Papillon (1973)

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Movie
German title Papillon
Original title Papillon
Country of production United States
original language English
Publishing year 1973
length 144 minutes
Age rating FSK 16
Rod
Director Franklin J. Schaffner
script Dalton Trumbo ,
Lorenzo Semple Jr. ,
book: Henri Charrière
production Robert Dorfmann ,
Franklin J. Schaffner for Allied Artists
music Jerry Goldsmith
camera Fred J. Koenekamp
cut Robert Swink
occupation

Papillon is an American prisoner drama from 1973. The film is based on the novel Papillon by Henri Charrière, who claims to be autobiographical . Directed by Franklin J. Schaffner . A remake of the same name was made in 2017 .

action

The film begins in the early 1930s with the deportation of around a hundred prisoners from France to the French Guiana penal colony . The prisoners are told that they no longer exist for France and that they can no longer expect anything from France. After the end of their prison sentence, they are said to remain in exile in Guiana as colonists for the same length of time .

Among the prisoners who have to march through the city to the port, heavily guarded, is Henri Charrière, who is called Papillon because of his butterfly, the symbol of freedom, tattooed on his chest . Charrière was sentenced to life imprisonment for the murder of a pimp, which he denies .

Already during the crossing, Papillon had first thoughts of fleeing and discussed with other prisoners who already knew Devil's Island . He befriends the bespectacled, somewhat quirky-looking Louis Dega, a forger who carries large amounts of money in a capsule that he carries in his rectum. The sturdy Papillon serves as a bodyguard for the slender Dega for appropriate payment and saves his life when he is attacked at night by two fellow prisoners who want his money. Papillon slits open your face without hesitation and as a punishment is chained in an extremely uncomfortable body position in the noisy engine room.

When they arrive in Saint-Laurent , the prisoners are taken to a transit camp. Dega and Papillon are assigned to the heavy labor service because one of the camp managers has lost a lot of money through forged war bonds by Degas . The brutal, sadistic guards treat the prisoners with ruthless severity. Death and violence are ubiquitous in the penal colony.

Papillon and Dega learn from their fellow inmate, Clusiot, that a man named “Richter” comes to the camp several times a month to let the convicts catch butterflies, including the blue morphus . Papillon buys a boat from Richter for a completely inflated price and is able to flee into the jungle after a daring jump into the river. He agreed with "Richter" that he would hand over the boat to him in the jungle.

Instead, he is arrested by headhunters when he is being handed over and taken to solitary confinement on the island of Saint-Joseph, where he is placed in a dirty, cramped cell. Talking is strictly forbidden, the food tastes awful. After a while, Dega succeeds in smuggling Papillon coconuts into the cell, but the guards find out and arrange for him to be detained in the dark for six months . Since Papillon does not reveal Dega, his food ration is halved, which almost kills him. Half mad with hunger, he chases vermin in his cell to eat.

After serving his two-year solitary confinement, Papillon is transferred to the infirmary, where he slowly regains his strength and meets Clusiot again. He organized another escape boat for Papillon through the camp's radiologist . With the help of the radiologist, Papillon, Clusiot and Maturette organize the escape. However, Clusiot is caught by a guard and injured. At the last second, Dega also decides to flee and overpowers the guard. Together with the contact person, the three flee to the coastal swamps. However, the boat I bought is completely rotten. Dega also broke his ankle when he jumped from a high wall while trying to escape.

The men meet a bird hunter with a tattoo on their face who wants to take them to Pigeon Island , where the fugitives from lepers can buy a boat. The leader of the leper colony gives the three of them a sailing boat and some money, and they set sail for Honduras . After a rough crossing, they dock on an unknown beach, but are immediately caught by soldiers. Only Papillon and a prisoner escorted by the soldiers can escape into the jungle. Dega cannot escape because of his broken foot and remains on the beach. The soldiers set four Hasteros (local trackers and hunters) on the fugitives. During the escape, the prisoner is impaled by a trap. Papillon is hit by blowpipe arrows, falls into a river and wakes up in an Indian village.

There he has a love affair with a young woman named Zoraima and is allowed to tattoo a butterfly on the chief's chest as a sign of confidence. After living in the Indian village for a long time, Papillon wakes up one morning and finds that the Indians have left the village. However, some precious pearls have been left behind. He takes the bus inland and crosses the border to Colombia with the help of a nun . He believes he can find shelter in the monastery, but the abbess distrusts Papillon. He leaves her his pearls as pledge as long as he stays in the monastery. However, the abbess betrays him to the Colombian police and both feet are broken during the arrest. Colombia extradites Papillon to France again, and he was sentenced to five years in solitary confinement for trying to escape.

