In one of the few moments in which Gaspard is apparently at one with the group, the five share Gaspards

rice cake. Becker holds the camera on the wordless scene long after most directors would fade out a fine instance of his career-long love of temps morts, the moments of relaxation and automatism in which we see the characters existing outside the framework created by the direct concerns of the plot. The world of Le Trou is a world of consciousness. The activities of the prisoners and the movement from inside to outside the prison in Le Trou are not seen in terms of communion and grace as they are in Bressons A Man Escaped; nor is Becker concerned with the critique of social differences, as Renoir is in Grand Illusion. The categories that concern Becker are those of experience: how reality is molded and altered by hands and tools, faith and doubt, language and perception. (The measure of Beckers complete success in conveying both the flow and the form of experience is that after Le Trou is over, we recognize in it an affirmation of freedom.) In light of this affirmation, the virtues proved by the prisoners meticulousness, inventiveness, and the ability to form a collectivebecome values in themselves. Perhaps Becker is, of all directors, the one who has embodied and articulated these values most firmly.