Le trou
Tags: suspenseful, neo noir, violence, sentimental

Plot synopsis:
Four convicts in a French prison share a single cell. As all are incarcerated for serious crimes, including, perhaps, execution, they decide to escape and have collected materials for the purpose. Before they can begin carrying out their carefully prepared plan, another inmate is moved to their cell. What now? They have no choice but to tell him what they intend to do. He becomes an accomplice, and all five begin the laborious and very clever process of digging their way through the concrete floor to access underground tunnels beneath the prison and, eventually, the sewers to which those tunnels are connected.After much work, they find a way out onto the streets of the city, not far from the prison. But they must wait until the next night to effect their escape. During their final day, the newcomer is taken to the warden, who informs him that the charge against him has been dropped and that he will be released very soon, though not on that day. After a two-hour meeting, he is returned to the cell, where he is questioned, his faithfulness to the plot is challenged, he is accused of ratting on his mates, and he finally wins back their trust and gains an apology. What has he done? Can the plot succeed?

Review: Probably, to really get "Le Trou", this splendid, intense movie, you have to be conscious that the great Jacques Becker was dying during the making of the film.
The guys on the screen are too tough, by no means apt to mourn their dire destiny or, metaphorically, to ask for the viewer's sympathy.We have the true story of the hole dug by a bunch of in-mates to escape from a jail in Paris.
At his last appointment with the art of cinema, Becker seems to accept and forgive all human beings.A brilliant idea is to show how the guys turn common objects and waste iron into the tools needed for the escape (a key, a lamp, a pick, a sand-glass).
This film is riveting in its attention to the details of a prison escape and to the relations between the men involved.
After debating among themselves whether to let the pretty boy in on their plot, they decide to do so after they learn that he's in for attempted murder and stands to have a strong reason to want to break out.Becker shows the extraordinary ingenuity of the working-class prisoners in contriving tools, in developing a postal system between cells, and in setting up a way of telling time where there are no clocks or church bells.
So when 'Roland' says, 'Poor Gaspard,' after the latter has betrayed them (it was clear that he'd been tempted earlier to do so when he saw the taxi from the manhole cover), it is evident that the only real 'brute' is the bourgeois, who, in the end, will always turn on his pals (and his fellow man in general)if it serves his interest and who is bereft of the fellow-feeling which undergirds working-class life.
The actor who plays 'Roland' is a non-professional, but it's hard to imagine that he could be as young as he is if he had actually attempted 3 previous escapes and had to serve another long stretch for the failed attempt portrayed in the film.
Jacques Becker's "Le Trou" is one of the greatest of all prison-break films.
Before his life was cut short prematurely, Director Jacques Becker created his very personal film, "Le Trou" ("The Hole").
Immediate background:Jacques Becker was dying when he filmed "le trou,and he made it his legacy;it's the tragedy of man caught on the web of life -an admirable metaphor shows two wardens feeding a spider in the undergrounds with a fly-,and anyway unable to escape from the final death.The first thing to bear is mind is that,calling "le trou" a "prison movie" would be an insult.Although adapted from a Jose Giovanni's book -Giovanni had been himself in jail for some time and his depictions are as close to reality as can be-,Becker masterfully transcends his subject and gives something definitely new.Some said it was the final link between "la nouvelle vague" and what the highbrows pejoratively -and thoroughly unfairly- call "cinema de qualité" but Becker had predated that overrated new wave by almost ten years :"rendez-vous de juillet" had already almost everything the young Turks would bring later.First shock is the use of the wide screen,the cinemascope,which Becker had never experimented before;and he achieved the impossible: using this device for a story which takes place ,either in the four walls of a jail,or in the undergrounds and the sewers .The only picture of the outside is seen when the two inmates open a manhole.And the second one is the sound:there's no music at all,except for the final cast and credits -saving the cast and credits for the end was very rare in the contemporary French cinema -But the soundtrack resembles