A Man Escaped & Dead Reckoning

A Man Escaped is a brilliant escape film. Knowing that it's a true story unfortunately gives some hint as to what will happen, but Bresson's film style fits perfectly with the tension created by the almost constant repetition, closeups of hands, and the completely uninflected acting. Weirdly Francois Leterrier, the lead, started to be a director and directed Goodbye, Emmannuelle. Pretty much everyone did nothing before acting in it, which is just how Bresson liked it. I kept thinking back to Le Trou, another film about escaping from prison, and they're very different films, though. Maybe it's the fact that A Man Escaped was set in a German prison in occupied France and has Mozart as a soundtrack, while Le Trou is set in a normal prison and focuses more on the hammering that was needed to build the hole. The thing is, there need never be another French prison escape film. These two have been the ultimate in the genre. No American film has come close to it. People who love The Shawshank Redemption should see these films to know what a great prison film should be. Too bad the subtitles and filming style would turn most of them off. Few films piss me off for being so highly regarded as The Shawshank Redemption does. I can't figure out what makes me annoyed about it so much. Maybe it's the fact that the IMDB rates it as the #2 film of all time, when it was the fourth best film nominated for the Best Picture Oscar that year, behind Four Weddings and a Funeral, Pulp Fiction, and Quiz Show. Only better than Forrest Gump, mainly because Forrest Gump sucks. I could go on listing other films much better than The Shawshank Redemption like Heavenly Creatures, The Madness of King George, Hoop Dreams, Red, and Eat Drink Man Woman. All of which are great films. The Shawshank Redemption is one of those films that frat boys think are great films. There are vastly better films that people need to be exposed to or else they say that Titanic is a brilliant film. And that is the sure sign that someone needs to have a full frontal lobotomy.

Dead Reckoning is almost too hard-boiled. The almost constant voice-over and dialogue was over the top, too wordy, and too distracting. Also distracting was Lizabeth Scott, who was attractive but not as good as the role demands. Apparently, she's a lesbian, and that kept her from being a bigger star. I do wonder about that being her actual singing voice. It seems dubbed. Of course, the role should have been for Lauren Bacall, who would have been absolutely perfect in it. Anyway, I just wish that the film did a little more showing and a little less telling. I mean, it shows it, mainly, but then it has to explain just what happened. The audience is apparently twelve years old. At least it has Humphrey Bogart in the lead, making it watchable.