As an artist Henri-Georges Clouzot was fearless: in the darkness of the German occupation he made a movie about the social crime of informing. Poison Pen accusations destroy trust, bringing out the worst in the people of a small French town. Who is The Crow and how many will suffer before the letters stop? It’s a study in vitriolic misanthropy — the kind of cold observation that Clouzot does so well. At the war’s finish director Clouzot was accused of collaboration, and for a time was censured. Later on, some English critics classified the show as a horror film. It’s certainly creepy enough.
Le Corbeau
Blu-ray
The Criterion Collection 227
1943 / B&w / 1:37 Academy / 91 min. / available through The Criterion Collection / Street Date , 2022 / 39.95
Starring: Pierre Fresnay, Ginette Leclerc, Micheline Francey, Héléna Manson, Jeanne Fusier-Gir, Sylvie, Liliane Maigné, Pierre Larquey, Noël Roquevert, Bernard Lancret, Antoine Balpêtré, Jean Brochard, Pierre Bertin, Louis Seigner,...
Le Corbeau
Blu-ray
The Criterion Collection 227
1943 / B&w / 1:37 Academy / 91 min. / available through The Criterion Collection / Street Date , 2022 / 39.95
Starring: Pierre Fresnay, Ginette Leclerc, Micheline Francey, Héléna Manson, Jeanne Fusier-Gir, Sylvie, Liliane Maigné, Pierre Larquey, Noël Roquevert, Bernard Lancret, Antoine Balpêtré, Jean Brochard, Pierre Bertin, Louis Seigner,...
- 9/13/2022
- by Glenn Erickson
- Trailers from Hell
With it being seven years since his last live-action film, 2014’s The Grand Budapast Hotel, Wes Anderson is hard at work. Following a Cannes premiere, The French Dispatch finally arrives in limited theaters on October 22 followed by a wide release the following week, and he’s already shooting his next film (recently revealed to have the title Asteroid City) outside of Madrid with Tilda Swinton, Bill Murray, Adrien Brody, Tom Hanks, Margot Robbie, Rupert Friend, Jason Schwartzman, Scarlett Johansson, Bryan Cranston, Hope Davis, Jeffrey Wright, Liev Schreiber, Tony Revolori, and Matt Dillon.
As is the case with all of his work, Wes Anderson synthesizes cinema history in his own specific language and for The French Dispatch he has provided a list of influences. As revealed in a promotional book sent to The Flim Stage and styled after the film’s magazine, 32 films are listed that “provided inspiration to the filmmakers,...
As is the case with all of his work, Wes Anderson synthesizes cinema history in his own specific language and for The French Dispatch he has provided a list of influences. As revealed in a promotional book sent to The Flim Stage and styled after the film’s magazine, 32 films are listed that “provided inspiration to the filmmakers,...
- 10/12/2021
- by Jordan Raup
- The Film Stage
Arrow Academy resurrects an early notable work from the filmography of Henri-Georges Clouzot with his 1949 Manon, which won the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival. The title was Clouzot’s second post-wwii film following the lift of his ban from filmmaking in France due to his collaborations with the Nazis during the German occupation.
Celebrated for his thrillers, which include classics like Diabolique and The Wages of Fear, Clouzot was heavily criticized and demeaned by the onslaught of the New Wave filmmakers who classified him as old-fashioned.…...
Celebrated for his thrillers, which include classics like Diabolique and The Wages of Fear, Clouzot was heavily criticized and demeaned by the onslaught of the New Wave filmmakers who classified him as old-fashioned.…...
- 3/24/2020
- by Nicholas Bell
- IONCINEMA.com
If the saving of human lives somehow isn’t enough to incentivize people yet to stay home to reduce the spread of coronavirus, this might help: by not doing so you are potentially causing the July release of Wes Anderson’s The French Dispatch to be delayed. Thus far, Searchlight is still banking on a July 24 theatrical debut of his star-studded, France-set ensemble feature and the promotion is continuing.
After learning production designer Adam Stockhausen created a whopping 125 sets for the film, cinematographer Robert Yeoman has now revealed the five French classics that Anderson had his cast and crew view to prepare for the shoot, which might help give a hint of the film’s tone.
Speaking with Indiewire, Yeoman says these films “gave us all the feeling of the French movies of the period, both thematically and stylistically.” Check them out below, including a snippet of Anderson discussing one of his all-time favorites.
