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.  The sequel finds Lavardin investigating the death of a husband of his old flame.  The first film is a challenging whodunit that find Chabrol embracing his typical cast of eccentric but likable characters. Lavardin’s arrival on the scene is a bit of a shock; and his Dirty Harry tactics even more so.  Poiret is icily charming but borderline sociopathic.  Which him an odd choice to anchor the follow-up film – a much more conventional mystery – in which the character ironically becomes less interesting with more screen time.  Both films, however, offer a good jolt of Knives Out-style shenanigans and hew closely to Chabrol’s obsession with the darker side of rural life.

 

In that sense, his adaptation of Madame Bovary (1991) fits quite well into the oeuvre, retelling Gustave Flaubert’s classic story of a farmgirl whose desperate attempt at social climbing brings ruin to herself and all those spurned to improve her station.  Although she might not fit Flaubert’s visual description of the title character, actress Isabelle Huppert radiates a frightening cunning and ambitious rage, turning in a performance you can’t turn away from.  It’s the one great accomplishment of Chabrol’s film, which is excellently acted all around, but rarely dynamic in any other sense besides a truly stunning ballroom sequence.

                   

1992’s Betty, starring Marie Trintignant (daughter of Chabrol collaborator Jean-Louis), is a gut-punch of a comeback for Chabrol, which co-stars his ex-wife (and collaborator) Stephane Audran as a good Samaritan who takes in a disgraced debutante whose insatiable appetite for sex, booze and self-destruction has finally caught up with a vengeance.  Betty often plays the victim – and the film lures us in with such sympathy – but the film’s non-linear revelations ultimately paint her in a much different light.  Madam Bovary must have still been top-of-mind, but the director actually pulls off something much darker….and much more interesting. 

 

But it’s Torment (1994) that find Chabrol pulling out all the stops for a psychological tragedy that pushes and pulls at audience expectations in fine fashion.  Paul and his wife Nelly run a successful resort, but their relationship slowly comes undone and Paul suspects his wife of various infidelities.  And the paranoia ramps up, Chabrol’s film becomes a much more serious affair than a mere extramarital affair.  With a pair of intense performances from both Emmanuelle Beart and Francois Cluzet in the lead roles, Torment (based on an unfinished film by Henri-Georges Clouzot) gathers momentum brilliantly as Chabrol leads things to a crushingly ambiguous conclusion.

 

Featuring new 4K restorations of Madam Bovary, Betty and Torment, Arrow’s five disc set is sure to give each title a bump in respect.  And for those new to Chabrol there is a wealth of extras, including commentaries on each film, visual essays, interviews and Q & As, plus an 80-page collector’s booklet.  Chabrol may not have had the autuerist tendencies of his fellow French New Wave directors, but Arrow’s set proves his instincts never failed him even toward the end of a monumental career.

 

 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Tormented

Image
The west coast always struggled to create a creepy atmosphere on screen.  All that southern California sunshine just doesn’t lend itself to ghostly apparitions or gothic castles.  But  Tormented  (1960) gives it a good try, staging its opening scene in an abandoned lighthouse where blackmail turns into murder - and one cover up leads to another.  Director Bert I. Gordon, better known for his giant-sized - but low-budget - monster movies, works well at this level, turning in a film that delivers small scares but perhaps his most  professional finished product. Tom Stewart (played by genre regular Richard Carlson) is a fairly successful jazz pianist whose impending marriage to Meg Hubbard (Susan Gordon) will put him in an entirely new tax bracket.  Trouble is his old flame, Vi (Juli Reding), isn’t taking this lying down.  After  allowing  her to fall to her death in the opening scene, Tom is haunted by disembo...
Read more

All Ladies Do It / Frivolous Lola

Image
Every semi-professional review of erotica probably starts off with the same question:  what’s the difference between porn and art?  The internet age has essentially done away with foreplay; sex is merely the act of completion itself, minus the threat of any malware or suspicious browser activity.  But the work of Italian director Tinto Brass, for all its leering upskirt shots of derrieres and pubic hair, still communicates something that websites like Pornhub never will:  the art of seduction.  All Ladies Do It  (1992), a breezy sexual adventure, follows Diana (Claudia Koll) whose marriage is threatened by her fantasies of dalliances with other men, stories her husband believes are nothing more than exciting role play.  But her loose definition of adultery inspires plenty of promiscuous hook-ups, taking advantage of any (ahem)  loophole  that provides a quick thrill.   Flirting with some hardcore sequences (there...
Read more

The Cat and the Canary

Image
My favorite directors have always been showoffs:  Hitchcock, DePalma, Spielberg (when he’s feeling frisky) and gonzo auteurs like Sam Raimi.  There’s just something about their cinematic ambition, constantly reminding the audience that, yes, there actually  is  someone behind the camera calling the shots.  And that directorial discontent shines through even in the early days of the medium, such as Paul Leni’s 1927 adaptation of  The Cat and the Canary .  While the rest of the industry was still learning the basics of visual language, Leni fills his frame with tracking shots, POVs and dramatic lighting that set the standard for every spook show to come!  Gathered for the reading of the last will and testament of eccentric recluse Cyrus West,  the potential heirs meet up in his decrepit mansion to discover who will inherit the estate and family jewels.  Predictably there is some petty jealousy when young Annab...
Read more