User:Andrzejbanas/HGClouzot

Henri-Georges Clouzot (August 18, 1907 – January 12, 1977) was a French film director, screenwriter and producer. He is best remembered for his work in the thriller film genre, having directed The Wages of Fear (1953), Diabolique (1954) which are recognized as classics of the 1950s. Clouzot also directed documentary films, including The Mystery of Picasso which was declared a national treasure by the government of France.

Born into a middle class family in Niort, France Whale had an early fan of the cinema, but desired a career as a writer. Clouzot was later hired by producer Adolphe Osso to work in Berlin working on French-language versions of German films. After being fired from German studios due to his friendship with Jewish producers, Clouzot returned to France where he spent years bedridden after contracting tuberculosis. After recovering, Clouzot found work in Nazi occupied France as a screenwriter for the German owned company Continental Films. At Continental, Clouzot wrote and directed films that were very popular in France. His second film Le Corbeau drew controversy over its harsh look at provincial France and Clouzot was fired from Continental before it's release. Clouzot relationship with the German company Continental lead to him being barred from filmmaking until 1947.

After his ban was lifted, Clouzot reestablished his reputation and popularity in France during the late 1940s with succsessful films incluing Quai des Orfèvres (1947). After the release of his comedy film Manon (1949), Clouzot married Véra Gibson-Amado who would star in his next three feature films. In the early and mid-1950s Clouzot drew acclaim from international critics and audiences with the releases of The Wages of Fear and Diabolique. Both films serve as source material for numerous film remakes decades later. After the release of La Vérité (1960) Clouzot's wife Véra died of a heart attack and Clouzot's career suffered due to depression, illness and new critical views of films from the French New Wave. Clouzot's career was more minimal with a few television documentaries and two more feature films in the 1960s. Clouzot wrote several unused scripts in the 1970s and died in Paris on 1977.

Early years
Clouzot was born in Niort, France, the first of the three children in a middle class family. Clouzot showed talent at an early age by playing piano recitals at the age of four. Clouzot grew up with a passion for reading that was picked up by his mother Suzanne Clouzot and through his father who owned a book store. In 1922, Clouzot's father's bookstore went bankrupt and his family moved to Brest, France where Clouzot's father became an auctioneer. Clouzot's poor eyesight prevented him from training to become a naval cadet. Although Clouzot had a love of film that he shared with his siblings, Clouzot went to Naval School where he studied law and political science which led him to live in Paris, France. While living in Paris, Clouzot became friends with several magazine editors. Clouzot's writing talents led him to meet producer Adolphe Osso who hires Clouzot and sends him to Germany to work in Berlin studios translating scripts for foreign language films shot there.

Screenwriting career (1931–1942)
During his filming period in the 1930s Clouzot wrote and translated scripts, dialogue and occasionally lyrics for over twenty films. While living in Germany, Clouzot saw the films of F.W. Murnau and Fritz Lang and was deeply influenced by their German expressionism style. In 1931, Clouzot made his first short film La Terreur des Batignolles from a script by Jacques de Baroncelli. The film is a 15-minute comedy short with three actors. Film historian and critic Claude Beylie reported this short was "surprisingly well made with expressive use shadows and lighting contrasts that Clouzot would exploit on the full-length features he would make years later". Clouzot's later wife Inès de Gonzalez said in 2004 that La Terreur des Batignolles added nothing to Clouzot's reputation. In Berlin, Clouzot saw several parades for Adolph Hitler and was shocked at how oblivious he felt France was to what was happening in Germany. In 1934, Clouzot was fired from UFA Studios due to his friendship with Jewish film producers such as Adolphe Osso and Pierre Lazareffe.

In 1935, Clouzot is diagnosed with tuberculosis and is sent to Haute-Savoie and then to Switzerland where he was bedridden for nearly five years in total. Clouzot's time in the sanatorium would be very influential on his career. While bedridden, Clouzot reads constantly and learned the mechanics of story telling to help improve his scripts. Clouzot also studied the fragile nature of the other people in the sanitarium. His friends and family gave Clouzot both moral and financial support as he had no money. When Clouzot had left the sanitarium, and returned to Paris in 1938 World War II had broke out. French cinema was changed as most the producers he had known had fled to escape Nazism.