After learning production designer Adam Stockhausen created a whopping 125 sets for the film, cinematographer Robert Yeoman has now revealed the five French classics that Anderson had his cast and crew view to prepare for the shoot, which might help give a hint of the film’s tone.
Speaking with Indiewire, Yeoman says these films “gave us all the feeling of the French movies of the period, both thematically and stylistically.” Check them out below, including a snippet of Anderson discussing one of his all-time favorites.
- 3/23/2020
- by Leonard Pearce
- The Film Stage
Wes Anderson’s “The French Dispatch” is four months away from opening in theaters, but moviegoers can start preparing now by viewing the five French movies the director had his cast and crew watch before the start of production. Robert Yeoman, Anderson’s longtime cinematographer who has shot all of his live-action directorial efforts, shared in a statement that Anderson’s prep work for “The French Dispatch” included putting together “an extensive library of DVDs, books, and magazine articles” for the cast and crew to check out in order to help them “assimilate” into the film’s period setting. “The French Dispatch” cast includes Benicio del Toro, Adrien Brody, Tilda Swinton, Léa Seydoux, Frances McDormand, Timothée Chalamet, and Bill Murray.
Yeoman said Anderson’s film list featured Jean-Luc Godard’s 1962 drama “My Life to Live,” Henri-Georges Clouzot’s 1955 suspense movie “Diabolique,” Clouzot’s 1947 procedural “Quay of the Goldsmiths,” Max Ophüls’ anthology film “Le Plaisir,...
Yeoman said Anderson’s film list featured Jean-Luc Godard’s 1962 drama “My Life to Live,” Henri-Georges Clouzot’s 1955 suspense movie “Diabolique,” Clouzot’s 1947 procedural “Quay of the Goldsmiths,” Max Ophüls’ anthology film “Le Plaisir,...
- 3/23/2020
- by Zack Sharf
- Indiewire
Another big title from Henri-Georges Clouzot touches down in Region A. The great director’s first postwar feature dials back the misanthropy — but only a little. It’s a detective tale set in an impressively recreated theatrical milieu, about the tangle of illicit desire that people get caught up in. Ambition, sacrifice, and jealousy figure in a tightly-knit murder scenario — Louis Jouvet’s detective must sort them out, to determine if the vain variety singer Jenny Lamour is really guilty of a heinous crime.
Quai des Orfèvres
Blu-ray
Kl Studio Classics
1947 / B&w / 1:37 Academy / 106 min. / Street Date February 25, 2020 / Jenny Lamour / available through Kino Lorber / 29.95
Starring: Louis Jouvet, Suzy Delair, Bernard Blier, Simone Renant, Pierre Larquey, Jeanne Fusier-Gir, Charles Dullin, Dora Doll, Christian Marquand, .
Cinematography: Armand Thirard
Film Editor: Charles Bretoneiche
Original Music: Francis Lopez
Written by Henri-Georges Clouzot, Jean Ferry from the novel Legetime defense by Stanislaus-André Steeman
Produced by Roger De Venloo,...
Quai des Orfèvres
Blu-ray
Kl Studio Classics
1947 / B&w / 1:37 Academy / 106 min. / Street Date February 25, 2020 / Jenny Lamour / available through Kino Lorber / 29.95
Starring: Louis Jouvet, Suzy Delair, Bernard Blier, Simone Renant, Pierre Larquey, Jeanne Fusier-Gir, Charles Dullin, Dora Doll, Christian Marquand, .
Cinematography: Armand Thirard
Film Editor: Charles Bretoneiche
Original Music: Francis Lopez
Written by Henri-Georges Clouzot, Jean Ferry from the novel Legetime defense by Stanislaus-André Steeman
Produced by Roger De Venloo,...
- 2/29/2020
- by Glenn Erickson
- Trailers from Hell
Henri-Georges Clouzot's Le corbeau (1943) is showing November 20 – December 19, and Quai des orfèvres (1947) from November 21 – December 20, 2018 on Mubi in the United States.Henri-Georges ClouzotOn September 3, 1939 France, alongside Great Britain, declared war on Germany. As pronounced May 8, 1945 by Charles de Gaulle, president of the Provisional Government of the French Republic, Europe’s World War II conflict was over. Between these years, years that saw the demoralizing German occupation of de Gaulle’s homeland, battle lines were heartily affirmed and mightily preserved. There was, in this tumultuous time, little room for partisan ambiguity—it was a black and white world of Allied and Axis powers, of us versus them. Within this context of chaos and violence, Niort-born Henri-Georges Clouzot advanced his filmmaking career, beginning with screenwriting efforts in the early 1930s and progressing to his first feature as a solo director, L’assassin habite... au 21 (The Murderer Lives at Number 21). Released in...
