Lies & Deceit: Five Films by Claude Chabrol
By far the most mainstream of the Cahiers du cinema critics-turned-directors, Claude Chabrol was also the most prolific, averaging almost one film a year until his death in 2010. Often working within the Hitchcock-inspired framework of the thriller genre, the French director never received the acclaim and notoriety of contemporaries like Godard and Truffaut likely because his style hewed to the more formal visual constraints of classic Hollywood. But even his later work - such as those collected in Arrow’s new set Lies & Deceit: Five Films by Claude Chabrol – merit attention for his unique take on the flaws and (sometimes murderous) foibles of the bourgeois which lay hidden in plain sight. Cop Au Vin (1985) and Inspector Lavardin (1986) star Jean Poiret as the irascible and single-minded detective called upon to stir up the quiet French countryside in search of a killer. In the first film, it’s a real-estate swindle that turns deadly after a series of pranks gone wrong. T