Clouzot's health problems kept him from military service. In 1939, Clouzot met actor Pierre Fresnay who was already an established film star in France. Clouzot wrote the script for Fresnay's only directorial feature Le Duel (1939) and two plays for him: On prend les mêmes performed in December 1940 and Comédie en trois actes which was performed in 1942. Despite writing scripts for films and plays, Clouzot was so poor that he resorted to peddling lyrics for French singer Edith Piaf who declined to purchase them. After the German occupation of France during World War II, the film production company Continental films as an affiliate of UFA was established in France in October 1940. The director of Continental was Alfred Grevin who knew Clouzot from Berlin and offered him work to adapt stories of writer Stanislas-André Steeman. Clouzot felt uncomfortable working for Germany, but was in desperate need of money and could not refuse Grevin's offer. Clouzot's first film for Continental was the adaptation of Steeman's mystery novel Six hommes mort (Six Dead Men). Clouzot re-titled the film Le Dernier de six influenced by Delair while writing the script, allowing her to choose name the character she would play.

Early directorial work (1942–1947)
After the success of Le Dernier de six, Clouzot was hired as the head of Continental' screenwriting division. Clouzot began work on his second Steeman adaptaion which he would also directed titled The Murderer Lives at Number 21 which starred Fresnay and Delair playing the same roles they did in Le Dernier de six. The film was popular with audiences and critics. Clouzot's next film was Le Corbeau based on a true story about a woman who sent poison pen letters in France in 1922. Grevin was against Clouzot making this film stating that topic was "dangerous". Le Corbeau would be the last film that Fresnay and Clouzot work together as Clouzot tried to anger Fresnay by all possible means during filming which caused a large fray in the friendship between the two. After Clouzot quarreled with Fresnay's wife Yvonne Printemps, their friendship between Fresnay and Clouzot broke off. Le Corbeau was a great success in France with nearly 250,000 people had seen Le Corbeau in the first months of it's initial release. It was also a a great scandal with controversy about Le Corbeau as the film was attacked by the right-wing Vichy regime, the left-wing Resistance press and the Catholic church. Two days before the release of Le Corbeau, Continental films fired Clouzot.

After the liberation of France, Clouzot was tried with several other directors for collaborating with the Germans. At his trial, Clouzot's first sentence was that he was not allowed on set of any film or to use a film camera for the rest of his life. Clouzot received letters of support from Jean Cocteau, René Clair, Marcel Carné and Jean-Paul Sartre were against the ruling. No official document makes note of any apology or appeal but the Clouzot's sentance was later shortened from life to two years. During his two year period of being unable to film, Clouzot worked with one of his supporters, Jean-Paul Sartre who was one of the first people to defend Le Corbeau.

Return to filmmaking and acclaim (1947–1960)
After Clouzot's ban was lifted, he re-established his reputation and popularity in France during the late 1940s with films such as Quai des Orfèvres (1947) and Manon (1949). For Quai des Orfèvres, Clouzot asked the author for a copy of his novel Légitime défense, but started writing the script before the novel arrived for him to read. Quai des Orfèvres was the fourth most popular film in France in 1947, drawing in 5.5 million spectators. For Manon, Clouzot wanted to cast unknowns for the film. He scoured schools to find the actress for the lead role and after over 700 girls he chooses the 17 year old Cécile Aubry. Manon was watched by 3.4 million film goers in France and won the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival. Clouzot also worked on the short film Le Retour de Jean which was influenced by the short period Clouzot when Clouzot lived in Germany in the early 1930s. Clouzot's next film was the comedy Miquette et Sa Mère (1950) which was a financial failure, but during it's production Clouzot met Véra Gibson-Amado who Clouzot married on January 15, 1950. Clouzot and Véra took a film crew with them to Véra's homeland in Brazil for their honeymoon, where Clouzot took his first attempt at making a documentary film. The Brazilian government took issue with Clouzot filming the poverty of people in the favelas rather then the more picturesque parts of Brazil. The film was never finished and after the cost became too high. Véra and Clouzot returned to France with the book Le cheval des dieux a recounting his trip.

