Customer Reviews

Papillon [VHS]

5 star:		(83)
4 star:		(21)
3 star:		(9)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

Papillon is a great movie based on fact that contains many scenes that will stick with you for a long time. Henri Charierre is a safecracker framed for the murder of a pimp and sent to French Guiana, the prison system in South and Central America. Along the way, Papillon meets counterfeiter Louis Dega played to perfection by Dustin Hoffman. The two men struggle to survive amidst the horrible conditions in the prisons. However, the only thing that keeps Papillon alive is the thought of escape and freedom. This is a very bleak movie, at times you might not even recognize McQueen with all the makeup, but the ending does offer hope. The scenes of Papi's solitary confinement and the hallucinations he has while there are very effective and not easily forgotten. Also, the film decides to show prison life as it is. This is not a whitewashed version of it, but instead a fairly graphic depiction of the horrors of the French prison system. Nonetheless, this is still an excellent movie that will keep you interested throughout.

Papillon is up there with The Sand Pebbles as Steve McQueen's finest performances. His role as Henri "Papillon" Charierre is fully believable as he attempts over and over again to escape to freedom. Dustin Hoffman is just as good as Louis Dega, the prisoner who hires McQueen to protect him. The two become friends as they try to adjust to their new lives. The friendship between the two men is very good and some of the better parts of the movie involve their relationship. Don Gordon plays Julot, a veteran prisoner who tries to help them adjust. Robert Deman and Woodrow Parfrey are also very good as Maturette and Clusiot, two fellow prisoners who attempt escape with Papillon. I have to add about Jerry Goldsmith's very good score that perfectly fits the film. The DVD offers a widescreen presentation that looks great, a documentary made during filming that contains interviews with cast, crew, and even Henri Charierre, and also the theatrical trailer. This is a very dark movie, but it is still a great character study that never really slows down. McQueen fans will love this classic!

I am from Cuba and I read this book (it was illegal for the goverment) someone let me read it and spire on me to figth for my fredoom. For a period of TWO years I tried to leave Cuba, 10 times took me to get to Miami USA, reading this book gime the corage to take a raft and risk my live in the water...... Now, I live in Puerto Rico, I still read this book and ones every other year I see the movie over and over It is great and I recomend it for every body that love fredoom or dream to be free one day even if you have to die to get IT !

This movie is the best example of Steve McQueen's acting skills, bar none. Everyone who thought he was a one note player should look close and hard at this magnificent film. The chemistry between McQueen and Dustin Hoffman is a real tear-jearker. This should have been McQueen's Oscar, but he was not one to kiss anybody's butt for the statue. For me, this is a true tale of the survival spirit, really better than the GREAT ESACPE as far as serious pathos is concerned. Let's not forget Dustin Hoffman's character Dega. This was a composite of several people in the book. The final scene on the cliff should go down as a classic moment in cinema. Steve, we miss you!

I've been a fan of this film since it came out in theaters, and PAPILLON continues to impress and inspire with each subsequent viewing. In my opinion, this is Steve McQueen's absolute best role as Henri Charriere, a man wrongly convicted of murder and sentenced to spend the rest of his life at Devil's Island in brutal French Guiana, South America. Henri, also known as "Papillon" (due to the tattoo of a butterfly on his chest), is determined to escape--even though the consequences of getting caught entail solitary confinement under the harshest conditions. Papillon escapes, and is caught and punished, escapes again, is caught and punished even more severely, and once he is banished to Devil's Island--an impenetrable rock amidst a fierce sea--his yearning for freedom is still not diminished.

McQueen shows some impressive range; stoic and rather one-dimensional in most of his other roles, the actor delivers a considerable variety of emotions. Dustin Hoffman is equally exceptional as Dega, Papillon's humble and unassuming friend. Based on a true story, director Franklin J. Schaffner has made a masterpiece about the indomitable will of the human spirit.
--D. Mikels, Author, WALK-ON

Papillon is a safecracker wrongly accused and convicted of murder and sentenced to life in prison at a Devil's Island in Guiana, South America. He's determined to escape before he even reaches the island hiding a shiv (knife) and money. While on the boat over to the penal colony Papillon offers to protect the mousey Louis Dega (Dustin Hoffman)who's carrying money to bribe the guards for various items once he's at the colony. The two strike up a surprising friendship as Papillon plans his eventual escape from prison.

