Le Corbeau
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| Le Corbeau | |
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| Directed by | Henri-Georges Clouzot |
| Produced by | René Montis |
| Written by | Henri Chavance Henri-Georges Clouzot |
| Starring | Pierre Fresnay Ginette Leclerc Pierre Larquey Micheline Francey |
| Music by | Tony Aubin |
| Distributed by | Tobis Films, Paris |
| Release date(s) | 1943 |
| Running time | 92 min |
| Language | French |
| Allmovie profile | |
| IMDb profile | |
Le Corbeau (French for: The Raven) is a 1943 French language film directed by Henri-Georges Clouzot. The film was notable for causing serious trouble to its director after World War II because it had been produced by Continental Films, a German production company established in France in the early months of the war and because the film had been perceived, by the underground and the communist press, as vilifying the French people. Because of this, Clouzot was initially banned for life from directing in France and the film was banned, but in 1947, both bans were lifted.[1] The film was remade as The 13th Letter (1951) by Otto Preminger.
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[edit] Plot
In a small unidentified French town, anonymous letters are sent by somebody signing as Le Corbeau (the Raven). The letters start by accusing doctor Rémy Germain (Pierre Fresnay) of having an affair with Laura Vorzet (Micheline Francey), the pretty young wife of the psychiatrist of the hospital, the old Dr. Vorzet (Pierre Larquey). Germain is also accused of practicing illegal abortions. Letters are then sent to virtually all the population of the town, but keep getting back at the initial victime, Dr Germain. The situation becomes serious when a patient of the hospital commits suicide with his straight razor after receiving a letter that falsely informs him about his condition being terminal. Marie Corbin, a nurse in the infirmary, becomes suspect and is arrested, but soon new letters arrive.
The film is loosely based on a famous anonymous letters case that started in the town of Tulle (France) in 1917. Anonymous letters had been sent by somebody signing the eye of the tiger, accusing notable figures in the town of having affairs [1].
[edit] Analysis
The place of production, the content, and the importance of the surrounding political and social context, particularly in matters of an ideological nature are all factors which can influence the reception of a film and the construction of its dominant readings. These factors played an important role in the critical reception of Le Corbeau ( The Raven, 1943 ) directed by Henri-Georges Clouzot. On release it became popular amongst the occupation French film-goers. It was immediately banned after the liberation. More controversially there were punishments meted out to most of the people involved in the film's production. Amongst the most vituperative critics there were calls for execution of the most important people involved. The recent release of the film on an Optimum DVD with an English commentary by Ginette Vincendeau brings in a range of possible readings which are not raised in the main general histories of French cinema. At the time of writing (January 2006) a forthcoming monograph on Le Corbeau in the new but excellent Cinefiles: French Film Guides series should prove very interesting.
These attacks were the result of two major political forces playing for the hearts and minds of the French people. They had little to do with the content of the film which can be read as the most strongly anti-fascist film of occupied France. The film is also opposed to the authoritarian moral and political values of the French Right. It does not offer any solutions to the corrupt society it depicts - it was after all, produced under conditions of occupation. Fictional films and other art forms are not political programmes and do not have to be prescriptive, arguably they can be more powerful when they are not prescriptive but raise issues to be worked through. People who can reach their own conclusions about subsequent proceedings.
Le Corbeau's content was anti the authoritarian right. It also struck a sour note with the voices of the French resistance which had a very strong core element belonging to the Stalinist communist party and the aesthetic of socialist realism. For both Communists and Gaullists the immediate post-war aims were to excise the shame of occupation. Anything which could be deemed to have been an aspect of collaboration was seen as anti-French. The Stalinist left considered the film as 'decadent' and 'demoralizing'.
'Clouzot's image of a France in which only a few outcasts and malcontents could behave with a semblance of morality and good will was completely unacceptable for those trying to promote a very different image of a nation capable of unity, collective heroism and self-sacrifice in the face of a powerful enemy.' ( Williams, 1992: p 261 )
Clouzot was banned from film making for two years after the war, the actors as well as the crew members as Le Corbeau production designer André Andrejew received shorter bans. Clouzot made a successful return making popular suspense thrillers which owed much to the style of Le Corbeau which Williams (1992) describes as a 'masterpiece'.
The initial reception of the film and the continued popularity of Clouzot after his exile show that a significant membership of the French public was voting favourably with its feet. They were making readings of the film which fitted neither Nazi, Stalinist nor traditional French authoritarianism. Artistic considerations of life do not always fit easily into ideological schemas and a wide range of readings of a cultural object can be produced. The conditions of reception influence the creation of a dominant reading. The film was produced by Continental Films, the German run production company established in the early months of the war. Films produced by this company received constant criticism from the underground press organised by the resistance.