On returning to France he is offered a script written by Georges Arnaud an expatriate living in South America who had written about his own experiences living there. Clouzot was very anxious to film Arnaud's story finding it was easy for him to imagine the setting for the film. Clouzot wrote the film with his brother, Jean Clouzot, who would collaborate with him on all his subsequent films under the name of Jérôme Geronimi. Clouzot filmed The Wages of Fear in 1951 and 1952. In order to gain as much independence as possible, Clouzot created his own production company called Véra Films. The Wages of Fear was the second most popular film in France in 1953 and had nearly 7 million spectators. It won awards for best film and best actor for Charles Vanel at the Cannes Film Festival. In this early and mid-'50s period, Clouzot became to be fully embraced by international critics and audiences, with the films The Wages of Fear (1953) and Les Diaboliques (1955). Both movies were screened and reviewed in America as well as in France, and were rated among the best thrillers of the decade. The sole female role in The Wages of Fear is played by Véra. Clouzot wrote the role specifically for his wife as the character does not exist in the original novel. Clouzot's next big hit Les Diaboliques which a screenplay he took away from director Alfred Hitchcock. In 1954, Les Diaboliques won the Louis Delluc Prize and the New York critics' circle award for best foreign film. In 1955, Clouzot took another attempt at documentary filmmaking with The Mystery of Picasso about Pablo Picasso. Clouzot and Picasso were old acquaintances having met each other when Clouzot was 14. The Mystery of Picasso won the Jury Prize at the Cannes Film Festival but was a financial failure and was only seen by 37, 000 film goers during it's initial run in 1956.

Clouzot's next feature film was Les Espions released in 1957. Les Espions features actors from around the world including Véra Clouzot, Curt Jurgens, Sam Jaffe, and Peter Ustinov. Les Espions would be the last acting role for Clouzt's wife Véra as Véra had been suffering from severe heart problems since filming Les Diabolique. Les Espions was not released in United States and was a financial failure in France. Clouzot later admitted that he only liked the first two-thirds of Les Espions. Clouzot's next film La Vérité (1960) was made after producer Raoul Levy suggested Clouzot to make the film with Brigitte Bardot as the lead. Bardot starred in the film and would later describe La Vérité as her favourite film she had done. La Vérité was the second most popular film in France in 1960 with 5.7 million audience members and was Bardot's highest grossing film.

Later career and failing health (1960–1977)
Although Clouzot's reputation had spread internationally, Clouzot began to lose favour of French film critics who were part of the French New Wave and refused to take his films seriously. Clouzot took these criticism to heart, saying in the magazine Lui, that he didn't find his films Les diabolique and Miquette et Sa Mère  important or interesting anymore. Clouzot next film he began working on was L'Enfer. Filming for L'Enfer was never completed. Lead actor Serge Reggiani fell ill one week after shooting began and had to be replaced. Clouzot became ill during production which lead to orders from doctors and insurance agents to stop production. After failing to complete filming L'Enfer, Clouzot filmed five television documentaries with Herbert von Karajan between 1965 and 1967. After production finished on those films, Clouzot was able to finance his final picture.

Clouzot's return to work reassured the doctors and insurers and returned to the film studio to make his final film La Prisonnière. The film began production in September 1967 but Clouzot fell ill and was hospitalized until April 1968. Clouzot began filming La prisonnière again in August 1968. Clouzot incorporated elements of his aborted film L'enfer for the project. After finishing La Prisonnière, Clouzot health grew worse. The 1970s were not a productive time for Clouzot. Clouzot wrote a few more scripts without every filming them. Clouzot planned a script for a film about Indochina was dropped after producers gave into threats of censorship. Clouzot also planned to make a pornographic film in 1974 for Francis Micheline, but the project did not pan out. Clouzot's health grew worse as he required open-heart surgery in November 1976. On January 12, 1977 Clouzot passed away in his apartment while listening to The Damnation of Faust. Clouzot is buried beside Véra in the Montmartre Cemetery.

