The Perils of Papillon

 

I’ve always been curious about Papillon. This 1973 film, directed by Franklin J. Schaffner (Patton) derives from the purportedly true memoir of Henri Charrière, a low-level criminal who successfully escaped from the French penal colony of Devil’s Island, off the northeastern coast of South America. Grim survival stories are not especially favorites of mine, but circa 1985 I paid a visit to Guyane (aka French Guiana), where a family member was preparing for the launch of an American satellite on a European rocket based at the local space center. Not far from these high-tech surroundings was the Isle du Diable, and I was lucky to join a group of French journalists touring this infamous but now defunct site, which was the center of the French penal system from 1852 to 1952.

 I don’t remember much about the prison environment, except that it was a hot and brutal place, full of insects and other daunting obstacles. Schaffner’s film makes full use of these obstacles, both the natural and the man-made, in telling the story of a bloke with a butterfly tattooed on his chest (hence the nickname Papillon) and an indomitable will to survive. His leading man is Steve McQueen, known throughout his career as an escape artist par excellence. McQueen is an extraordinarily physical actor, blessed with a hard body and a stoic face that seems to accept danger as man’s natural lot. His job in this film is to survive, even when locked in a steel cage and deprived of any source of light. At times we see his agonized efforts to hold onto his humanity, despite it all. Many feel this is McQueen’s very best work.

 I began thinking about Papillon after I was interviewed by Kelsy Norman, a Canadian film buff (and ultimate McQueen fan) whose long-running podcast is called SPEEDING BULLITT: THE LIFE AND FILMS OF STEVE MCQUEEN. I hardly claim to be a McQueen expert, but Kelsy had read my Seduced by Mrs. Robinson: How The Graduate Becomes the Touchstone of a Generation, and was intrigued by my report of what McQueen had told his then-wife, now Neille Adams Toffel, after watching Dustin Hoffman in 1967’s The Graduate. Said he, “God, baby, I can’t believe this guy’s going to be a movie star, can you? I mean, he is one ugly cat. Good actor, yeah, but he sure is homely.” McQueen, always secretly insecure,  brooded mightily about the possibility that he and such classically handsome talents as Paul Newman might be shoved aside by the newcomer. Toffel writes in her memoir that “Steve would stare at his image in the mirror and say to me, ‘Look at that, baby, take a look at that face and that body and tell me the truth. Who would you pick, him or me?’ We would both laugh, although I knew he was serious.”

 As luck would have it, when McQueen began work on Papillon, he discovered he’d be playing against this very same Dustin Hoffman. Hoffman plays Louis Dega, a fellow prisoner who’s the polar opposite of Papillon in many ways. Dega is whip-smart, but also extremely cautious: there’s nothing of the escape artist about him. In time, against all odds, the two become friends. At perhaps Papillon’s lowest point, when he’s been thrown into solitary with his already bug-infested rations halved, Dega secretly comes to his aid. But the friendship between the two prisoners hardly extended to the two actors. McQueen, recognizing Hoffman’s talent, decided he needed to up his game on-screen. But a real-life friendship between the two was not in the cards.

Here's my interview with Kelsy Norman on his Speeding Bullitt podcast, which covers all things Steve McQueen.