sound or light, beside the fact that it is perfectly well used. If the job of the director is mainly to decide on what the audience is going to see and what they are not going to see, then Robert Bresson is the ultimate director. It is pinpoint precision. “Pickpocket” moves forward in a monotone tempo. One should not expect something like suspense or explanation. This is about the relationship between spectator and screen. One has to read every one of the beautifully shot black & white pictures, has to find out what they are telling beyond the visible action. After all it is not a movie one has difficulties to follow. It is just if you get it on the surface or if you get more of it. It is astonishing how easily Bresson survives the test of time. Of course his movies are not for everyone, but it is safe to say that it was not much of a different experience to watch “Pickpocket” in the 1960s and today. He challenges the viewing habits without ever hurting them. In elegant sequences he shows how wallets are removed from bags and given from one thief to the next. We understand why the pickpocket is a pickpocket. The way Martin LaSalle jumps off a driving tramp shows how he floats through society, not really connected but waiting for something. Crying and smiling faces, fingers frisking around coats and a slowly increasing feeling of guilt: The guilt of liking the pickpocket.

Bresson will also remain the director of not-showing. Sometimes you only get a hint and if you watch his films tiredly in the middle of the night it might happen that you do not remember a single thing the next morning. He leaves out what one seeks to know most urgently. And because of this he keeps you interested to the highest degree. All the classical crime-film motives such as prison, guilt, honor, love and trust are there. It is simply the way they are presented that divides the cinema of Robert Bresson from anything you might have seen. Stealing is an art form in this picture. The pickpocket comes to it as others come to painting or singing. It is his way of communicating, his style of living. Therefore the picture is, despite all its stylistic devices, very close to life. Can you be mad at a person who just does what he loves and needs in his life? Is this a crime?

Drive-Nicolas Winding Refn-2011

Jean-Pierre Melville was a great director. He had his very own style: American gangsters played by French actors who did not talk a single word half of the film. It was a strange marriage of European auteur cinema and American gangster flicks. Furthermore it was a lecture in style, composition and coolness. His muse was legendary actor Alain Delon. One could only guess his emotions and therefore it was the most exciting task for the audience in Melville’s cinema to just watch and observe. One was drawn into a unique universe. Welcome to Nicolas Winding Refn’s “Drive”.

Winding Refn is a great director. He is from Denmark and his national breakthrough came with “Pusher”. His trademarks contain explicit violence, a dark sense of humor and either rather pointless dialogue or no dialogue at all. Coming out of a “movie-crazy” family he grew up as a cineaste and he still is. Because of this his films always have a reflexive undertone to them and they do not feel personal or Danish at all. On the contrary they have a comic book character and are universal. His cinema is all about style. “Drive” caps it all. With its 80s flair and extremely creative use of music, its use of slow-motions or its iconic use of costume it easily differs from almost anything you might have scene in the crime film genre for a long time. The first half of the picture-excluding the opening scene-almost feels like a kind of over the top corny love story. But Winding Refn is a master of subtle tension. And he is able to control the speed of the film in a fascinating way. Almost every camera movement is a little sensation. It is a lecture in style, composition and coolness and of course, it is a strange marriage of European auteur cinema and American gangster flicks. Its aestheticised use of violence might not be for everyone, equally the very little explanations given by the script. One has to watch and observe. The truth of this picture lies in the little moments between the actions: Glimpses, small expressions, even changes in light. To be honest there is not much to this film concerning storytelling. But this is not what this film is all about.

The muse of Winding Refn is new art house-superstar Ryan Gosling. (or is it his costume?) He fits perfectly for the hero, the driver, a quiet bad guy with a good heart, a loner who would fail in real life but succeed in movies. He exists to give the male audience a chance to project themselves onto the character. Almost like in a videogame: You play his game. Gosling manages to capture the tragic of this character, his disconnection from reality as well as he keeps the door open for anything you want to add yourself. “Drive” demonstrates easily that it does not need a background story, a worried father or even a past at all to create deep and believable characters. Just like the Joker in “The Dark Knight” told you a different story about his scar all the time, the Driver does not tell you anything at all. He would not in real life and you can see anyway. In the end logic and reason does not matter anymore. Winding Refn has drawn us to his unique universe. Going home by car, after your visit to the cinema and listening to the sound of the road in the dark, makes your universe part of “Drive”. At least until you get stopped by the police and start to think about it objectively.