TRIBUTES AND RETROSPECTIVES

Escapes

The Hole

Le Trou

Jacques Becker
1960 - France / Italy - 2h11

Screenings : monday 22 - 10:00 am - Pathé - 2

1947, the Prison de la Santé. Claude Gaspard, a young man accused of attempted murder, arrives in his new cell, which is already occupied by 4 other inmates. Firstly, they are wary of him, but Roland, Manu, Geo and Monseigneur decide to tell him about their escape plan.

“The 5 inmates move towards freedom at the same time as Becker moves towards poetry, that is to say towards the appearance of pure documentary.” (François Truffaut; France Observateur, 1960) Jacques Becker's last final and an absolute chef-d'oeuvre of French cinema, Le Trou came out a few weeks after Becker's death and was not a big success in theatres. The press was more enthusiastic, not to mention his colleagues: the emerging New Wave saw in it a film which showed the path to follow, Jean-Pierre Melville talked about “the greatest French film of all time” and René Clément cried on leaving the screening. This film, adapted from an autobiographical novel by José Giovanni, is a miraculous and unexpected concentrate of Becker's cinema. There is his obsession with craftsmanship, the question of the group, of betrayal, and also class relationships, which run through the work. Jean Becker, Jacques' son, found the actors with the looks to match the film. Unknowns, including Michel Constantin. Only Marc Michel, who plays Claude Gaspard, was a professional actor. The work on the time, the effort and the rehearsals gave the film an appearance of being on the margins of the world, which was totally unheard of in French cinema. “What is more fascinating for a spectator than a man accomplishing his task the precision and passion of Roland Keraudy? What is more captivating than the raw spectacle of an action film in detail and in full? What better way of transmitting what an individual thinks (or is) than showing what they are doing?” (Jean-Baptiste Thoret; Seules les mains, text accompanying the re-release of the film in Blu-ray by Studio Canal)

CAST AND CREW

Cast : Michel Constantin, Jean Keraudy, Philippe Leroy, Raymond Meunier, Marc Michel
Screenplay : Jacques Becker, José Giovanni, Jean Aurel
Cinematography : Ghislain Cloquet
Editing : Marguerite Renoir, Geneviève Vaury
Music : Philippe Arthuys

Production : Filmsonor, Play Art

French distributor : Les Acacias