A fine film from featuring strong performances from the unlikely duo of Steve McQueen and Dustin Hoffman, "Papillon" isn't director Frankl J. Schaffner ("Planet of the Apes", "Patton", "The War Lord")best film but still packs considerable wallop. The film (for its time) was brutal in its depiction of prison life in the French penal colony system. Supposedly writer Henri Charriere based ont he novel on events from his life although I suspect that much of it is fiction. It's nevertheless powerful fiction.

The languid pace of the film may not be to everyone's liking; Schaffner shoots for the pacing (in a sense using pacing to recreate the stifling heat and humidity)of films like "The Bridge on the River Kwai". Featuring a number of marvelous performances including Anthony Zerbe as Toussaint the Leper Colony chief and Bill Mumy ("Lost in Space") as Lariot, it clearly was an inspiration for Stephen King's "The Shawkshank Redemption" (and Frank Darabont's film).

The transfer here appears to be the same one that appeared in the 2000. Presented in anamorphic widescreen, the image quality is still exceptionally good although the image is occasionally soft. There's also analog flaws due to the source print (and, in turn, probably due to the original negative). The film comes with a vintage "Making of" featurette. It's a pity that Hoffman wasn't asked to do a commentary track as I'd be fascinated to find out about the behind-the-scenes shooting from an actor's perspective. The sound while solid suffers from low volume and sometimes the dialog can be a bit indistinct. On the whole, though, the soundtrack has nice detail and comes across with nice clarity for most of the movie. Remastered for 5.1, "Papillon" the surround speakers don't get the work out one would expect from a brand new film but the film still sounds nice.

Featuring a terrific screenplay by Dalton Trumbo ("Spartacus", "Johnny Got His Gun", "Exodus") and Lorenzo Semple Jr. ("Three Days of the Condor", "The Drowning Pool", "The Parallax View") even if the story is primarily fiction (as is now claimed), it's a powerful drama. Keep in mind that the pace for this epic prison drama is quite slow throughout most of the movie. A bit of trivia is that Dustin Hoffman based on performance of Louis on Dalton Trumbo himself after they met to discuss working on the film.

This film is also now available as part of Warner Home Video's superb "Steve McQueen Collection" which also includes a remastered deluxe edition of "Bullitt", "Tom Horn" and a couple of other classic McQueen classics. If you have the previous edition of this classic movie I can't see necessarily upgrading unless you want the snapcase to store the movie in.

An extremely well done video transfer to DVD, especially for a movie of this age. Some newer movie transfers to DVD have a lot of scratches and blotches. Some interesting documentaries featuring the person the movie was based on. Probably the best value on DVD around.

Steve McQueen has given one of the "performances of his life" in this movie about a man who is incarcerated on "Devil's Island," the place where "no one gets out alive." Along with Dustin Hoffman, who is more apt to "accept mediocrity" and takes his fate quietly, the film is a tribute to the power of persistence, conviction, and never giving up.

McQueen and Hoffman do make an attempt at escape, and are punished for it, and the film follows McQueen as he continues to plot and figure out a way to leave the island. Of course we see how he is punished cruelly and the effects this has on his health and the aging process is phenomenal. At the end, of course, we see him get his reward, and it's an upbeat ending, although Hoffman settles for less, and it was no surpise that Devil's Island ultimately became just another part of the history books in criminal justice. The inhumane treatment was horrendous.

For a great adventure, this is it!!!

