Ah - another new Director - and another new story about a fascinating film.
Diabolique is a 1955 thriller directed by Henri-Georges Clouzet - Now I never heard of him but apparently he's a master of the thriller genre in France and this may be his best known work.
What makes this particularly fascinating for me is I had no idea how influential this film is. Watching it, you are reminded of many elements of suspense thrillers, but many of them borrow from this - This is one of the first films to truly use some of these elements which would become so well known, and almost cliche, in modern Suspense thrillers.
The movie goes so far out of it's way to protect the ending that there is a warning at the end of the movie to NOT spoil the ending for friends coming to view it - so there you go - all I need to say is two women plot to kill the abusive husband of one of them and it goes downhill from there - LOL
I guess Hitchcock was so impressed with this he bought rights to the next book written by the author who wrote the story this movie was based on, and that became Vertigo. There are also some interesting homages, or influences likely in Hitchcock's Psycho to scenes in this movie. Of course, Alfred would become more famous, but he would try for years to match the level of suspense that this movie put out. As film standards and audiences opened up, he would get a chance but at this time, French audiences were more open than American audiences. (The two women are the wife and mistress, respectively, of the abusive schoolmaster - would that kind of adultery be given free reign among characters in a US movie? Nah.)
Some great special features on the dvd including commentary on scenes, and film essays on the film and how Clouzet did his work where he was a kind of guy who was into ultra realism, even going so far as making his actors eat rotten fish in a scene where there is conflict over the Headmaster's decision to purchase mediocre quality fish. Most directors would at least let them eat good stuff - I guess he was also a fan of 30 or 40 takes in some scenes.
Whatever you do, don't confuse this with the 1996 Sharon Stone version - ugh..
RB
No comments:
Post a Comment