 | Henri-Georges Clouzot was a pivotal and divisive figure of Forties and Fifties French cinema, often referred to as ‘the French Hitchcock’ as he dealt in misanthropic, black-humoured tales of greed, jealousy, murder, immorality, and revenge. The films we also stinging critiques of bourgeois society and had an unflinching view of the sordid side of life… |
Henri-Georges Clouzot was a pivotal and divisive figure of Forties and Fifties French cinema, often referred to as ‘the French Hitchcock’ as he dealt in misanthropic, black-humoured tales of greed, jealousy, murder, immorality, and revenge. The films we also stinging critiques of bourgeois society and had an unflinching view of the sordid side of life…
The film is nowhere near as sinister as the shocking ‘Les Diaboliques’ [1966] as tragic or as the riveting ‘Wages of Fear’ [1953] or as chilling as ‘Le Corbeau’. It is however surely one of the finest pieces of French noir… Quai des Orfèvres is nominally a ‘policier’ – a crime story, less a mystery than a police procedural; its title, referring to the Parisian equivalent of Scotland Yard, announces it.
Clouzot himself was not especially interested in the whodunit aspect, bur rather he both understands and likes his characters.
The central figure Antoine (played by Louis Jouvet) is a maimed Foreign Legionnaire turned police inspector – he is a stiff and fairly forlorn detective – a sort of cross between Columbo and Maigret – charming and likeable.
This is played out most effectively over his dedication to his little boy, adopted as an orphan in the French colonies; it’s a warm but unconventional relationship. He is the centre of the films microcosm, the universe and fraternity of the police force as he displays well-seasoned instincts. Although the police procedures are heavy-handed and Antoine exhibits a categorical disinterest in women the film joyfully plays with this cynical character study, which also does masquerade as a murder mystery.
The film is a seemingly effortless evocation of the low life in 1940s unglamorous Paris – a shadowed, intimate, but open world through which ugly and beautiful, young and old, victim, suspect, and pursuer move freely – it is a world of belonging – everyone seems connected with everyone else.
The motifs of marital infidelity and jealousy appear in almost all Clouzot’s films. Central couple Maurice Martineau (Bernard Blier) and Jenny Lamour (Suzy Delair) certainly make a rather odd couple: he is melancholy, tormented, almost aggressively unattractive; she is ripe to the point of bursting, a walking pin up shot.
The use of sound ensures that the most intense moments always occur against some cacophony, whether of women, typewriters or rehearsing instruments. The films’ pace is smooth and fluid – Clouzot’s taste for oblique angles and confusing compositions as well as the series of opaque, disorienting scenarios add to the unsettling feeling. The classic whodunit murder mystery film was a big success commercially on its release and won Clouzot the Best Director prize at the Venice Film Festival. A true French classic and a very entertaining story
The film is nowhere near as sinister as the shocking ‘Les Diaboliques’ [1966] as tragic or as the riveting ‘Wages of Fear’ [1953] or as chilling as ‘Le Corbeau’. It is however surely one of the finest pieces of French noir… Quai des Orfèvres is nominally a ‘policier’ – a crime story, less a mystery than a police procedural; its title, referring to the Parisian equivalent of Scotland Yard, announces it.
Clouzot himself was not especially interested in the whodunit aspect, bur rather he both understands and likes his characters.
The central figure Antoine (played by Louis Jouvet) is a maimed Foreign Legionnaire turned police inspector – he is a stiff and fairly forlorn detective – a sort of cross between Columbo and Maigret – charming and likeable.
This is played out most effectively over his dedication to his little boy, adopted as an orphan in the French colonies; it’s a warm but unconventional relationship. He is the centre of the films microcosm, the universe and fraternity of the police force as he displays well-seasoned instincts. Although the police procedures are heavy-handed and Antoine exhibits a categorical disinterest in women the film joyfully plays with this cynical character study, which also does masquerade as a murder mystery.
The film is a seemingly effortless evocation of the low life in 1940s unglamorous Paris – a shadowed, intimate, but open world through which ugly and beautiful, young and old, victim, suspect, and pursuer move freely – it is a world of belonging – everyone seems connected with everyone else.
The motifs of marital infidelity and jealousy appear in almost all Clouzot’s films. Central couple Maurice Martineau (Bernard Blier) and Jenny Lamour (Suzy Delair) certainly make a rather odd couple: he is melancholy, tormented, almost aggressively unattractive; she is ripe to the point of bursting, a walking pin up shot.
The use of sound ensures that the most intense moments always occur against some cacophony, whether of women, typewriters or rehearsing instruments. The films’ pace is smooth and fluid – Clouzot’s taste for oblique angles and confusing compositions as well as the series of opaque, disorienting scenarios add to the unsettling feeling. The classic whodunit murder mystery film was a big success commercially on its release and won Clouzot the Best Director prize at the Venice Film Festival. A true French classic and a very entertaining story