some kind of musique concrete with its relentless thumps, the whispers and the screams inside the cell,the creaking of the doors ,the waters in the sewer;and the final cacophony -which is not unlike the one which Manliewicz used in "suddenly last Summer" the year before- packs a real wallop.Another Becker's tour de force is his description of the prison life:he avoids all the clichés that mar so many "prison movies" (the overpraised "Whatsisname redemption" is no exception):here, the wardens are,most of the time ,kind and friendly,the relationships with the inmates remain polite ,maybe sometimes too much:particularly those between the young man (Marc Michel) and the head warden are almost paternalistic.Another Becker's permanent feature comes back to the fore in "le trou" :friendship,solidarity ,which was already present in "rendez-vous de juillet" and "touchez pas au grisbi".Here it's pure manly friendship and it seems that a certain misogyny is infiltrating Becker's world:during the 2 hours + running time of the movie,we only see one young girl (Catherine Spaak) behind a grille,for a very short while.The only positive woman whom we' ll never see is (naturally) one of the five inmates ' s(Michel Constantin) mother("I almost killed her when I was sent to jail so I do not want to take a chance and try to escape")SPOILER:But even this world where five inmates share everything,where their friendship is "more than I 've ever had "(Marc Michel's character) is collapsing;the first cracks were already here in "rendez-vous de juillet" when some of the young students were giving up on their plans ,to the main hero's (Daniel Gelin)disappointment.But "touchez pas au grisbi" took friendship over everything including money."Le trou" reveals the true nature of man,even if the informer seems completely desperate at the end of the movie.The mammoth task they did ,the hole '(le trou) is nothing but a cul-de -sac and it epitomizes,in a Hustonian way -we're closer to Huston than to Godard ,fortunately,the vanity of everything man can do to escape from his fate,and in the case of Becker ,to escape from death.END OF SPOILERHad Becker ended his career with his three precedent movies (Ali-Baba,Arsène Lupin ,Montparnasse 19),his former masterpieces (Casque d'or,Goupi Main Rouges ,rendez-vous de juillet),could have been tarnished by association.But "Le trou" ,his final masterpiece stands in little danger of bringing this about..
Based on a real story turned into a novel by one of the "escapees", the film has excellent casting, wonderful (candel-lit!) cinematography and crisp dialog among its other advantages.The director was terminally ill during the shoot and was to die after making the final cut.
Watching this classic now some four decades since auteur's death, one can only wonder what an artist it would take to demand and achieve such breathtaking perfection in art while combating death at the same time.Do not let yourself be put off by "yet another prison-movie!" talk.
Ghislain Cloquet was a master of black-and-white camerawork; he shot Mouchette and Au hasard, Balthazar for Bresson, Nuit et brouillard for Resnais, Le Feu follet for Malle, all great films made greater by Cloquet's work.The endless dull routine enlivened by subterfuge--stealing materials needed for digging and making puppets to stand in for sleeping prisoners is brilliantly captured.
It is really ingenious portrait of human interaction and cooperation, great "prison-escape" drama that bring us unique way of telling story (in long shots) looking so realistic and powerful.One of the best movies I've ever seen!10/10.
This is an excellent example of what a prison escape film (and it can be applied to almost any genre) should be like.The plot is simple- a sympathetic young man is moved around to a new cell within a prison due to repair works.
There he meets four men who after getting to know and trust him, introduce him to their plan- escape.What I like most about this film is that there is no "bs".
Although static, because all the action is taking place in a prison cell, the film has great tension and is watching with the soul to the mouth.
Based on a real escape attempt at La Sante Prison in 1947, story has four men in a cell plotting to escape via digging a hole in their cell.
And all the while there is the feeling of trust, a bond between the incarcerated males, where the two lead off men are entrusted to go out and beyond the bowels of the prison, working tirelessly in charting the course through a maze of murky masonry, and to then return back to "HQ" for some rest and updates of the progress The use of non professional actors works brilliantly, adding further realism to the story, with one of them, Jean Keraudy, a bona fide prisoner from the actual event back in 1947.