- 11/20/2018
- MUBI
Since any New York City cinephile has a nearly suffocating wealth of theatrical options, we figured it’d be best to compile some of the more worthwhile repertory showings into one handy list. Displayed below are a few of the city’s most reliable theaters and links to screenings of their weekend offerings — films you’re not likely to see in a theater again anytime soon, and many of which are, also, on 35mm. If you have a chance to attend any of these, we’re of the mind that it’s time extremely well-spent.
Museum of Modern Art
Discover “Japan’s Greatest Cinematographer” in a retrospective of Kazuo Miyagawa, running concurrently with Japan Society.
Quad Cinema
Liquid Sky must be seen to be believed, and it can now be seen in a 4K restoration
In celebrating their first-year anniversary, the Quad offers films by Buñuel, Schrader, Oshima and more.
Museum of Modern Art
Discover “Japan’s Greatest Cinematographer” in a retrospective of Kazuo Miyagawa, running concurrently with Japan Society.
Quad Cinema
Liquid Sky must be seen to be believed, and it can now be seen in a 4K restoration
In celebrating their first-year anniversary, the Quad offers films by Buñuel, Schrader, Oshima and more.
- 4/13/2018
- by Nick Newman
- The Film Stage
First project under pact is drama series Stl, based on Gaumont’s French-language feature 36 Quai Des Orfèvres.
Gaumont, the studio behind the Netflix drama Narcos, has finalised a first-look agreement with screenwriter, producer, and director Christopher McQuarrie and producing partner Heather McQuarrie.
McQuarrie will write, direct, and produce multiple scripted drama projects for the studio under the new pact, Gaumont’s president of television Us Gene Stein announced today.
The first project to go into development under the pact is Stl (working title) a TV drama series adaptation of Gaumont’s César Award-nominated feature film, 36 Quai Des Orfèvres, centred on the gritty criminal underworld, and the ruthless competition between the cops at the Criminal Investigations Division.
Chris McQuarrie will direct, with both Chris and Heather attached as executive producers. Ben Ripley, know for Source Code and Flatliners, will serve as writer and executive producer.
Chris McQuarrie co-wrote and is currently directing and co-producing the latest installment of [link...
Gaumont, the studio behind the Netflix drama Narcos, has finalised a first-look agreement with screenwriter, producer, and director Christopher McQuarrie and producing partner Heather McQuarrie.
McQuarrie will write, direct, and produce multiple scripted drama projects for the studio under the new pact, Gaumont’s president of television Us Gene Stein announced today.
The first project to go into development under the pact is Stl (working title) a TV drama series adaptation of Gaumont’s César Award-nominated feature film, 36 Quai Des Orfèvres, centred on the gritty criminal underworld, and the ruthless competition between the cops at the Criminal Investigations Division.
Chris McQuarrie will direct, with both Chris and Heather attached as executive producers. Ben Ripley, know for Source Code and Flatliners, will serve as writer and executive producer.
Chris McQuarrie co-wrote and is currently directing and co-producing the latest installment of [link...
- 8/16/2017
- ScreenDaily
Oscar-winning filmmaker Christopher McQuarrie and his producing partner Heather McQuarrie have signed a first-look deal with Gaumont (Narcos). Under the pact, Christopher McQuarrie will write, direct and produce multiple scripted drama projects for the independent studio. The duo’s first project under the deal is Stl (working title) a TV drama series adaptation of Gaumont's César-nominated feature film, 36 Quai des Orfèvres (36th Precinct), with Ben Ripley (Source Code, Fl…...
