Happy Birthday, Henri-Georges Clouzot! Born today in 1907, this French screenwriter, producer and film director is best remembered for his work in the thriller film genre, two of which are critically recognized as among the greatest films from the 1950s.
Clouzot was born in Niort, Deux-Sèvres, France. He was the first of three children in a middle-class family. Clouzot showed talent by writing plays and playing piano recitals.
In 1922, Clouzot's father's book store went bankrupt. Because of this, the family moved to Brest. While there, his father became an auctioneer.
In Brest, Clouzot went to Naval School. However, he was unable to become a Naval Cadet due to his myopia.
At the age of eighteen, Clouzot left for Paris to study political science.
While living there, he became friends with several magazine editors. His writing talents eventually led him to theater and cinema as a playwright, lyricist and adaptor-screenwriter.
The quality of his work led French film producer Adolphe Osso to hire him and send him to Germany to work in Studio Babelsberg in Berlin, Germany, translating scripts for foreign language films shot there.
Throughout the 1930s, Clouzot worked by writing and translating scripts, dialogue and occasionally lyrics for over twenty films.
While living in Germany, Clouzot saw the films of F. W. Murnau and Fritz Lang and was deeply influenced by their expressionist style.
In 1935, Clouzot was diagnosed with tuberculosis and was sent first to Southeastern France and then to Switzerland, where he was bedridden for nearly five years in all. However, Clouzot's time in the sanatorium would be very influential on his career.
While bedridden, Clouzot read constantly and learned the mechanics of storytelling to help improve his scripts. He also studied the fragile nature of the other people in the sanatorium.
Clouzot had little money during this period, and was provided with financial and moral support by his family and friends.
By the time Clouzot left the sanatorium and returned to Paris, World War II had broken out. During this time, French cinema had changed because many of the producers he had known had fled France to escape Nazism. Unfortunately, Clouzot's health problems kept him from military service.
In the 1940s, after the liberation of France, Clouzot and several other directors were tried in court for collaborating with the Germans. For his sentence, Clouzot was forbidden from going on set of any film or from using a film camera for the rest of his life.
Later, Clouzot received letters of support from filmmakers and artists Jean Cocteau ('Beauty and the Beast', 'Orpheus') René Clair ('Le Million', 'Freedom for Us'), and Marcel Carné ('Daybreak', 'Children of Paradise') who were against the ruling.
Another supporter was French philosopher, playwright, novelist, screenwriter, political activist, biographer, and literary critic John-Paul Satre, of whom was also against the ruling.
Clouzot's sentence was later shortened from life to two years. There is no official document making note of any apology or appeal.
During his two-year banishment from filming, Clouzot worked with one of his supporters, Sartre, of whom had been one of the first people to defend Clouzot's 1943 French black and white thriller/mystery film 'Le Corbeau' ('The Raven').
Despite the film becoming a success in France, it had caused serious problems for its director after World War II as it had been produced by Continental Films, a German production company established near the beginning of the Occupation of France.
This was also because the film had been perceived by the underground and the Communist press as vilifying the French people.
Because of this, Clouzot was initially banned for life from directing in France, but after protests only until 1947. The film itself was suppressed until 1969.
In 1950, Clouzot married Véra Gibson-Amado, (known professionally as Véra Clouzot.
After Clouzot's ban was lifted, he reestablished his reputation and popularity during the late 1940s. However, it was in the early and mid-1950s that Clouzot came to be fully embraced by international critics and audiences.
In the early 1950s, Clouzot co-wrote and directed the first film of which he is best known.
This was the 1953 French/Italian black and white thriller/drama film 'Le salaire de la peur' ('The Wages of Fear'). It was based off of French author Georges Arnaud's 1950 novel of the same name.
Set in a squalid South American jungle, supplies of nitroglycerine are needed at a remote oil field. The oil company pays four men to deliver the supplies in two trucks.
However, a tense rivalry develops between the two desperate sets of drivers on a treacherous mountain route where even the slightest jolt can result in suicide.
The result is one of the greatest thrillers ever committed to celluloid; a white-knuckle ride from France’s legendary master of suspense.
Upon its premiere, the film brought Clouzot international fame—winning both the Golden Bear and the Palme d'Or at the 6th Cannes Film Festival in April and the 3rd Berlin Film Festival in June, respectively.
In France, 'The Wages of Fear' was the fourth highest-grossing film of the year with a total of six million admissions.
This enabled Clouzot to co-write, produce and direct the second and final film of which he is best known.
This was the 1955 French black and white psychological horror thriller film 'Les Diaboliques'. In the United States and variously translated as 'The Devils' or 'The Fiends'.
It is based on the prolific French crime-writing duo Pierre Boileau and Pierre Ayraud's 1951 psychological suspense mystery crime fiction novel Celle qui n'était plus (She Who Was No More).
