Die Hölle von Henri-Georges Clouzot

When reading up on Henri-Georges Clouzot,I was always intrigued to hear about a documentary about an unfinished film of Clouzot's. Looking on Amazon UK at the most recent Arrow releases,I was thrilled to find they had recently put the doc out,which led to me stepping into the inferno.

View on the doc:

Complimenting the doc with 2 hours of extra interviews, Arrow deliver a splendid Blu-Ray transfer,with the raw original footage shown looking sharp,and the subtitles being well-paced and easy to read. Gaining access to the archive material from Henri-Georges Clouzot's (HGC) widow, directors Serge Bromberg & Ruxandra Medrea make glimpses at what could have been the star attraction, with HGC's experimentation to give the dream sequences of the husband a colourful surreal appearance, and a still ground-breaking use of multi-tracking to manipulate the soundtrack. Interviewing surviving crew members and re-enacting un-filmed scenes with future The Artist star Bérénice Bejo, the directors do not shy away from HGC very rough treatment of the cast,and the frustrations from the crew over HGC's being unable to express a clear vision over what the finished production should look like,leading to Inferno being left in the inferno of unfinished (could have been) classics.

Documentaries rarely come more fascinating than this. Clouzot's lost masterpiece, abandoned when the director suffered a heart attack during the interminable shooting of it. The interviews with Catherine Allégret, Costa Gavras and other participants in Clouzot's project are informative, particularly on the subject of the experimental sound track and the innovations in use of film stock that turned water red. But it is the human drama, not the technological wizardry that fascinates here. Clouzot simply took on too much: writing, directing and producing, as well as overseeing all aspects of casting, music, art direction... The American studio gave him too much money and power for this project, and this almost destroyed him.

Jacques Gamblin and Bérénice Bejo take over the parts Reggiani and Schneider played, and they flesh out the story well enough. (See Cluzet and Béart in Chabrol's remake for a really great experience.) I went to see the footage with Romy Schneider, and I wasn't disappointed. She was the most beautiful of European actresses, and Clouzot's camera adores her. Romy smoking, Romy with a blue tongue, Romy trussed naked on a train track, Romy being followed through the town by Reggiani. Rest assured, I will be getting the DVD.

This is not legend ,this is fact:HG Clouzot was one of the most important French directors of all time .He is the sole Frenchie who enjoys two movies in the IMDb top 250 and that means something for someone who worked before (and a bit) beyond the N.V.

The New Wave was one of the reason why HG Clouzot tackled a work which finally almost killed him.He was trashed by the Young Turks and he wanted to prove them that he too was able to produce creative innovative movies.Actually he had nothing to prove for,although he made only eleven movies and a half ,all of those movies (but one :"Miquette Et Sa Mère" ) were stunning achievements ."Manon" ,for instance,was anything but conventional or academic,transferring a novel from the eighteenth century to the Liberation in 1944."Les Espions" was so ahead of its time nobody in France understood it when it was released .His overlooked short from "Retour A La Vie" predated such works as "death and the maiden" by forty years .And I do not even mention his well-known -and sometimes more praised abroad than in his native country- "Corbeau" "Diaboliques "and "Salaire De La Peur" ,all classics everywhere.

The Nouvelle Vague could do nothing but put this genius down ;he represented all that they hated : elaborate screenplays,tyrannical actors direction(Serge Reggiani ,who,however ,had worked with "La Clouze" in "Manon" (1949)called it a day after some exhausting weeks and was replaced by Trintignant who reportedly did not do anything), skillful treatment of pictures :like Hitchcock ,he intensively used storyboards (with incredible results:"Reggiani under the bridge" has something downright disturbing) "L'Enfer" ,which was to be the follow-up to "la Vérité" ,was intended as something new ,at least in its form ,for as a voice over tells us ,the story is trite :jealousy is a hackneyed subject which had been treated many times ,notably brilliantly by Luis Bunuel ("El").Reality would be filmed in austere black and white -all Clouzot's movies but two are in B&W- whereas phantasms would be given the color treatment ;although the story was filmed on location in Auvergne ,the pictures were to be re-worked in the studio .And some of them are particularly impressive .Romy Schneider was perhaps never filmed as she was in this movie,in scenes which were risqué for 1963 :tied naked to the rails while a train is a coming,fooling around (in her husband's mind) with all the men around and even her best friend (Dany Carrel) -homosexuality was not a new subject for HGC :there was a lesbian in "Quai Des Orfèvres" (1947).