- 8/16/2017
- Deadline TV
Michel Galabru (right) and Louis de Funès in 'Le gendarme et les gendarmettes.' 'La Cage aux Folles' actor Michel Galabru dead at 93 Michel Galabru, best known internationally for his role as a rabidly reactionary politician in the comedy hit La Cage aux Folles, died in his sleep today, Jan. 4, '16, in Paris. The Moroccan-born Galabru (Oct. 27, 1922, in Safi) was 93. Throughout his nearly seven-decade career, Galabru was seen in more than 200 films – or, in his own words, “182 days,” as he was frequently cast in minor roles that required only a couple of days of work. He also appeared on stage, training at the Comédie Française and studying under film and stage veteran Louis Jouvet (Bizarre Bizarre, Quai des Orfèvres), and was featured in more than 70 television productions. Michel Galabru movies Michel Galabru's film debut took place in Maurice de Canonge's La bataille du feu (“The Battle of Fire,...
- 1/5/2016
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
Translators introduction: This article by Mireille Latil Le Dantec, the first of two parts, was originally published in issue 40 of Cinématographe, September 1978. The previous issue of the magazine had included a dossier on "La qualité française" and a book of a never-shot script by Jean Grémillon (Le Printemps de la Liberté or The Spring of Freedom) had recently been published. The time was ripe for a re-evaluation of Grémillon's films and a resuscitation of his undervalued career. As this re-evaluation appears to still be happening nearly 40 years later—Grémillon's films have only recently seen DVD releases and a 35mm retrospective begins this week at Museum of the Moving Image in Queens—this article and its follow-up gives us an important view of a French perspective on Grémillon's work by a very perceptive critic doing the initial heavy-lifting in bringing the proper attention to the filmmaker's work.
Filmmaker maudit?...
Filmmaker maudit?...
- 11/30/2014
- by Ted Fendt
- MUBI
Between "Crazy Heart" and his forthcoming "Out Of The Furnace," director Scott Cooper has attached himself to a lot of stuff. "Lie Down In Darkness," "The Emperor's Children" (previously a Noah Baumbach project,) a remake of "Carancho" and the Depression-era drama "The Road Home." It's quite a to-do list, and now he's gone and added another to the pile. Deadline reports that Cooper has signed up rewrite and direct "36th Precinct," a remake of the Olivier Marchand's 2004 effort "36 Quai des Orfèvres." As busy as he is, it may not be a bad idea at all; the original movie was a solid, if not particularly memorable procedural starring Daniel Auteuil and Gerard Depardieu. It concerned two cops who compete to bring down a criminal gang in order to secure promotion. The new version will center on the NYPD's anti-terrorism unit, aiming for a more ripped-from-the-headlines feel we suppose. "I don't...
- 5/6/2013
- by Kevin Jagernauth
- The Playlist
Masters of Cinema have kindly released L'assassin habite... au 21 (The Murderer Lives at... 21) on DVD. This, the directorial debut of Henri-Georges Clouzot, has never been an easy film to see in English-speaking territories. It's often dismissed a a minor effort, perhaps because of it's light-hearted tone, and because it's a more conventional whodunnit investigation than the more twisty and twisted later thrillers.
The stars are Pierre Fresnay (later hero of Le corbeau) and Suzy Delair (later heroine of Quai des Orfèvres, and Clouzot's mistress), playing a brilliant police inspector and his actress girlfriend. Suave Fresnay and blousy Delair would also play these roles in a sequel, Le dernier des six, scripted by Clouzot but not directed by him. It's not as good as this one but as a greedy swine I can't help wish that it could have been included as an extra on the disc.
There's been a series of robbery-murders,...
The stars are Pierre Fresnay (later hero of Le corbeau) and Suzy Delair (later heroine of Quai des Orfèvres, and Clouzot's mistress), playing a brilliant police inspector and his actress girlfriend. Suave Fresnay and blousy Delair would also play these roles in a sequel, Le dernier des six, scripted by Clouzot but not directed by him. It's not as good as this one but as a greedy swine I can't help wish that it could have been included as an extra on the disc.
There's been a series of robbery-murders,...
- 5/2/2013
- by David Cairns
- MUBI
A very quick holiday post.
Victor Sjöström's The Phantom Carriage is a fine festive movie, based as it is on the idea that whomsoever expires at the stroke of midnight on New Year's Eve/New Year's Day, will be doomed to drive the Death Coach for the following year, collecting the spirits of the dead and delivering them to their reward. Cheery stuff!
Sjöström serves up a wintry gloom and plays the lead role himself in grand style: I particularly relish a moment when he laughs in the face of a woman bent on his salvation, not in the silent movie manner of holding his sides and vibrating, but merely by baring his teeth. You can hear that dry chuckle!
