The thief of Paris
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| German title | The thief of Paris |
| Original title | Le Voleur |
| Country of production |
France , Italy |
| original language | French |
| Publishing year | 1967 |
| length | 120 minutes |
| Age rating | FSK 16 |
| Rod | |
| Director | Louis Malle |
| script | Louis Malle, Jean-Claude Carrière , Daniel Boulanger |
| production | Norbert Auerbach |
| music | Henri Lanoë |
| camera | Henri Decaë |
| cut | Henri Lanoë |
| occupation | |
| |
The Thief of Paris (original title: Le Voleur ) is a Franco-Italian adventure film from 1967 by Louis Malle , who - together with Jean-Claude Carrière - wrote the script. It is based on the 1897 novel Le Voleur by Georges Darien . The leading roles are Jean-Paul Belmondo , Geneviève Bujold , Marie Dubois and Julien Guiomar . The film was first released on February 22, 1967 in France. It had its premiere in the Federal Republic of Germany on October 6, 1967.
content
The film is set in the French capital towards the end of the 19th century. An elegantly dressed gentleman strides through the nocturnal residential streets, suddenly swings over a wall and finally approaches a deserted house lying in the moonlight. Dogs bark in the neighborhood, but the gentleman does not let himself be deterred. He breaks open the front door calmly, locks it behind him; a lantern flares up. Your bill glides over cupboards, pictures and showcases . After a brief examination, the Lord is going to work: he smashes showcases glass and select from among the treasures from cuts pictures out of their frames and breaks Secretaries and chests of drawers on.
The gentleman who devastated the house in the course of the night and gathered its treasures is Georges Randal, a thief by profession, a master of his trade. While Georges is working, he remembers the past, his career so to speak. His guardian once deprived him of his father's inheritance. The first theft was therefore an act of revenge, but at the same time earned him the friendship of the philosopher of Parisian thieves, the Abbé Felix Lamargelle. The latter becomes his teacher and provides a strong moral foundation for his instinctively illegal actions. The Abbé categorizes people into “citizens” and “thieves” and leaves no doubt that he regards the thief as a better species, as a sting, as a courageous, free loner, also as a compensatory justice.
Georges learns his technical, theoretical and philosophical lessons quickly and then takes his conscious counter-position to society as a loner. Not as an anarchist and subversive, like some of his colleagues, but out of inner necessity, because he is unable to come to terms with the citizens. He still carries on his trade when he is already rich and could cry with the citizens.
When morning comes, Georges makes his way home with his prey, an elegantly dressed man who boards a train with his travel bag and drives home, sleepless, awake and lonely.
Reviews
The Protestant film observer is full of praise: “An amusing colored adventure film in costumes from the turn of the century, which shows the eventful life of the master thief Georges Randal in flashbacks. For the attentive viewer, Malle has taken up his old motif of the compulsive loner, the lonely opponent of the established social order, in friendly packaging. Good to see from 16 onwards. ”The lexicon of international film judges less positively :“ The film, which is skeptical of traditional and revolutionary understanding of life […], depicts, stylistically shaped, society with bitter sarcasm, but the loner as a listless routine. ”The state Filmbewertungsstelle Wiesbaden awarded the work the title “Particularly valuable”.
Web links
- The Thief of Paris in the Internet Movie Database (English)
- Fifteen pictures from the film on Cinema.de.
- Movie poster on filmposter-archiv.de
Individual evidence
- ^ Certificate of Release for The Thief of Paris . Voluntary self-regulation of the film industry (PDF; test number: 37624 / V).
- ^ A b Evangelischer Filmbeobachter , Evangelischer Presseverband München, Review No. 515/1967, p. 654.
- ↑ Lexicon of International Films, rororo-Taschenbuch No. 6322 (1988), p. 662.