The story is a character study of a young criminal who becomes so entranced by the act of picking pockets that he can't stop himself. Director Robert Bresson always worked with casts that never had any theatre acting experience. Film is a failed art form if it tries to pretend to be theatre, according to Bresson. The words in the film had to be spoken without any thoughts behind them, to Bresson the mechanical repetition of words meant that thoughts behind them make them fake. In Pickpocket Bresson chose the Uruguayan non-actor Martin LaSalle for the leading role. LaSalle learnt the art of picking pockets with help of a professional picker as a “technical adviser”. The film is loosely inspired by Fyodor Dostoyevsky's novel Crime and Punishment.