Forever ago, I was offered a teaching position in Gambell, Alaska. I hadn’t heard of — let alone knew anything about — Gambell, Alaska.
Some school personnel tried to entice me with these attractive facts: I would have to poop into a bucket since indoor plumbing was non-existent; the village, located in the Arctic Circle on St. Lawrence Island, was closer to Russia than America (you really can see Russia from your backyard there); because of the unpredictable weather, residents with serious medical needs often died after waiting for aircraft to arrive or be cleared for takeoff…assuming the aircraft didn’t also crash.
I’m sure you can imagine, the thought of living in Gambell was sexy incarnate. I told the school reps I needed to discuss it with my then-fiance. ”We need to know now!” one insisted.
Surprisingly, I promptly declined their offer (to the delight of my now-wife). They wanted a live body, not a teacher.
I knew someday I would be able to actually visit Gambell, Alaska. Thankfully, it was from the comforts of my imagination and drawing pad.
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A Man Escaped (French: Un condamné à mort s’est échappé)
France, 1956, Gaumont Film Company
Directed by Robert Bresson
What Robert Bresson accomplished with A Man Escaped is everything the generic thriller aims for but rarely achieves: extreme highs and lows, expectation, tension and suspense. A Man Escaped, however, is no thriller.
Bresson’s path is straight but not narrow. Every shot, glance, action, thought, and sound exists to reflect the inner condition. Austerity, coolness, no apparent emotion, all suggestion. Bresson does not allow his performers to exhibit feeling. Camera movement, composition, editing, and sound design replace the conventional human expression found in acting. It is documentary divorced from reality and remarried to dramatic fiction, naturalism that isn’t at the service of phony “realism” but abstraction.
The title itself betrays precisely what happens in the film; a Lieutenant of the French Resistance is arrested, sentenced to death, and escapes. This is the story of André Devigny, told to a T, no detail left untouched. This is only the plot of the film, so what is it about this picture, one that lays all of its cards out before us, that is so emotionally stirring? The condition of salvation, of freedom, both existential and spiritual.
– Jonas Erickson
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