Trending
    • Jasmin Mozaffari’s short film ‘Motherland, wins TIFF award
    • Poor Thing, Wins Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival
    • Toronto Film Festival 2023
    • Iranian Influential Women: Rakhshan Bani-Etemad
    • Sundance Film Festival Asia
    • Enea, review
    • French rising star, Adèle Exarchopoulos, 4 top favorite movies
    • Cinematography director Morteza Pursamadi dies at 70
    Facebook Twitter Instagram
    Cinema Without Borders
    • Home
    • Feature Story
    • News
    • Conversations
    • Festivals
    • Cinema Tech
    • Film Reviews
    • CinéEqual
    • Other Arts
    • Archives
    Facebook Twitter Instagram
    Cinema Without Borders
    You are at:Home»Film Reviews»Henri-Georges Clouzot's Inferno

    Henri-Georges Clouzot's Inferno

    0
    By Robin Menken on 08/01/2010 Film Reviews

    Directors Serge Bromberg (a famed film restorer) and Ruxandra Medrea have resurrected Henri-Georges Clouzot’s ill-fated, legendary “Inferno“.

    After a chance meeting in a stalled elevator, Clouzot’s widow, Inès Clouzot, gave access to all the surviving footage (15 hours). Out of this stunning, experimental, op art and early psychedelic footage, Bromberg has crafted both a demi-reconstruction and a tale of what went wrong with the production. Interviews with cast and crew, including Catherine Allégret, future director (then 1st AD) Costa-Gavras and future cinematographer (then camera assistant) William Lubtchansky detail a fascinating story of artistic hubris.

    Like “Lost In La Mancha“, Fulton and Pepe’s study of “Quixote”, the Gilliam film that died after extensive pre-production, Bromberg and Medrea’s film is haunted by the wonders of an unfinished project by a visionary filmmaker.

    Clouzot lived for ten years at the hub of France’s cultural scene, Paul Roux’s famed inn, the Columbe D’or, in Saint Paul de Vence. Inn-mates included Sergio Reggiani, Yves Montand, Simone Signoret and her daughter (with director Yves Allégret), Catherine Allégre. Clouzot offered a part to the novice actress Allégret.

    Veteran director Clouzot had produced classic thrillers like “Le Corbeau”, “The Wages of Fear”, and “Diabolique”. Based on his bold visual experiments into subjective pov, Columbia Pictures gave Clouzot Carte blanche and an unlimited budget. Exacting Clouzot was sandbagged by the budget.

    Clouzot’s choice of location- the remote Hotel Garabit in the Cantal, with its lake and a train viaduct, left the production only 4 weeks of exterior shots before the artificial lake would be drained for a power generator (an impossible task because of Clouzot’s endless reshoots.)

    Clouzot, an insomniac, would summon cast and crew at any time of day or night, driving himself and his cast to the point of breakdown, obsessively reshooting sequences. Clouzot liked to drive his actors till they cracked, shooting the vulnerability that followed catharsis. Crew and cast members, who had looked forward to working on a “historic” film, lost faith. Clouzot drove Reggiani so hard; he quit the project, leaving a half-finished film without a star. Clouzot’s attempt to recast Jean-Louis Trintignant failed and the director suffered a heart attack.

    Inspired by Fellini’s stylistically groundbreaking “8 1/2“, and by the innovations of the Nouvelle Vague directors, Clouzot developed a battery of cinematic techniques to illustrate the inner monologue of a husband driven crazy by jealousy. Seeking a new “plastic representation,” Clouzot commissioned famed kinetic artist Jean-Pierre Yvarel (Vasarely) to reconstruct certain of his kinetic sculptures in the film studio. Ultimately Yvarel (and effects artist Joel Stein) created radical special effects. Pre-production became an experimental lab for the artists, as Clouzot sought a way to integrate his actors into the challenging kinetic images.

    Bromberg illustrates the 60’s fascination with Kinetic sculpture and Op art with shots of a Courrèges fashion shoot.

    Clouzot commissioned electro-pop star Glbert Any to develop a sound design of distorted and overlapping voices that would suck the audience into Marcel’s descent into madness. Clouzot’s sound design, using distortion and a mix of acoustic and electronic music remained radical for decades.

    Clouzot had a dream cast. Serge Reggiani played Marcel and 26-year old Romy Schneider, at the height of her beauty, plays the cheating wife Odette. Scenes with leads Reggiani and Schneider make one long to see the completed film.