In 1939, Julien Duvivier remade the film for sound, with a big budget and the best the French studios had to offer, which matched Hollywood's artifice icicle for icicle:
We track across this huge,...
Victor Sjöström's The Phantom Carriage is a fine festive movie, based as it is on the idea that whomsoever expires at the stroke of midnight on New Year's Eve/New Year's Day, will be doomed to drive the Death Coach for the following year, collecting the spirits of the dead and delivering them to their reward. Cheery stuff!
Sjöström serves up a wintry gloom and plays the lead role himself in grand style: I particularly relish a moment when he laughs in the face of a woman bent on his salvation, not in the silent movie manner of holding his sides and vibrating, but merely by baring his teeth. You can hear that dry chuckle!
In 1939, Julien Duvivier remade the film for sound, with a big budget and the best the French studios had to offer, which matched Hollywood's artifice icicle for icicle:
We track across this huge,...
- 12/27/2012
- by David Cairns
- MUBI
The fifth edition of the Bengaluru International Film Festival will hold retrospectives of Girish Kasaravalli and Jahnu Barua among others. Five of Kasaravalli’s films: Tabarana Kathe (1986), Kraurya (1996), Thaayi Saheba (1997), Dweepa (2003) and Hasina (2004)will be screened. While Barua’s Halodhia Choraye Baodhan Khai (1987), Banani (1990), Firingoti (1992) and Hkhagoroloi Bohu Door(1995) will be screened.
Besides, three other sections are dedicated to Indian cinema. Chitrabharathi – Indian Cinema Competition, Kannada Cinema (competition and screening of films in other dialects in Karnataka) and 100 years of Indian Cinema (screening of 14 films).
Complete line up:
Retrospective
Chan-Wook Park (South Korea)
1. J.S.A.: Joint Security Area (Chan-Wook Park/110/2000/South Korea)
2. Sympathy for Mr Vengeance (Chan-Wook Park/129/2002/South Korea)
3. Old boy (Chan-Wook Park/120/2003/South Korea)
4. Lady Vengeance (Chan-Wook Park/112/2005/South Korea)
5. Thirst (Chan-Wook Park/133/2009/South Korea)
Fatih Akin (Germany)
1. Short Sharp Shock (Fatih Akin/100/1998/Germany)
2. In July (Fatih Akin/99/2000/Germany)
3. Solino (Fatih Akin/124/2002/Germany)
4. Head On (Fatih Akin/121/2004/Germany/Turkey...
Besides, three other sections are dedicated to Indian cinema. Chitrabharathi – Indian Cinema Competition, Kannada Cinema (competition and screening of films in other dialects in Karnataka) and 100 years of Indian Cinema (screening of 14 films).
Complete line up:
Retrospective
Chan-Wook Park (South Korea)
1. J.S.A.: Joint Security Area (Chan-Wook Park/110/2000/South Korea)
2. Sympathy for Mr Vengeance (Chan-Wook Park/129/2002/South Korea)
3. Old boy (Chan-Wook Park/120/2003/South Korea)
4. Lady Vengeance (Chan-Wook Park/112/2005/South Korea)
5. Thirst (Chan-Wook Park/133/2009/South Korea)
Fatih Akin (Germany)
1. Short Sharp Shock (Fatih Akin/100/1998/Germany)
2. In July (Fatih Akin/99/2000/Germany)
3. Solino (Fatih Akin/124/2002/Germany)
4. Head On (Fatih Akin/121/2004/Germany/Turkey...
- 12/7/2012
- by NewsDesk
- DearCinema.com
Founded in 1997, Rialto has been described as the gold standard of the reissue distributors. Now it will distribute international classics from the 2,000+ film catalogue of media giant Studiocanal.Rialto's past releases have included Renoir's Grand Illusion; Carol Reed's The Third Man; Fellini's Nights of Cabiria; Jules Dassin's Rififi; De Sica's Umberto D; Godard's Breathless, Contempt, Band of Outsiders, Masculine Feminine, A Woman is a Woman, and Made in USA; Julien Duvivier's Pépé le Moko; Luis Buñuel's Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie, Diary of a Chambermaid, The Phantom of Liberty, The Milky Way and That Obscure Object of Desire; John Schlesinger's Billy Liar; Clouzot's Quai des Orfèvres; Mel Brooks' The Producers; Robert Bresson's Au Hasard Balthazar, Mouchette and Diary of a Country Priest; Jean-Pierre Melville's...