"L'Enfer" became really "L'Enfer" .HGC 's ambitions were finally too much for him (and his actors;HGC was not a nice director to be directed by:in her memoirs "La Nostalgie N'Est Plus Ce Qu'Elle Etait " ,Simone Signoret wrote "I had a rough time of it " about "Les Diaboliques" ) and he gave up.

Some of the innovations were used in the follow-up "La Prisonnière " (which was his final work in 1968) particularly in the scenes in Laurent Terzieff's apartment and in Elisabeth Wiener's psychedelic visions (not unlike those of Keir Dullea in "2001").

It was 1994 before Claude Chabrol made a movie based on HGC's screenplay.Of course his work was not what Clouzot intended to do (how could it?)but it was faithful to its spirit and generally looked upon as one of Chabrol's finest achievements.

Like this? try this.....

"Carnet De Naufrage" ,a documentary depicting the movie "La Fleur De L'Age "(1947).Marcel Carné was never able to see it through.Intended to be the follow up to "Les Portes De La Nuit" ,it was never finished and put an end to the Carné/Prévert collaboration.

This, apparently, is a film where you gain prestige by saying you like it, thereby associating yourself with the great insane folk of the past, always a sure way to build cred. In my view, if someone has to tell you that someone is (or was) great, they probably don't know what they are talking about. If your greatness is limited to a time or place, you're not great. Sorry, but that's the way it is.

In this case, the emperor has no clothes.

Half of the audience I saw this with could not bear to sit through it to the end, and like Serge and Jean-Louis, they simply walked out. If that was the desired effect, then the filmmakers did great -- at failing.

This film didn't know whether it wanted to tell the story IN the film, or the story OF the film, so it tried to do both, thus failing at both. You've got footage mixed in with experiment mixed in with interviews mixed in with acting, and then there's a soundtrack which we're told didn't exist.

What I liked most about the film was the experimental footage, but even that got old rather quickly. There's only so long a person can be dazzled by the idea of rotating a light about someone's face in different colours. We get it already. To be fair, there are a number of other quite interesting shots, including for some reason a sea of noses, and a sparkly cellophane strangulation.

I do hope to one day see the 1994 L'enfer, which was adapted from the 1964 failure. It currently has a 7.0 score on IMDb, so I hope it will be time well spent.

Okay, this is an insiders' movie for the die-hards, but it works for everyone.

The director presumably got the idea when he got stuck with Clouzot's widow in an elevator - he even thanks the elevator for its technical failure in the credits.

What do we learn? Overall, we learn about flawed genius, about how unlimited budgets can send a brilliant director off-track. we learn about how far actors will go to satisfy their director's requirements.

What do we see? First, being born in 1964, the year the movie was filmed, I loved the stilted, post-industrial surroundings at the lake and the hotel were the film was supposed to be set. I loved the costumes, the modernity and became totally nostalgic (to going back to being a baby, I suppose). Romy... Does it add anything we haven't seen from her? Perhaps not, but it sure is nice and especially to see her with Serge Reggiani who only makes her beauty shine more.

Does it work as a documentary? Yes, very well, in my humble opinion. The director does not ask (irrelevant) questions, but he simply presents the material and gives us an insight that perhaps, there was more than Clouzot's seizure to halt filming. He uses beautiful background music to make-up for the missing soundtrack. The dialogues read by two really good actors: well, perhaps it was a bit contrite, but I was thinking all the time that one of the things that would have been quite mediocre had the film been completed, would have been that: the dialogues were flat, boring and superficial (but the actors read them well).

My friend asked me: how many movies are there about a movie. Lots, but yesterday evening I could not think of one. But this is more, this is a documentary about a movie about failing to make a movie.

Highly recommended.