#227: CLOUZOT, Henri-Georges: Le Corbeau (1943)

CLOUZOT, Henri-Georges (France)

Le Corbeau [1943]

Spine #227
DVD
OOP

A mysterious writer of poison-pen letters, known only as Le Corbeau (the Raven), plagues a French provincial town, exposing the collective suspicion and rancor seething beneath the community's calm surface. Made during the Nazi occupation of France, Henri-Georges Clouzot's Le Corbeau was attacked by the right-wing Vichy regime, the left-wing Resistance press, and the Catholic Church, and was banned after the liberation. But some — including Jean Cocteau and Jean-Paul Sartre — recognized the powerful subtext of Clouzot's anti-informant, anti-Gestapo fable, and worked to rehabilitate his directorial reputation after the war. Le Corbeau brilliantly captures a spirit of paranoid pettiness and self-loathing that turns an occupied French town into a twentieth-century Salem.

91 minutes
Black & White

Monaural

in French

1:33:1 aspect ratio

Criterion Release 2004

Director/Writers

Screenplay by Louis Chavance.

Adaptation and dialogue by Henri-Georges Clouzot and Chavance.

Clouzot was 36 when he directed Le Corbeau.

Other Clouzot films in the Collection:

#193: Quai Des Orfèvres (1947)
#36: The Wages Of Fear (1953)
#35: Diabolique (1955)
#960: La Vérité (1960)

The Film

Film Rating (0-60):

60

The Extras

The Booklet

Sixteen-page booklet featuring essays by Alan Williams, Henri Jeanson, and Joseph Kessel.

Commentary

None.

Video interview

With director Bertrand Tavernier (Coup de Torchon [1981] {Spine #106})

Excerpts

From The Story of French Cinema by Those Who Made It: Grand Illusions 1939-1942, a 1975 documentary featuring Clouzot.

Theatrical trailer

Extras Rating (0-40):

39

60 + 39 =

99

By Director
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