Franklin J. Schaffner’s prison film, “Papillon”, is a Hollywood adaption of the controversial autobiographical book by Henri Charriere. In his novel, as well as the movie, Charriere claims to have escaped imprisonment from the horrific French prison system in French Guiana. The last prison that Charriere claims to have escaped from is the infamous “Devil’s Island”. The controversy of the book resides in its claim of being factual. Today, most people believe that the book is mostly fiction. The novel, which was a best seller at the time, was a gritty indictment of the French penal system. Schaffner’s movie succeeds in retaining the essential truism found in the novel.
Steve McQueen is Charriere, nicknamed Papillon because of a tattooed butterfly on his chest. Papillon is the French word for butterfly, you see. He is convicted of killing a pimp and sentenced to life in French Guiana. Papillon claims to be innocent of the murder, but freely admits to being a thief. During the difficult trip, on a prison ship, Papillon meets Louis Dega (Duston Hoffman in one of his less celebrated performances), who is an infamous forger and embezzler. Papillon agrees to protect Dega from other prisoners who may have a grudge against him, so that Dega can bankroll Papillon’s numerous escape attempts. From then on, the movie follows Papillon’s various escape attempts, as well as an extended depiction of Papillon’s first 2-year, and then unimaginable 5-year incarceration in solitary confinement.
Having also read the book, I can say that the movie is a fairly honest interpretation of Charriere’s story. The novel as well as the book portray Papillon as a heroic figure, and the French penal system authorities as being relentlessly cruel without any inkling of compassion. Since this was written by Charriere himself, it is safe to assume that these portrayals are both exaggerations. Allowing Charriere to become an undeserving victim helped me to identify with his ordeal and hope for his success. Having McQueen play Papillon helps quite a bit in this regard.
The solitary confinement sequence is quite long, and many viewers may find it tedious. However, when compared to how this element of the story is written in the novel, I found it to be concise and stretched to its qualified limit. It is the two-year period that is drawn out in the film, showing Papillon locked in searing heat within a small concrete box. When extra food smuggled into his cell by Dega is discovered, his cell gets blacked out and his slim rations halved. He is reduced to living like a mole and eating insects to survive. The movie relays this very effectively and is truly one of the best realizations of what real solitary confinement punishment must have been like during the dark days of the late 19th and early 20th century.
While a good performance, Hoffman’s understated portrayal of Dega lacks substance. This is probably a fallacy of the script rather than Hoffman’s acting, but to me, he should have been the most interesting of all the characters. In defense of the scriptwriter, the novel does not do a good job of fleshing him out either. I kept wishing I knew more about this man and how he came to be where he was, other than the fact that he was an embezzler. Hoffman must make do with looking like a lost puppy living in a world of wolves.
Steve McQueen rarely moved out of his screen persona in his career. In “Papillon”, he gives what I think is his bravest and best performance. His depiction of suffering and ugliness during the solitary confinement segment is powerful. When, at the end of the 5-year stint, he sticks his head out of his small cell for the first time since he went in, he does not even look like himself and is totally convincing as a man driven to the point of insanity. His role here is almost like an apology for the way he portrayed Hilts in “The Great Escape”. In that film, he was also a prisoner who spent time in solitary confinement. But there he was just a heroic cartoon depiction of a prisoner with his baseball glove and foolish grin. With this movie, McQueen shows us that he knows how to show suffering and actually what it may have been like to have been a prisoner in such harsh conditions. He leaves nothing back here, almost like an apology for the way he depicted Hilts in that vastly inferior film.
While a tad too long, “Papillon” is a gritty, realistic depiction of the terrible conditions many countries had in their prison system. I would even go so far as to say that some third world countries still have these terrible conditions today. By depicting its hero as a supposed innocent, the movie allows us to empathize with the criminals and, by doing so, relays a message on the importance of humanity. “Papillon” is one of those rare authentic Hollywood movies and one of the great cinematic adaptions of a literary work.
1001 Movies before you die 