In this classic of French suspense, the cruel and abusive headmaster of a boarding school, Michel Delassalle (Paul Meurisse), becomes the target of a murder plot hatched by an unlikely duo -- his meek wife Christina Delassalle (Véra Clouzot) and the strapping mistress he brazenly flaunts, Nicole Horner (Simone Signoret).
The women, brought together by their mutual hatred for the man, pull off the crime but become increasingly unhinged by a series of odd occurrences after Delassalle's corpse mysteriously disappears.
With its unprecedented narrative twists and terrifying images, 'Les Diaboliques' is a heart-grabbing benchmark in horror filmmaking, featuring outstanding performances.
In France, 'Les Diaboliques' was the tenth-highest grossing film of the year in France, with a total of three million admissions.
Alfred Hitchcock considered Clouzot a very serious rival for the title of Master of Suspense, and 'Psycho' (1960) was put into production because Hitchcock specifically intended to outdo 'Les Diaboliques'.
However, Clouzot actually beat Hitchcock in buying the rights to 'Les Diaboliques' with a margin of just a few hours. Instead, Clouzot filmed it as 'Diabolique'.
American fiction writer Robert Bloch, the author of the 1959 horror novel Psycho, stated in an interview that his all-time favorite horror film was 'Les Diaboliques'.
It had been 'Les Diaboliques' that had anticipated elements of Hitchcock's 'Vertigo' (1958) by several years and served as source material for numerous television and film screenwriters alike.
Shortly after the filming of 'La Vérité' ('The Truth') (1960), Véra passed from a heart attack in December. She was 46. Afterwards, Clouzot fell into a depression over her death.
After her funeral, Clouzot moved to Tahiti, but returned to France in December the following year. He later named his production company after her, Véra Films.
It was also in the 1960s, however, that the influential film critics of Cahiers du Cinéma had unfortunately dismissed the established Clouzot's work as facile, unimportant entertainments.
In the late 1970s, William Friedkin ('The French Connection', 'The Exorcist') remade 'The Wages of Fear' as the 1977 American neo-noir adventure/drama thriller film 'Sorcerer'.
Although Friedkin had greater technical resources, Clouzot's editing selected each moment correctly that you can see where Friedkin (and a lot of other directors) got their inspiration.
Said Clouzot on editing: "I started as an editor, which is very important. I am always in the cutting room. I think you can't write properly unless you are an editor.
I always have the cutting in mind when I'm shooting. Very often I look at my watch and say it's good for twenty seconds and not more."
In March 1992, Roger Ebert wrote of 'The Wages of Fear': "One thing that establishes "The Wages of Fear" as a film from the early 1950s, and not from today, is its attitude toward happy endings. Modern Hollywood thrillers cannot end in tragedy for its heroes, because the studios won't allow it.
"The Wages of Fear" is completely free to let anything happen to any of its characters, and if all four are not dead when the nitro reaches the blazing oil well, it may be because Clouzot is even more deeply ironic than we expect.
The last scene, where a homebound truck is intercut with a celebration while a Strauss waltz plays on the radio, is a reminder of how much Hollywood has traded away by insisting on the childishness of the obligatory happy ending."
In February 1995, Ebert wrote of 'Les Diaboliques': "The movie has fun with the usual whodunit details: The split-second timetables, and the sleepy old guard who must open the gates to let anyone in or out of the school grounds. The Inspector also amuses himself reconstructing timetables and quizzing a small student who seems to see and hear impossible things.
Then comes the ending, inspired by "Gaslight," in which a woman is either going mad, or nothing is as it seems. "Diabolique" is so well constructed that even today it works on its intended level - up until, say, the last 30 seconds."
Along with the release of 'Les Diaboliques' came an equally famous story: A man wrote to Alfred Hitchcock: "Sir, after seeing 'Diabolique,' my daughter was afraid to take a bath. Now she has seen your 'Psycho' and is afraid to take a shower. What should I do with her?" Hitchcock replied: "Send her to the dry cleaners."
Once touted as "The French Hitchcock," Clouzot was known as much for his turbulent personal life as for his indelible contributions to modern cinema.
Acclaimed in particular for his thrillers, Clouzot was one of the genuine rivals to Hitchcock and, at his peak, seemed to anticipate the moves of the better-known English director. enjoyed a forty-year career in films in his native France.
Though Clouzot is remembered for his work in the thriller film genre, he saw his reputation rise and fall amid the changing tastes of audiences and critics, both at home and internationally.
His films are typically relentless suspense thrillers, similar to Hitchcock's but with far less light relief.
Although chronic illness and personal hardships kept him from regaining his vaunted status during his lifetime, history would soon place Clouzot as one of the most influential and important filmmakers of the 20th century.
Also nicknamed La Clouze, Clouzot had been active from 1931–1968.
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