Reflections on Bresson 1: Detectives

March 2009

Jules Maigret’s character in the Simenon novels is phlegmatic, patient, listening as people unburden themselves, asking the searching question. The murderer is always revealed: either he or she confesses, or Maigret confronts them in a way that brooks no denial.
 

The model is surely Porfiry Petrovich in Dostoevsky’s ‘Crime and Punishment’, who suspects Raskolnikov is the murderer early on, but his method is to give him time, encouragement even, for him to speak, allied with hints that he is on to Raskolnikov’s case. Thus he pursues and finally traps his quarry. Dostoevsky works the idea again in the meeting between Stavrogin and Father Tikhon in ‘The Devils’ when Stavrogin confesses his crime of having abused a little girl and driven her to suicide.

The idea is clearly articulated in Graham Greene’s ‘The Quiet American’ (1955): "[the French Sûreté] believe in the conscience, the sense of guilt, a criminal should be confronted with his crime, for he may break down and betray himself." Conscience - guilt - therefore the confessional? When Fowler is hauled in for questioning by Vigot investigating the death of the quiet American Alden Pyle, they have a conversation as follows:

Fowler: ‘What made you into a policeman, Vigot?’
Vigot: ‘There were a number of factors. The need to earn a living, a curiosity about people, and – yes, even that, a love of Gaboriau.’*
Fowler: ‘Perhaps you ought to have been a priest.’
Vigot: ‘I didn’t read the right authors for that – in those days.’
[*A nineteenth-century author of detective fiction. See Wikipedia on Gaboriau]
 
Vigot is reading Pascal’s ‘Pensées’ when Fowler is brought in, which leads us naturally to the Bressonian universe. In Bresson’s Pickpocket, which draws on ‘Crime and Punishment’ for its central narrative, even if the grave crime of murder is replaced by the petty crime of picking pockets, the detective drinks at the bar with Michel, shows interest in his theories, and visits him in his room. But when he marks his finger in the dust on Michel’s textbooks, Bresson uses this simple visual idea to speak whole paragraphs: “I believe you are not what you seem; I am watching you; you will reveal yourself eventually.”
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
The Inspector studies the book 'Barrington Prince of Pickpockets' in the company of Jacques (centre) and Michel (right). In the right-hand image he draws a line through the dust on Michel's books.

In ‘Crime and Punishment’, on his way to see Porfiry, Raskolnikov says to himself, “The moth flies to the candle-flame of its own accord.” This would have been a compelling idea to Bresson, the Catholic filmmaker for whom confession is the cardinal dramatic idea in Diary of a Country Priest. Which brings us back to Simenon whose great creation, Maigret, is the master of extracting confessions, as if he was a priest receiving innermost secrets. In 'La Première Enquête de Maigret' (1953) we learn something about Maigret's early career, abandoning his studies as a doctor and wanting a job that did not exist as a 'repairer of destinies'. The second-best option was to become a police inspector but equally it might just have been the priesthood. 

© Tim Cawkwell 2009

For a much fuller expression of these ideas, go to 'The Archbishop, the criminal and the repair of destinies'.