It even goes as far as to cast one of Giovanni's fellow escapees in one of the parts - as "Roland" - in the movie.LE TROU starts with four guys holed up in a jail cell built for just two, when yet another prisoner is shoved in with them.
Maybe to some it may not sound like much but after watching so many movies, still getting this amazed by something is a high point for me.Jacques Becker actually employed ex-convicts who tried the escape as technical experts in the movie and it shows.
It was bold indeed of Jacques Becker to make another prison escape film so soon after Robert Bresson had created the genre's masterpiece, 'Un condamné à mort s'est échappé' (1956); but the gamble paid off handsomely.Like Robert Rossen's 'Lilith' (1964), 'La Trou' seen in isolation looks more like the debut of an exciting new talent than the valediction of a veteran in his fifties about to be taken before his time.
The film remains unusual for its lack of a music score (composer Philippe Arthuys, significantly, is actually credited at the end with 'Illustration sonore'), and I can even forgive this film for setting a deplorable precedent by being possibly the first to have no credits at the start; they all come at the end, to the accompaniment of a simple piano arrangement of Rubinstein's 'Melody in F' which may have been intended as discrete mockery on Becker's part of the grandiose use of Mozart's 'Mass in C Minor' at the conclusion of Bresson's film.Jean Keraudy, a veteran of the original escape, segues smoothly into the uniformly excellent cast; while among the staff, Jean-Paul Coquelin has a beguiling air of dry good humour in his scenes as the cell block lieutenant..
I wonder if they underwent some sort of physical training for this film.According to some posters on the forum, the basic message of the film is to never trust the bourgeois.Anyway, LE TROU is probably the best prison break movie that I have watched in my life time.
That alone is far from being considered a "spark of genius" but it undoubtedly helps pave the way for a film such as Le Trou, a classic of the genre.It's the story of a group of inmates which are planning the escape of the prison.
Rightly so because with every step forward they get closer and closer to the world outside the barred windows while, at the same time, keeps us interested in the film as it seems there's always something going on.Towards the end of the movie there's a couple of scenes that after so much build up make the plot "explode" but I won't be spoiling them here.
The limited possibilities of making drama out of attempted prison breaks have been worked so often in the congenial medium of films that it is amazing to find the subject handled again with genuine tension and even some originality in Jacques Becker's 'Le Trou' - widely regarded as the last great flowering of French classicism.
It's a prison-break film, which follows the dictates of the genre almost every step of the way but makes the conventions shine with new life and meaning.Set entirely in the Santé prison in 1947, Becker tells the story from the point of view of a baby-faced convict who is newly transferred to the plotters' cell just before they set their escape plan in motion.
Together, they go in hacking and sawing and laboriously digging their way to a derisory glimpse of freedom, all making for a thrilling watch right up to its jaw-dropping climax.Based on a true story, Becker maintains a low-key approach, courting reality, avoiding music in favor of natural sound, constantly stressing the sheer physicality of the escape.
It's amazing how many great escape from prison movies there actually are.
Le Trou (1960) is the best prison escape film I've ever seen.
Le Trou will be sure and impress the true cinephile with its unique vision about human nature, friendship, and betrayal.The film begins with a non-professional actor, Jean Keraudy, introducing his apparently true story of an escape experience at Le Sante Prison in Paris in 1947.
The other prisoners, Manu (played brilliantly by lithe but rugged Philippe Leroy in his first film role), Raymond Manieur as the "Monseigneur", and Michel Constantin as Jo Casseine, along with Roland, have to make a decision whether or not to trust this new 5th inmate to their cell with their secret plans.
They decide to trust him since he's in for attempted murder and would have a good reason to escape, but the audience is more wary of Gaspard during the course of the film than his cell occupants are.
