Focus Features

One of cinema’s great visionaries, and certainly among the most uncompromising of directors, released his first major work from an original screenplay, Pickpocket, in the U.S. on May 21, 1959. France’s Robert Bresson began making films in 1934, and by the mid-‘50s his rigorously austere style — his use of non-actor “models”  moving in a rigidly directed manner; precisely framed compositions; evocative use of off-screen sound; little music; and a solemn avoidance of theatricality in general — produced a series of unique works that with seemingly minimal means generated both serious philosophical inquiry as well as an actual sense of transcendence. In his tale of a Parisian petty criminal, Bresson examined issues of criminality, the role of the outsider within society, and personal redemption. Martin LaSalle, a non-actor, plays Michel, who we meet when he’s arrested after lifting money from a spectator at a horse race. He is subsequently released, and through scenes comprised of long takes, minimal editing, and Michel’s diaristic voicovers, Bresson shows us Michel’s ambiguous relationships with his mother, the police inspector, and the young woman, Jeanne, who loves him. He can only relate to her when, at the film’s end, he is placed behind bars. “What a strange road I had to take to find you,” he says to her from prison. The film is perhaps Bresson’s best known work and certainly his most influential, with Paul Schrader quoting plot and character elements from it in several screenplays, including American Gigolo and Taxi Driver.