- 8/31/2012
- Screen Anarchy
This slick, preposterous thriller is cast from the now rather worn mould that produced The Lady Vanishes. The fetching Karine Vanasse plays a French-Canadian fashion designer who swaps her flat via the web with a fancy pad beside the Eiffel Tower belonging to a woman she's never met. But after an idyllic first day she awakes feeling ill, and while she's in the shower Inspector Eric Cantona arrives with a Swat team from the Quai des Orfèvres to reveal that she has a different name on her passport and a headless corpse in her bed. The story moves like a bullet (more dumb perhaps than dumdum), but I enjoyed it.
ThrillerEric CantonaPhilip French
guardian.co.uk © 2012 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved. | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds...
ThrillerEric CantonaPhilip French
guardian.co.uk © 2012 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved. | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds...
- 3/31/2012
- by Philip French
- The Guardian - Film News
Clouzot and Romy Schneider on the set of L'Enfer
"Watching a film by the French master Henri-Georges Clouzot, you often feel as if the walls were closing in on you — even when there are no walls," writes Terrence Rafferty in the New York Times. "The Wages of Fear (1953), the movie that opens the Museum of Modern Art's Clouzot retrospective [today], takes place almost entirely out of doors, yet it's as claustrophobic as a stretch in solitary confinement…. It is perhaps fortunate, for the sanity of his viewers, that he managed to complete only 11 features between 1942, when his deceptively light-hearted L'Assassin Habite au 21 (The Murderer Lives at No. 21) was released, and 1968, when his last movie, La Prisonnière, came out.... All 11 will be screened before the series ends on Dec 24, along with odds and ends like a couple of early-40s pictures for which he supplied screenplays and a 2010 documentary, Henri-Georges Clouzot's Inferno,...
"Watching a film by the French master Henri-Georges Clouzot, you often feel as if the walls were closing in on you — even when there are no walls," writes Terrence Rafferty in the New York Times. "The Wages of Fear (1953), the movie that opens the Museum of Modern Art's Clouzot retrospective [today], takes place almost entirely out of doors, yet it's as claustrophobic as a stretch in solitary confinement…. It is perhaps fortunate, for the sanity of his viewers, that he managed to complete only 11 features between 1942, when his deceptively light-hearted L'Assassin Habite au 21 (The Murderer Lives at No. 21) was released, and 1968, when his last movie, La Prisonnière, came out.... All 11 will be screened before the series ends on Dec 24, along with odds and ends like a couple of early-40s pictures for which he supplied screenplays and a 2010 documentary, Henri-Georges Clouzot's Inferno,...
- 12/10/2011
- MUBI
Filmmakers -- especially French ones, and especially those working before the 50s -- are often overly romanticized amongst cinephiles. We love a great film, but we really love the underlying legends and myths of the artist and the creative process, struggling and screaming and clawing to get each film made, centralized on a whirligig of backstabbing, betrayal, and romance. Failed projects, lusty affairs, bouts with depression, creative absences, controversial ideologies, and tragic deaths: it's the stuff that makes the singular genius of the director all the more untouchable; all the more storied. Enter, then, Henri-Georges Clouzot, the 'French Hitchcock' - perhaps the most improbable canonized auteur of them all. The Tiff Bell Lightbox in Toronto won't be spotlighting him with an 'art' exhibition ala Fellini's photo show last summer, but they will be giving his modestly sized filmography a run-through from mid-October to November 29. Unpretentiously titled The Wages of Fear...
- 10/20/2011
- IONCINEMA.com
By Vadim Rizov
American movies, for whatever reason, are low on killings that take place in bathtubs and swimming pools. The French, on the other hand, have several films that famously make soaking yourself in water a charged event: 1969's La Piscine has a brutal pool-side forced drowning, and the centerpiece of Diabolique is a messy tub murder. The atmosphere is fetid from the opening shot, a scum-level view of a pool, which becomes increasingly important after Christina (Vera Clouzot) and Nicole (Simone Signoret) kill Christina's brutal husband, school headmaster Michel Delasalle (Paul Meurisse), and dump his corpse in the pool. When it doesn't rise to the top, the pool is drained, revealing a striking lack of dead people. Where's Michel? Numerous shots of puddles large and small hammer the question home.