The film itself consistently denounced bourgeois values by mocking the leading citizens of a small town in France. The scriptwriter Louis Chavance had worked with Jean Vigo the anarchist filmmaker on L'Atalante as the film's editor. The script had first been drafted by Chavance in 1933. It was based upon a true story of a woman in a small town who had deluged it with poison-pen letters. It was continuously rejected as too risky on commercial and political grounds. Ironically, if not for the existence of Continental films and its policy of creating and supporting a strong French film industry, the film would never have been made. Filmmakers working with Continental suffered less censorship and had better budgets than the Vichy controlled production companies.
The contents of the film would have been unlikely to pass French film censors as the film was anti-authoritarian, anti-Vichy as well as anti-Nazi in a number of ways. The plot features a doctor who was an abortionist as its leading actor, this in itself could only offend the Catholic right. The doctor's lover who was rather promiscuous had a minor deformity of the foot. These meant that the film offended both Vichy moralism and Nazi eugenics theories and practices. The plot is about a person in the village who writes anonymous letters which eventually lead to suspicion, a suicide and ultimately a murder.
The perpetrator of the letters -a seemingly respectable citizen- is finally revealed as a mad intelligence in the form of the psychiatrist. The film openly asks a question which many in France may have found difficult to stomach at that time. Questioning the easy division of life into issues of good and evil a lamp is swung which creates differing patterns of shadow and light. The commentary asks where the borders between good and evil are, asking whether people know which side they are on ?
Any film at the time would be seen as having an allegorical reference to the occupation. It could be seen as avoiding crucial issues which combined with the gloomy mise en scene and the atmospherics of violence present within the film were interpreted as very pessimistic by many left film critics. Perhaps its popularity at the time of release struck a chord with the French viewing publics who had to adjust to the realities and difficulties of occupation, which threw up in real life a continuous series of unwelcome situations requiring decisions to be made about the depth and breadth of compliance necessary.
The film certainly touched upon the reality of the Occupation. Many millions of letters of denunciation were sent to the Vichy and Nazi authorities. The issue was to remain a highly sensitive one for decades. In the early 1970s a representation of this in Louis Malle's film Lacombe Lucien raised a storm of protest not least from critics such as Foucault who dubbed the film as a right-wing plot. This shortfall in Foucault's libertarian politics showed just how difficult it was for the French to work through the realities of the occupation years.
[edit] A Film Noir
The film can be read as a film noir style thriller . What is interesting about the concept of Film Noir is that the original term was invented by French film critics who viewed the backlog of American thillers such as Double Indemnity and Laura immediately after the war was over. They considered it as an American 'genre' with some antecedents in German Expressionism in film. This ignored the development of the French poetic realist pre-war films and also ignored the fact that many German film makers spent some time in France before going to Germany. Europe can be said to have made a strong contribution to the development of film noir during the war through Clouzot's Le Corbeau and also Luchino Visconti's Ossessione. Arguably the French critics of the time were in denial of the French wartime experience and with Clouzot in the dog house they preferred to ignore these strands to the genre. The existence of this European strand of noir in Europe itself and the ways in which it developed allow us the opportunity to develop a reading of the noir thriller as being not a so much a critique of modernity and the city as an allegory for the shadow of fascism and Nazism which fell over the whole of Europe.
[edit] Gender Relations
Vincendeau's 2005 comments on the DVD develop an interesting range of comments on how the film can be read as a crisis of masculinity for the French male[citation needed]. Neither the Doctor played by the important star Pierre Fresnay nor the psychiatrist come across as powerful men in control of their work, destiny or the situation. The psychiatrist's betrayal of the town and his wife could easily be linked to Vichydom whilst Dr. Germain could be seen as a failed example of French leadership. The character of the town playgirl played by another French star Ginette Leclerc is a spirited one. Far from being a typical femme fatale who is ultimately punished for her ways, it is she who realises who the Raven actually must be. Both her sexuality, intelligence and honesty about herself shine through in the film against the weaknesses and dishonesty of the male characters, suggests Vincendeau.
[edit] See also
[edit] References
- ^ a b "Informants in the French tradition", BBC News, 3 June 2006. Retrieved on 2006-06-04.
[edit] External links
- Le Corbeau at the Internet Movie Database
- Criterion Collection essay by Alan Williams
- Le Corbeau at Rotten Tomatoes
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