Henri-Georges Clouzot, beyond L’Enfer
Serge Bromberg's work of documenting the story of Clouzot's making of L'Enfer (starring Romy Schneider and Serge Reggiani) which was cut short in 1964 after only three weeks of shooting, is a chance for the Festival to pay tribute to the prolific Clouzot, who directed The Murderer Lives at Number 21, (L'Assassin habite... au 21), The Raven (Le Corbeau), The Quay of the Goldsmiths (Quai des Orfèvres), The Wages of Fear (Le Salaire de la peur) and Les Diaboliques.
Clouzot (born in Niort, western France, in 1907) started out as a journalist, while also writing scripts for Henry Decoin's Strangers in the House (Les Inconnus dans la maison), starring Raimu, and Georges Lacombe's The Last One of the Six (Le dernier des six), with Pierre Fresnay and Suzy Delair. The first film he directed was The Murderer Lives at Number 21 ((1942), which again brought together Fresnay and Delair. He then made The Raven (1943), about an anonymous letter-sender, which was very controversial at the time in German-occupied France, where people denounced and betrayed their fellow-citizens.
After the Liberation, Clouzot, unlike others who had worked for the German-founded company Continental-Films (which also made The Raven), escaped prison but was banned for life from making films. However, influential figures including Pierre Bost, Jacques Becker and Henri Jeanson had the ban dropped after two years and Clouzot went on to win prizes for The Quay of the Goldsmiths (1947, starring Louis Jouvet) and Manon (1949), both at the Venice film festival, and The Wages of Fear (1953), with Yves Montand and Charles Vanel, at Cannes. All three films were hugely popular.
Clouzot was a classical but incisive director, a perfectionist who sometimes terrorised actors. He was a moralist with an often gloomy view of society and made several other well-known films, including the police thriller Les Diaboliques (1955), featuring a murderous female pair played by Simone Signoret and Véra Clouzot. He also had a hit in 1956 with the documentary The Mystery of Picasso (Le Mystère Picasso), about the painter's methods and the inspiration for some of his works. Clouzot died in Paris in 1977.
Filmmaker Claude Chabrol in 1994 took over the script of L'Enfer, which Clouzot had abandoned 30 years earlier. The resulting film starred François Cluzet and Emmanuelle Béart in the roles Clouzot had picked for Romy Schneider and Serge Reggiani.
See IMDb entry
More on L'Enfer
Romy Schneider and Serge Reggiani in L’Enfer
© DR / Coll. Institut Lumière
Schneider in L’Enfer
© DR / Coll. Institut Lumière
Clouzot with Picasso at The Mystery of Picasso
© DR / Coll. Institut Lumière
