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''The Hole'' () is a 1960 French
crime film Crime film is a film belonging to the crime fiction genre. Films of this genre generally involve various aspects of crime and fiction. Stylistically, the genre may overlap and combine with many other genres, such as Drama (film and television), dr ...
directed by
Jacques Becker Jacques Becker (; 15 September 1906 – 21 February 1960) was a French film director and screenwriter. His films, made during the 1940s and 1950s, encompassed a wide variety of genres, and they were admired by some of the filmmakers who led th ...
. It is an adaptation of
José Giovanni José Giovanni (22 June 1923, Paris, France – 24 April 2004, Lausanne, Switzerland) was the pseudonym of Joseph Damiani, a French writer and film-maker of Corsican origin who became a naturalized Swiss citizen in 1986. A former collaborationi ...
's 1957 book '' The Break''. It was called ''The Night Watch'' when first released in the United States, but is released under its French title today. The film is based on a true event concerning five prison inmates in
La Santé Prison La Santé Prison (named after its location on the Rue de la Santé) ( or ) is a prison operated by the French Prison Service of the Ministry of Justice (France), Ministry of Justice located in the east of the Montparnasse district of the 14th arr ...
in France in 1947. Becker, who died just weeks after shooting had wrapped, cast mostly non-actors for the main roles, including one man (Jean Keraudy) who was actually involved in the 1947 escape attempt, and who introduces the film. It was entered into the 1960 Cannes Film Festival.


Plot

Claude Gaspard, a very polite prisoner, is moved to a cell containing four inmates due to repair works in his block. The four existing cellmates expect long prison sentences, ranging from 10 years to possibly execution by guillotine, and have a pre-existing plan to escape. Gaspard himself is accused of the attempted murder of his wife, and faces a potential 20-year sentence. Gaspard quickly gains their trust sufficiently for them to reveal their escape plan: digging a hole through the floor to reach the underground passages. The bulk of the film then focuses upon their gradual progress, which results in two men reaching an outer manhole in the public street outside the prison walls. However, the two do not escape, and instead return to the cell to organize the timing of the group escape. One of the cellmates, Geo, decides not to join in the escape. Just as they are ready to go, Gaspard gets called to a meeting with the warden, and is told that his wife has withdrawn the charges; and that he will be released soon. Returning to the cell, Gaspard has to dispel the suspicions of his cellmates that he had turned them in. However, in the last moments before the four are about to leave through their tunnel, a group of guards appears outside and they realize that they have been betrayed. A fight ensues in the cell and the guards intervene. Gaspard is moved to a different cell, while the original four are stripped to their underwear (before going into
solitary confinement Solitary confinement (also shortened to solitary) is a form of imprisonment in which an incarcerated person lives in a single Prison cell, cell with little or no contact with other people. It is a punitive tool used within the prison system to ...
). It is left ambiguous as to what deal Gaspard has made with the authorities or whether he will ultimately be freed.


Cast

* Michel Constantin as Geo Cassine * Marc Michel as Claude Gaspard * Jean Keraudy as Roland Darbant *
Philippe Leroy Philippe Marie Paul Leroy-Beaulieu (15 October 1930 – 1 June 2024) was a French actor. He appeared in over 150 films between 1960 and 2019, and worked extensively in Italian cinema, as well as in his native country. After an early career as ...
as Manu Borelli * Raymond Meunier as Vossellin / Monseigneur * as Lieutenant Grinval * André Bervil as the director * as Bouboule *
Gérard Hernandez Julio Gerardo "Gérard" Hernandez (born 20 January 1933) is a Spanish-French actor. Biography Hernandez was born in Valladolid, Spain and was naturalized French only in 1975. He is mostly famous for his mustache and for having voiced several ...
as a prisoner * Dominique Zardi as a prisoner *
Paul Préboist Paul Préboist (21 February 1927 – 4 March 1997) was a French actor. He appeared in more than hundred films, mostly in supporting roles, and is best known as a comic actor. Filmography Theater References External links *Paul Préboista ...
as a guard * Catherine Spaak as Nicole (uncredited)