Personnel life
In the late 1930s Clouzot went to a cabaret show featuring Mistinguett and Suzy Delair at the Deus Anes Cabaret. Clouzot waited for Delair at the stage door and after meeting her the two became a couple for the next 12 years. Clouzot had Delair star in two of his films, The Murderer Lives at Number 21 and Quai des Orfèvres.

Clouzot met his first wife Véra Gibson-Amado through actor Léo Lapara who had minor parts in Le Retour de Jean and Quai des Orfèvres. Véra met Clouzot after divorcing Lapara and while working as a continuity assistant on Clouzot's Miquette et Sa Mère (1950). Clouzot named his production company after Véra and had her star in all three films by company: The Wages of Fear, Les Diaboliques and Les Espions. Vera also contributed to the script of La Vérité. Véra Clouzot died shortly after the filming of La Vérité. After her funeral, Clouzot moved to Tahiti. After going to Tahiti, Clouzot returned to France in December 1960.

Clouzot met his second wife Inès de Gonzalez originally on the set of at a casting call for a film based on Vladimir Nabokov's Laughter in the Dark. In 1962, Clouzot met Arnaud again after she had returned from South America. In December 1963, Clouzot and Inès de Gonzalez were married.

Style
With the exception of the comedy film Miquette et sa mere, every directorial feature of Clouzot involves deception, betrayal, and violent deaths. When writing for his own features, Clouzot's characters are usually corrupt and spineless but within them lies the ability for both good and evil. To get the portrayal from characters he wanted, Clouzot was demanding and even violent with his actors. Suzy Delair recalled that Clouzot "slapped [her]. So what? He slapped others as well...He was tough but I'm not about to complain". Pierre Fresnay recalled that Clouzot "worked relentlessly, which made for a juicy spectacle...That's to say nothing for his taste of violence which he never tried with me". When working with Bardot, one scene required Bardot's character to drool and sleep. Clouzot offered her powerful sleeping pills stating them to be aspirin which led to Bardot's stomach needing to be pumped. Although Clouzot was harsh on his actors, he did not treat them fiercely off set, Delair recalled that offset there was an "innocence about him" that was not seen.

Clouzot biographers Marc Godin suggets that Clouzot's life provides clues to understand him style a film maker. Clouzot was viewed by many of his collaborators as a pessimist, short-tempered, almost always angry. Brigitte Bardot described Clouzot as "A negative being, for ever at odds with himself and the world around him". This is shown in Clouzot's film that reveal the darker side of humanity.

Legacy
Despite criticism with the arrival of the French New Wave in France, career retrospectives of Clouzot's work have been positive. Twenty years after his death, Noël Herpe wrote in the French film journal Positif that "Les Diabolique (just like Les Espions and La Verite) reveals a sterile and increasingly exaggerated urge to experiment with the powers of fiction". Film historian Philipe Pilard wrote that "There is no doubt that if Clouzot had worked for Hollywood and applied the formulas of US studios, today he would be lauded by the very critics who choose to ignore him". Clouzot today is generally known for his thriller films The Wages of Fear and Les Diabolique. Clouzot's ability with the genre lead to comparisons with him and Alfred Hitchcock. Although Clouzot respected Hitchock's work stating that he does "admire [Hitchcock] very much and am flattered when anyone compares a film of mine to his".

Several of Clouzot's film have been re-made since their release. Director Otto Preminger adapted Le Corbeau as The Thirteenth Letter (1951). In the year of Clouzot's death in 1977, William Friedkin released a remake of The Wages of Fear, entitled Sorcerer. French director Claude Chabrol released a film based on Clouzot's script for L'Enfer in 1994. In 1996, an American remake of Les Diabolique was released under the title Diabolique starring Sharon Stone.

Filmography

 * The Murderer Lives at Number 21 (1942)
 * Le Corbeau (1943)
 * Quai des Orfèvres (1947)
 * Manon (1949)
 * Retour à la Vie (1949)
 * Miquette et Sa Mère (1950)
 * The Wages of Fear (1953)
 * Diabolique (1954)
 * The Mystery of Picasso (1956)
 * Les Espions (1957)
 * La Vérité (1960)
 * La Prisonnière (1968)