Nominally a thriller, Diabolique (newly re-released on DVD in a digitally restored print via Criterion) is a pitch-dark...
American movies, for whatever reason, are low on killings that take place in bathtubs and swimming pools. The French, on the other hand, have several films that famously make soaking yourself in water a charged event: 1969's La Piscine has a brutal pool-side forced drowning, and the centerpiece of Diabolique is a messy tub murder. The atmosphere is fetid from the opening shot, a scum-level view of a pool, which becomes increasingly important after Christina (Vera Clouzot) and Nicole (Simone Signoret) kill Christina's brutal husband, school headmaster Michel Delasalle (Paul Meurisse), and dump his corpse in the pool. When it doesn't rise to the top, the pool is drained, revealing a striking lack of dead people. Where's Michel? Numerous shots of puddles large and small hammer the question home.
Nominally a thriller, Diabolique (newly re-released on DVD in a digitally restored print via Criterion) is a pitch-dark...
- 5/17/2011
- GreenCine Daily
Between 1942 and 1960 Clouzot directed several of the best thrillers ever made, including Le corbeau, Quai des Orfèvres, The Wages of Fear and this one, made in 1955 and based on a novel by Boileau-Narcejac, the same duo who wrote the equally ingenious D'entre les morts, the source of Vertigo. Superbly acted, Les diaboliques is as effective a thriller as Hitchcock's film, if lacking the depth and resonance.
ThrillerPhilip French
guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2011 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds...
ThrillerPhilip French
guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2011 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds...
- 3/20/2011
- by Philip French
- The Guardian - Film News
Chicago – What truly defines a master of suspense? Is it the skill of keeping an audience’s attention rapt with slick pacing, elaborately designed set-pieces, and a whopper of a twist ending? Or is it simply the ability to viscerally convey the psychological trap of a character until the audience feels confined within it, and every onscreen gasp, scream and shiver becomes the viewer’s own?
Henri-Georges Clouzot is one of the few filmmakers in cinema history who not only warrants comparison to the legendary Master of Suspense himself, Alfred Hitchcock, but deserves to be considered his equal (both men were greatly fond of storyboards). Though he only made a quarter as many pictures during his career, which spanned nearly four decades, he made some of the most influential and spellbinding thrillers ever made, including two renowned masterpieces, 1953’s “The Wages of Fear” and 1955’s “Diabolique.” The latter film certainly...
Henri-Georges Clouzot is one of the few filmmakers in cinema history who not only warrants comparison to the legendary Master of Suspense himself, Alfred Hitchcock, but deserves to be considered his equal (both men were greatly fond of storyboards). Though he only made a quarter as many pictures during his career, which spanned nearly four decades, he made some of the most influential and spellbinding thrillers ever made, including two renowned masterpieces, 1953’s “The Wages of Fear” and 1955’s “Diabolique.” The latter film certainly...
- 9/14/2010
- by adam@hollywoodchicago.com (Adam Fendelman)
- HollywoodChicago.com
Few directors exerted such exacting control over the medium as Henri-Georges Clouzot. In films like Quai Des Orfèvres, The Wages Of Fear, and Diabolique, Clouzot made every element work in harmony, from the remarkable work he coaxed from his cast to a command of suspense techniques that rivaled Alfred Hitchcock’s. A demanding perfectionist who, by some reports, never slept, Clouzot held tight to the reins. In 1964, those reins slipped from his hands while he was working on L’Enfer (Inferno), a story of obsessive jealousy that would have found Clouzot using experimental techniques of a sort never ...
- 7/15/2010
- avclub.com
Terence Davies gets ready to go back behind the camera; Pixie Lott prepares for a stage role in StreetDance; the stars queue up to star in Nick Love's revamp of 70s cop show The Sweeney
Hidden gemsGlasses were raised to 75 years of the Bfi archive on London's Southbank last week. Guests attending a screening – on the original combustible nitrate print – of The Yearling, starring Gregory Peck and Jane Wyman, included Stephen Frears, Barbet Schroeder, Diana Quick and a very tanned Terence Davies, just returned from the Midnight Sun film festival in Finland, where there was a restrospective of his films. "God knows it's depressing enough there during the winter — quite why they'd want to sit through my films during their sunny months escapes me," he chuckled.