After his release from solitary confinement, he meets his escape partner Maturette, who was shot on the beach at the time, again in the prison courtyard. He is seriously ill and tells Papillon that he is now free, then he dies in front of Papillon. Papillon is eventually taken to the Île du Diable ( Devil's Island ), where he is supposed to serve the rest of his sentence. Here the prisoners can move about freely, as high cliffs, strong currents and shark-infested waters make escape practically impossible. Papillon meets his old friend Dega there again, who has developed some strange quirks and lives in a small house where he keeps pigs and raises vegetables.

After five years of solitary confinement, Papillon has aged a lot and is physically handicapped by the consequences of his broken feet, but his will to flee remains unbroken. He finally developed the plan to jump off a cliff into the sea with Dega and drift to the mainland on sacks full of coconuts. At the last moment, Dega decides to stay on the island and explains to Papillon that he would be killed while trying to escape. Papillon is prepared to accept this, however, he jumps from the high cliff into the surf and you can see him drifting away from the island on the coconut sacks.

A narrator from the off tells that Papillon managed to escape from Devil's Island and that he spent the rest of his life as a free man. It is also mentioned that "the penal colony system did not survive". The penal camp on Devil's Island was finally closed in 1953, while Papillon did not die until 1973. In the credits you can see the ruins of the abandoned penal camp, which is overgrown by the jungle.

background

The film was partly shot on original locations such as B. in Saint-Laurent-du-Maroni in French Guiana . Other locations were the Basque Hondarribia in Spain , where the opening scenes take place, and the Caribbean island of Jamaica , where the scenes in the swamp were recorded in Ferris Cross , as well as the small towns there, Falmouth and Negril , where the cave scenes were filmed below today's Xtabi Hotel were. Jamaica turned out to be an unfavorable location for three reasons: parts of the film crew numbed themselves with the marijuana readily available there, equipment worth $ 30,000 was stolen and the weather turned out to be extremely fickle. The spectacular cliff jump at the end of the film was shot in Maui, Hawaii. The budget was just over 14 million US dollars .

Dustin Hoffman had to wear contact lenses during filming to compensate for the high strength of his glasses. Steve McQueen received a two million dollar salary and a contractual guarantee to be mentioned in the opening credits before Dustin Hoffman.

The stuntman Dar Robinson jumped for Steve McQueen at the end of the 30 m high cliff on the Ke'anae Peninsula (Maui) into the surf and started his career. The former trampoline jumper was considered a leading specialist in jumps from great heights and, for example, jumped almost 500 meters from the CN Tower in 1979 before being braked. Steve McQueen, however, insisted that he jumped himself and called it the "most exciting experience" of his life.

Shortly before his death, Henri Charrière was able to visit the filming of the film and was very satisfied with the casting of the leading role by Steve McQueen. At the age of 40, McQueen was around 15 years older than Charrière when he was exiled. Charrière died of cancer five months before the film hit theaters.

The name Henri Charrière is never mentioned in the film. However, it is on a board that hangs on the door of Papillon's solitary cell.

Reviews

“Heroic, elaborately designed film adaptation of the autobiographical novel by Henri Charriere. Toughness and sentimentality combine to create a great entertainment spectacle that buries the humanistic message of the original under effective images and expensive decorations. "

- Lexicon of international film

“Based on the autobiographical bestseller by Henri Charrière, action professional Franklin J. Schaffner shot this huge popular hit of the early 1970s. The preparations took two years. Hundreds of craftsmen rebuilt the original prison camp in Spain and Jamaica. Above all, the first-class cast with Steve McQueen and Dustin Hoffman turns this highly dramatic and visually powerful thriller into a masterpiece. Conclusion: gripping and densely staged. A classic for a long time. "

- Cinema

Awards

  • In 1974 Jerry Goldsmith (Original Score) was nominated for an Oscar .
  • Steve McQueen was nominated for a Golden Globe for Best Male Leading Role in 1974 .

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Famous Lasts The Last Prisoner on Devil's Island - About the last prisoner on Devil's Island, history and information about the French prison. ( Memento from July 20, 2008 in the Internet Archive ).
  2. ↑ Marcelo Abeal: Steve McQueen: The race of his life , Buenos Aires 2015, p. 157
  3. ^ Gene Scott Freese: Hollywood Stunt Performers, 1910s-1970s: A Biographical Dictionary , Jefferson 2014, p. 240
  4. ↑ Marcelo Abeal: Steve McQueen: The race of his life , Buenos Aires, 2015, p. 157
  5. ↑ Papillon. In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed October 7, 2016 .Template: LdiF / Maintenance / Access used 
  6. ↑ Cinema.de: film review