German sentry


When Lieutenant Fontaine (Le Fontaine?) eliminates the German sentry, has he ruthlessly killed him or just fractured his skull with his heavy-duty hook? He seems to be on the tenterhooks of deliberation whether or not he should kill someone or wait until a feasible moment as he did with his escape companion Jost, who seems somewhat dim, forgetting their shoes and "pacquet" before descending the wall and uttering a somewhat silly exclamation at the end: "...If mother could see me now....!"

reply

https://www.google.com/search?q=Prison+de+Montluc,+Lyon,+Rh%C3%B4ne,+Rh%C3%B4ne-Alpes,+France&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=nbxKU-WsMMHayAHWoYH4BQ&ved=0CDIQ7Ak&biw=1024&bih=516

A google of the prison DeVigny was incarcerated is revealing. It was the set Bresson used in his almost documentary-style film about the escapee who was due to be executed by the minions of the Lyon Gestapo chief, Klaus Barbie, proprietor of the Hotel Terminus, also made into a film describing the atrocities visited upon the Resistance in occupied France (Hôtel Terminus) It was saved as a memorial and, if I had known, I would have paid a visit during my Study Abroad in Annecy, in 2001 or thereabouts when our contingent went to Lyon for a day. A penal institution I was lodged in briefly is now a museum in Boston. The Charles Street Jail (built 1851) or "Suffolk County Jail" is a historic former jail (now a luxury hotel) located at 215 Charles Street, Boston, Massachusetts. It is listed in the state and national Registers of Historic Places. Malcolm X was a resident there before my time.

reply

I purchased a paperback copy of André DeVigny's memoir from Amazon. I am puzzled by the substitution by Robert Bresson of the names of the inmates which are made up out of whole cloth. Was Bresson omitting the true names in order to avoid liability from the perhaps still-alive inmates and relations of the inmates when he scripted the film in 1956 of DeVigny's escape in 1943 or thereabouts from Montluc prison. (I am in the middle of this read and it's an enthralling example of prison literature.) Of course, Bresson had to pare down the voluminous catalog of characters, German warders, Gestapo warders, people innocently entrapped or denounced by French collaborators, etc., etc. A real plus was using the prison itself as a setting. As a filmmaker must be economical with time, he must have telescoped characters. For the ex-wehrmacht soldat he escapes with has his name changed to Jost for the film. If all the stories of persona in the book were included, it would have been a mammoth of a film.

reply

Not shown in the film, but I think the German sentry was despatched with his own bayonet.

reply

Joost is SAVED by his friend who chose to trust him. 'If my mother could see me now' is a statement of cleanness, of having been purified of lowness, treason, 'lice'. In extreme and tense situations for the first time it is easy to leave something behind - until you've escaped a Nazi prison, show a little humility.

reply

He ditches his hook as unreliable and kiills the guard with his bare hands.

reply