It is odd that Franklin Schaffner, the director of PAPILLON, is not better known. Repeated financial success and an Academy Award would, one would think, draw attention to his work. His best films, of which PAPILLON is an example, are visually handsome and thematically sophisticated. While it may seem perverse to call a film elegant in which one character is guillotined in close-up, another maims himself with a knife (again, in close-up), another eats insects because he's on starvation rations, another vomits in extended detail then gets beaten for it, and on and on, it is nonetheless the most appropriate word to describe the effect of Schaffner's coolly understated style.

Such incidents are neither sensationalistic nor unmotivated, but you can be forgiven for thinking that PAPILLON is an escape film in which the filmmakers have mixed feelings about getting their hero out of jail. The escape scenes have snap, but it is clear that Schaffner is far more interested in prison life in French Guyana. The prison camp was meticulously reconstructed for the film and we are spared few details of its functioning. As if to prove just how exact the sets are, shots of the ruins of the prison appear under the end credits so we can compare them to their surrogates in the film.

Such literal mindedness hampers Schaffner in the embarrassingly stolid dream sequences. When focused on the rhythms of the everyday, however, the method is almost abstractly precise. Close to a half hour is devoted to Charrière's solitary confinement, for example, yet as the camera moves back and forth relentlessly in the tiny cell with McQueen, Schaffner makes the sequences harrowing and compelling. You might prefer to be elsewhere, but you're never bored. (On the other hand, during the film's one respite, an extended sequence without dialogue when McQueen is taken in by a group of Central American pearl divers, you don't want to be anywhere else, you want to sign up.)

Schaffner was something like an American David Lean. They shared a similar Monumental Realism, a flair for widescreen composition and a fascination with the interactions between character and history. (Schaffner's films tend to be a bit more emphatically about power. The screenplay for PAPILLON, for example, was co-written by ex-Communist Dalton Trumbo, and his THE BEST MAN focuses on a political convention.) Perhaps with a re-make of PLANET OF THE APES on the way, his work will draw more attention. Films like PAPILLON prove they are more than worth it.

I had seen this movie once on a black/white TV when I was young with my dad. As I remember, I was shocked and thought provoked by this movie at that time. With this memory, I just watched it again in almost 25 years now in color and even on DVD. Again with my dad, trying to recollect the old experience.

Wow... The transfer to DVD was more than great. I thought the quality is even better than The Matrix. Thank you WB for the sincere efforts. I and my 71 year old dad really had sweet hours with this movie on DVD, which also has good extras. I think this movie is a forever classic and the DVD is Da Bomb. If you think you're a movie lover, this is definietly worth getting without hesitation. Good price also.

'Papillon' is the forceful portrait of a defiant man, who survives harrowing years of his life in small solitary cells, suffering the worst type of brutality and despair... It is the amazing true life story of a man of character called Henri Charriere, a Frenchman sentenced to life at Devil's island for a murder he did not commit... Henri gains his nick name 'Papillon' for the large butterfly (symbolic of freedom) tattooed on his chest...

The film recounts Papillon's tenacity and indomitable spirit, planning and executing a series of failed attempts of escape over many years... We watch his multiple adventures through hundreds of miles of swamp, reaching an encounter with a kind leper colony, a friendly tribe of Indians, and a traitorous nun... Papillon is seen pursued by Indian trustees, and harassed by brutal guards... The power of the movie lies on Papillon's triumph over oppression, his continual perseverance, humanity, honesty, his quiet dignity, and sheer spirit...

Guided this time by one of the most creative directors who offered handsomely 'Planet of the Apes' and 'Patton,' Steve McQueen--as Papillon-- exhibits a raw vitality, a complete spectrum of emotions, and a sure command of his technical acting-resources that are breathtaking in their impact..

Dustin Hoffman--in perfect rapport with his role, perceptively invading its every nuance and implication-- portrays a quality of character exhibited in the face of impossible adversity... His last scene with McQueen attempting to convince his friend not to leave the island, represents one of the film's most moving, and effective sequence...

Schaffner gives a stirring picture of forsaken men, and takes up the challenge and proceeding to 'beat the system' against incalculable odds... He certainly gives rise to some of the great epics of human courage and fortitude...