Davies was clearly buzzing that he might be filming again soon. His acclaimed 2008 memoir, Of Time and the City, seemed to have revived...
Hidden gemsGlasses were raised to 75 years of the Bfi archive on London's Southbank last week. Guests attending a screening – on the original combustible nitrate print – of The Yearling, starring Gregory Peck and Jane Wyman, included Stephen Frears, Barbet Schroeder, Diana Quick and a very tanned Terence Davies, just returned from the Midnight Sun film festival in Finland, where there was a restrospective of his films. "God knows it's depressing enough there during the winter — quite why they'd want to sit through my films during their sunny months escapes me," he chuckled.
Davies was clearly buzzing that he might be filming again soon. His acclaimed 2008 memoir, Of Time and the City, seemed to have revived...
- 7/10/2010
- by Jason Solomons
- The Guardian - Film News
There's a very fluffy cat in MR73. And I mean very fluffy. Strangely, it's this furry feline that holds the key to what makes Olivier Marchal's police thriller tick. The third film in the policeman-turned-film director's thematic trilogy on police corruption, MR73 follows the Heat-esque 36 Quai Des Orfèvres (2004) and Gangsters (2002) as a bleak and stylish vision of modern policing in France. Whilst Orfèvres was the best received (nominated for 8 Cesar Awards) and had the double act of Depardieu and Auteuil to create some extra PR, it's perhaps MR73 that's the most uncompromising.
Again starring the superb Auteuil, it centres on his washed-up, alcoholic Marseille cop, Schneider. Whilst investigating a gruesome series of present day murders, he chances upon the daughter of a murdered couple whose killer he put away 25 years ago. Only it's parole time, and said murderer is getting released. With a wife on life support, a dead daughter,...
Again starring the superb Auteuil, it centres on his washed-up, alcoholic Marseille cop, Schneider. Whilst investigating a gruesome series of present day murders, he chances upon the daughter of a murdered couple whose killer he put away 25 years ago. Only it's parole time, and said murderer is getting released. With a wife on life support, a dead daughter,...
- 4/28/2010
- Screen Anarchy
PARIS -- L'Esquive (The Dodging), a small-budget drama about alienated youth in a French suburb, was the surprise winner at France's top honors, the Cesars, on Saturday night, scooping up the coveted award for best French film of 2004, and the best director Cesar for its helmer, Tunisia-born Abdellatif Kechiche. Sofia Coppola's Lost in Translation won the Cesar for best foreign film, while Ken Loach's Ae Fond Kiss and Emir Kusturica's Life Is a Miracle tied to share the award for the best film from the European Union. Shot with a largely amateur cast of teenagers, L'Esquive also won the best screenplay award for Kechiche and co-writer Ghalia Lacroix. The $1 million film fended off strong competition from big-budget films including Jean-Pierre Jeunet's World War I drama, A Very Long Engagement, Olivier Marchal's police thriller 36 Quai des Orfevres, starring Daniel Auteuil and Gerard Depardieu, and the small-budget French boxoffice triumph of the year, The Chorus, which will vie for two Oscars Sunday: best foreign language film, and best original song.
- 2/27/2005
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
PARIS -- L'Esquive (The Dodging), a small-budget drama about alienated youth in a French suburb, was the surprise winner at France's top honors, the Cesars, on Saturday night, scooping up the coveted award for best French film of 2004, and the best director Cesar for its helmer, Tunisia-born Abdellatif Kechiche. Sofia Coppola's Lost in Translation won the Cesar for best foreign film, while Ken Loach's Ae Fond Kiss and Emir Kusturica's Life Is a Miracle tied to share the award for the best film from the European Union. Shot with a largely amateur cast of teenagers, L'Esquive also won the best screenplay award for Kechiche and co-writer Ghalia Lacroix. The $1 million film fended off strong competition from big-budget films including Jean-Pierre Jeunet's World War I drama, A Very Long Engagement, Olivier Marchal's police thriller 36 Quai des Orfevres, starring Daniel Auteuil and Gerard Depardieu, and the small-budget French boxoffice triumph of the year, The Chorus, which will vie for two Oscars Sunday: best foreign language film, and best original song.
- 2/27/2005
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
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