    To work with, Bromberg had completed scenes (minus soundtracks) and meticulous tests ranging from costume and lenses to kinetic-art optical effects. Bromberg assembled the film, using actors Bérénice Bejo and Jacques Gamblin to over dub and stage-read the missing scenes.

    There are sensual fragments. A sequence with Schneider water ski-ing is tantalizing, as are group scenes on the hotel terrace. Two women (Schneider and Dany Carrel) make out on a boat (Clouzot was working on this scenes when he had the heart attack.) Even with greened skin and blue lips (as part of a color inversion technique to turn the lake blood-red) Schneider is a haunting femme fatale.

    The experimental reels are the glory of the film, substantiating Clouzot’s vision. Seeking a cinematic expressionism, Clouzot proposed realistic scenes in black and white and fantasy sequences of dramatic color reversals. Anticipating their use in film, Clouzot assembled a battery of techniques that were familiar to gallery and Museumgoers of the day. Before Bergman’s “Persona“, Clouzot doubled and morphed faces together, as if to illustrate their psychological enmeshment. Revolving lights bathe close-ups of Schneider’s face, the shadows on her features. As the lights alternate, swinging shadows distort her features, portraying the psychological depths of paranoid jealousy in a way we have never seen before. Blinking eyes, infertile and intense, swirl in a kaleidoscopic effect. Oiled and cellophaned, Schneider seduces the camera. William Lubtchansky describes the constant experiments. “I became a specialist on optical coitus.”

    Near the end of the film, Bromberg crafts a sequence with Clouzot as his protagonist. To illustrate the dilemma of a director who’s lost his bearings Bromberg superimposes Clouzot on a crowd scene, wandering, searching like one of Marcel’s fantasies. It’s a coup de cinéma.

    Share. Facebook Twitter Pinterest LinkedIn Tumblr Email
    Robin Menken

    Robin Menken Robin Menken lives in Los Angeles. She was the Artistic Director of the Second City Workshops, taught at UC Berkeley, USC, Barcelona\'s Ateneu and the Esalin Institute. She was Roberto Rossellini\'s assistant, and worked with Yevgeny Vevteshenku, Glauber Rocha and Eugene Ionesco. She sold numerous screenplays and wrote the OBIE winning The FTA SHow (touring with Jane Fonda, Donald Sutherland and Ben Vereen.) She was a programming consultant and Special Events co-ordinator for numerous film festivals, including the SF, Rio, Havana and N.Y Film Festivals. Her first news outlet was the historic East Village Other.

    Related Posts

    Enea, review

    Finally Dawn, Review

    Between Two Worlds, Review

    Leave A Reply Cancel Reply

    You must be logged in to post a comment.



    Most donations are tax deductible.
    Latest Stories
    09/19/2023

    Jasmin Mozaffari’s short film ‘Motherland, wins TIFF award

    09/10/2023

    Poor Thing, Wins Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival

    09/07/2023

    Toronto Film Festival 2023

    09/07/2023

    Iranian Influential Women: Rakhshan Bani-Etemad

    Bridging The Border Award

    At a time when physical, religious, racial, cultural, and economic borders divide the population of our planet, efforts to bridge those borders should be appreciated. In that spirit, Cinema Without Borders presents Bridging the Borders Award to the films that are most successful in bridging and …Read More

     

    I, Immigrant, International Film Festival
    CineEqual

    CinéEqual represents filmmakers, institutions, and community members with a focus on social justice cinema. As an integrated unit of CWB, it promotes a diverse, inclusive, and equitable democratic society that values the worth of all humans…Read More

     

    About
    About

    Cinema Without Borders is a meeting place of independent cinema. Based in Los Angeles, CWB puts the spotlight on rising talent around the globe to achieve its mission, which is to serve and strengthen communities of filmmakers and film students across real and virtual borders.

    Copyright Cinema Without Borders@2018

    Popular Posts
    01/02/2001

    Cinecon 46-The 46th edition of the Classic Film Festival

    10/09/2006

    An Interview with Jonathan Wolf, Managing Director of AFM

    10/11/2006

    Film & TV production in Afghanistan

    Article Photos
    NasserFarhoudiWP
    SiggrpphSlider
    FundingCoverImage
    6-RADUSlider
    Nouredin-WP-Slider
    NOHOFestival-WP-Slider
    MiamiFF-WP-Slider
    MarkTamez-WP-Slider
    LouderThanBombs-WP-Slider
    HP-Rick-WP-Slider
    HP-Bridging-2-WP-Slider
    HP-Bridging-1-WP-Slider
    Contacts & Credits

    Type above and press Enter to search. Press Esc to cancel.