THE limited possibilities of making drama out of attempted prison breaks have been worked so often and so astutely in the congenial medium of films that it is amazing to find the subject handled again with genuine tension and even some originality.
Yet that is what the late Jacques Becker had done in his last French film, "The Night Watch".Exercising the greatest economy of situation and character, which is to say that he has fetched his whole drama from five men in a Santé Prison cell, he has worked up a "big house" cliff-hanger that throbs with excitement and suspense and, at the same time, offers some stabbing insights into the anxieties and energies of imprisoned men.His story, derived from a novel by José Giovanni entitled "Le Trou" ("The Hole"), which in turn was based upon an actual attempted escape from the famous Paris jail, is simply that of the daring, tedious labors through which his five prisoners go in hacking and sawing and digging a complicated escape route out of their common cell.It is a standard dramatic sequence of familiar prison-escape incidents, such as the first uncertain maneuver of chopping a way through the concrete cell floor, then finding a way out of the chamber into which they unwittingly drop, and then on through the dark and twisting passages of underground corridors and sewers.
All the perilous digging and exploring are done at night, with the men idling by day in their cell.But Mr. Becker and those who worked with him have done such a studied, skillful job of documenting the details of this sequence with such brilliant photographic exactitude that the viewer is quickly pulled into the adventure and made to feel a very participant in it.For instance, the task of hacking through the concrete floor is not a passing effort that is told with a quick few shots and a few dissolves.
In 1947, in La Santé Prison in Paris, the inmate Claude Gaspard (Mark Michel) is transferred to the cell of Geo Cassine (Michel Constantin), Roland Darbant (Jean Keraudy), Manu Borelli (Philippe Leroy) and Vossellin a.k.a. Monseigneur (Raymond Meunier).
Gaspard befriends the four cell-mates that sooner disclose to him that they have long sentences and they have plotted an escape plan from the prison.
Being a big fan of their Casque D'Or and Touchez Pas Au Grisbi presentations,I was thrilled to find Studiocanal's DVD of auteur film maker Jacques Becker at a great price,which led to me jumping into the hole.The plot:Sent to prison after accidentally (not fatally!) shooting his wife during a row, Claude Gaspard is welcomed into a prison filled to the brim.
Just the bare and raw tale of a meticulously planned jail break.On the other hand, as others have pointed out, there is a symbolic story of our society, of the working man class contrasted with the monied upper class.The initial group of four men are plotting an escape when an unexpected fifth prisoner is placed in their cell.
The plot is simple- four men plan to escape from a prison.
An excellent film, with no melodrama, of five men in a French prison determined to break out...and much more than that.
To say this is the story of an attempted prison break-out does absolutely no justice to Le Trou, one of the great, subtle films of prison and men working together.
The film was based on an attempted prison escape in France in 1947.
A group of French cell mates dig a hole to a tunnel below the prison.
But we only get them at the end, because for most of its time, "The Hole" is a tunnel being dug up, a riveting prison escape movie, tackled with such a meticulous attention to detail and documentary-like realism that anyone can easily overlook the little hints that makes the ending both tragic and predictable.
I have seen many prison escape films that are fantastic, but perhaps never one in a foreign language, I found this French one in the book 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die, so I hoped it would be another great one.
While the digging is going on, new prisoner Claude Gaspard (Marc Michel) is put into their cell, they have no choice but to tell him their plan, at first he is enthusiastic to take part in the help the tunnel process and getaway.
I liked it and i recommend if you like movies which take place in jail and prison escape film..
Jacques Becker's minimalist and effective "The Hole" tells the story of five prisoners, housed in a French prison during the late 1940s, who plot to dig a tunnel and so escape confinement.
Becker would use mostly non-actors for the film's central roles, and seems heavily influenced by both Bresson's "A Man Escaped" and the "prisoner of war" movies of Jean Renoir, a director for whom Becker was an assistant.