"Poor Gaspard" - Rewatching "The Hole" The other day, I discussed the escape movie with the netizen Ms. Shanlihong, and mentioned Jacques Baker's "The Hole". I saw this movie fifteen years ago, and my impression is blurred. I wanted to watch an old movie tonight, I was rummaging through the discs, and I happened to see "The Hole" (a D5), well, that's it. After watching it for ten minutes, I found that the subtitles were too poor, and the sentences were so incomprehensible that it was almost impossible to read. I searched online again and found it in Tengxun. Jacques Baker is a disciple of Jean Renoir. He has watched several of his films. The most impressive ones are "The Golden Helmet" and "Don't Touch Money", probably because the protagonists in it are Simon Simone and Jean Gard. Ben - These two were France's biggest stars before the New Wave. Nowadays, when people mention prison break movies, most of them think of "The Shawshank Redemption". In fact, before "Shaw", there were many classic prison break movies with different styles, such as "Escape from Arkaz" (1979), "Barbie" Dragon (1973), The Great Escape (1963), The Hole (1960) and Death Row (1956). Through this clue to retrospect the prison break movies, we can find out how the description of people and society has gradually changed from classic movies to commercial movies. "The Hole" is the last work of Jacques Baker. It is rigorous, calm and hard. Whether it is the subject matter or texture, it will remind people of the previous four years. Bresson's masterpiece "Dead Man Escape". But there's a big difference between the two films in how they handle action and sound. There is no sound outside the prison in "The Hole", only the amplified sound inside the prison, mostly the noise of digging holes for escape. The two films are presented in different ways. Much of the film is devoted to Gaspard, a tall, handsome, seemingly avenging rookie inmate, describing how he joined, participated, and ultimately betrayed his roommate. After checking the information, it turned out that Jacques Baker had the experience of being captured in World War II, and the actor who played Roland himself had three prison escape experiences, which provided the film with actual combat experience. In addition, the pursuit and desire for freedom that many prison movies have repeatedly emphasized are not mentioned at all in "The Hole". It can be seen that the clear direction of this movie is pure human nature. The director's camera is always staring at how the cement is chiseled and how the steel window is sawed off for a long time. The whole process is long and cold. When everything was completed perfectly and orderly, Gaspard informed the whistleblower because he knew he was about to be acquitted, making the whole escape plan fall short. And the orderly, arduous and long preparation process is reflected in the short and abrupt end, which immediately brings out how fragile and vulnerable human nature is. I thought, this is also the quality of a good movie - everything you want to say is said, no metaphors, and no need for explanation. The film ends with a quote from the old fritters, Roland, who said to the whistleblower about to break up: "Poor Gaspard!" - which is really memorable. 2020-03-10
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