A Man Escaped
The English title, A Man Escaped, does not convey the full meaning of the French one: Un Condamné à mort s’est échappé. It is important that we understand the escape is not just from prison but from death.
And actually more than death: Fontaine’s escape in the film is from damnation. I believe the film to be the closest of all Bresson’s films to the ideas of Pascal, especially as they are powerfully articulated in his ‘Essays on Grace’. These compare the three versions of redemption in Calvinism, in Molinism, and in Augustine.
Pascal opts for the Augustinian understanding of grace as the true one, working out how salvation is attainable only through human will aided by God’s will. In 2002 I published an essay in the Journal ‘Theology’ exploring these ideas in some detail. Click here for a pdf download of 12 pages.
Fontaine's miracle, turning a spoon handle into a chisel with which to remove panels in the prison door. He works with his hands, the agents in Bresson's films for working good or ill, the essential manifestations of human free will.