Production

According to the 1964 press materials that are included in
The Criterion Collection The Criterion Collection, Inc. (or simply Criterion) is an American home video, home-video distribution company that focuses on licensing, restoring and distributing "important classic and contemporary films". A "sister company" of art film, arth ...
DVD, Jacques Becker first read of the 1947 La Santé Prison escape attempt in a newspaper. Years later, he found out that José Giovanni had fictionalized the same escape attempt in his 1957 novel ''The Break''. Becker contacted Giovanni's publisher, Gallimard, and Becker and Giovanni collaborated on the screenplay of ''Le Trou''. During production, Becker hired three of the attempted escapees as technical consultants. One of the consultants, Roland Barbat (using the stage name Jean Keraudy), appears in the film as the character Roland Darbant, who plans the escape tunnel and improvises all the tools they use. Barbat also appears at the beginning of the film as himself, working on a
Citroën 2CV The Citroën 2CV (, , lit. "two horses", meaning "two Tax horsepower#France, ''taxable'' horsepower") is an economy car produced by the French company Citroën from 1948 to 1990. Introduced at the 1948 Paris Paris Auto Show, Salon de l'Automobi ...
. (Barbat became a mechanic after prison.) He states directly to the camera that we are about to see his true story.


Style

The black and white cinematography is by Ghislain Cloquet. The scene where three different characters take turns breaking through the concrete floor of their cell is filmed in a single, nearly four minute long, shot. There is no musical score except under the end credits. The film has no opening credits.


Reception

''The Hole'' has a
Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review aggregator, review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee ...
score of 94% based on 18 reviews, with an average score of 8.59/10.
Dave Kehr David Kehr (born 1953) is an American museum curator and film critic. For many years a critic at the ''Chicago Reader'' and the ''Chicago Tribune,'' he later wrote a weekly column for ''The New York Times'' on DVD releases. He later became a c ...
, writing for ''
Chicago Reader The ''Chicago Reader'', or ''Reader'' (stylized as ЯEADER), is an American alternative newspaper in Chicago, Illinois, noted for its literary style of journalism and coverage of the arts, particularly film and theater. The ''Reader'' has been ...
'', hailed it as "the last great flowering of French classicism; the 'tradition of quality' here goes out with a masterpiece." ''
The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''NYT'') is an American daily newspaper based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' covers domestic, national, and international news, and publishes opinion pieces, investigative reports, and reviews. As one of ...
Bosley Crowther Francis Bosley Crowther Jr. (July 13, 1905 – March 7, 1981) was an American journalist, writer, and film critic for ''The New York Times'' for 27 years. His work helped shape the careers of many actors, directors and screenwriters, though some ...
noted that the non-professional actors "play their roles with such simple, natural force that they become not only bold adventurers but also deeply appreciable friends." "As long as men have been placed behind bars" wrote
Kenneth Turan Kenneth Turan (; born October 27, 1946) is an American retired film critic, author, and lecturer in the Master of Professional Writing Program at the University of Southern California. He was a film critic for the ''Los Angeles Times'' from 1991 ...
, "they've plotted to escape, and those plans have powered prison-break movies without end. But even in that large group, "Le Trou" stands apart." Whilst praising the film otherwise, Richard Brody of ''
The New Yorker ''The New Yorker'' is an American magazine featuring journalism, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons, and poetry. It was founded on February 21, 1925, by Harold Ross and his wife Jane Grant, a reporter for ''The New York T ...
'' wrote that Becker's "deeply empathetic, fanatically specific view of his protagonists leaves out some elements. oséGiovanni was no common criminal—a Nazi collaborator, he blackmailed, tortured, and murdered Jews during, and even after, the Occupation. The charm of France’s underworld depended not just on criminals’ own code of silence but on Becker’s, and on all of France’s."


See also

* '' A Man Escaped''


References


External links

*
''The Hole'' at AllMovie
* *
''The Time It Takes: Le Trou and Jacques Becker''
an essay by Chris Fujiwara at the
Criterion Collection The Criterion Collection, Inc. (or simply Criterion) is an American home-video distribution company that focuses on licensing, restoring and distributing "important classic and contemporary films". A "sister company" of arthouse film distributo ...

Info at filsdefrance

Trailer for Rialto Pictures 2017 release
{{DEFAULTSORT:Hole, The 1960 films French black-and-white films 1960 crime drama films Crime films based on actual events Films based on works by José Giovanni Films directed by Jacques Becker 1960s French-language films French prison films Titanus films Films produced by Serge Silberman Films with screenplays by José Giovanni 1960s French films