Papillon

Papillon (1973) is about a man sent to the penal colony in French Guiana. Papillon has a life sentence for a murder he says he did not commit and thinks about nothing but escape. On the way he strikes a deal with a counterfeiter, Louis Dega: Dega provides the money, Papillon provides protection. Solitary confinement sits at the centre of it. He is put in a cell twice, and the second time without light and without permission to speak. Those sections are the strongest part of the film and contain almost no dialogue. The source is Henri Charrière's memoir of 1969. The book was a sensation in France and sold in the millions. Journalists and historians later argued that much of it was assembled from other men's stories and that Charrière had not personally lived through many of the escapes he described. He maintained it was his own life. So the film was made from a memoir whose truth is disputed. Franklin J. Schaffner directed. Steve McQueen plays Papillon and Dustin Hoffman plays Dega. McQueen performed the jump from the cliff into the sea himself. It was shot in Jamaica and Spain. Jerry Goldsmith wrote the score and was nominated for an Academy Award. It runs 151 minutes. Good for: prison and escape films, drama carried by two actors, and seventies production values. Less good for: at 151 minutes the pace is heavy. The violence and the confinement sections are oppressive. Because the book's accuracy is doubtful, reading the film as historical testimony is a mistake.