Claude Chabrol (1930-2010)

[charliechaplinfan]

I have seen a couple of Chabrol's films, my favorite being Le Boucher, a strange yet compelling movie about the relationship between a teacher and the town's butcher, the butcher it turns out doesn't just butcher animals. I watched Les Biches but didn't really connect with it. I'm glad you've started the thread, I didn't feel that I knew enough about him, I'd love to hear others views.

[moira finnie]

The first movie I remember seeing of Chabrol's was Une Affaire de Femmes (1988) with Isabelle Huppert as a working class woman in Nazi occupied France who finds a way to feed her family by renting out a room to a prostitute and later helping other women get abortions. The fact that these activities provide her children with food and clothing and her wounded veteran husband with care makes it harder to judge her actions. Part of what makes this material fascinating is that the director and the actress present this character fairly and dispassionately. Based on a true story, the woman is made an example of by the Nazis and the French. The attitudes of those accusing Huppert of various crimes are shaped by their own callousness and sexism as well as their need to distract the people from their evil and callousness on a national scale. Despite a certain revulsion for Huppert's character, her attitudes and actions are understandable thanks to the way the story is told. Marie Trintignant as a warm-hearted prostitute is one of the few characters who is truly likable.

Given my description, I would imagine most people might avoid this movie, and by the end a curious emptiness may leave a viewer wondering why it is so hard to feel something for this woman. Despite this, it was a compelling film.

[Mr. Arkadin]

I'm only acquainted with his early period, which seems almost exclusively Hitchcockian influenced, but would like to check out more of his work. He seems to use players as props in these films, in a mathematical approach (he loves geometric ideas like circular plots and trianglular relationships), manipulating the the audience with the camera, much like his hero did.

Les Bitches, The Unfaithful Wife, and Le Boucher seemed to strip away some of the excess of the earlier films and are a bit more interesting to me (Although I like the early stuff as well, and KR is right about Les Bonnes Femmes. Another great one is Landru [1962]). If you've never seen 1964's The Mute, it's quite a different tone for him, where a boy who cannot stand his parents fighting puts in a pair of earplugs, only to be deaf to his mother's cries when she falls down a flight of stairs!

The first movie I remember seeing of Chabrol's was Une Affaire de Femmes (1988) with Isabelle Huppert as a working class woman in Nazi occupied France who finds a way to feed her family by renting out a room to a prostitute and later helping other women get abortions. The fact that these activities provide her children with food and clothing and her wounded veteran husband with care makes it harder to judge her actions. Part of what makes this material fascinating is that the director and the actress present this character fairly and dispassionately. Based on a true story, the woman is made an example of by the Nazis and the French. The attitudes of those accusing Huppert of various crimes are shaped by their own callousness and sexism as well as their need to distract the people from their evil and callousness on a national scale. Despite a certain revulsion for Huppert's character, her attitudes and actions are understandable thanks to the way the story is told. Marie Trintignant as a warm-hearted prostitute is one of the few characters who is truly likable.

Given my description, I would imagine most people might avoid this movie, and by the end a curious emptiness may leave a viewer wondering why it is so hard to feel something for this woman. Despite this, it was a compelling film.

Actually, this sounds very interesting to me! Thanks for recommending it.

[MichiganJ]

Along with Chabrol's earlier films already mentioned, I would also recommend many from the 70s including Nada (1974) and Innocents with Dirty Hands (1975). Merci pour le chocolat (2000) is a pretty good representation of his later work.

While Chabrol was certainly influenced by Hitchcock in genre and plotting, I don't see much Hitchcock in Chabrol's execution or in characterization. And unlike Truffaut's Bride Wore Black, I can't recall any Chabrol film that is an out-and-out homage to Hitchcock.

I would also definitely recommend his book, Hitchcock: The First Forty-Four Films co-written by fellow future New Waver, Eric Rohmer. (I'm just finishing re-watching most of Rohmer's films--just about all of which I highly recommend.)

Sadly, the quality of the prints used in most Chabrol DVD releases are pretty poor. Stay clear of the Fox/Lorber DVDs, which have abysmal prints. The Kino and Pathfinder prints are better, but nowhere near great.

[Ann Harding]

I am personaly a great fan of Chabrol. He made some very interesting pictures through the years -as well as some turkeys.

Moira, you are right to mention Une Affaire de femmes (1988), it's one of his best. Isabelle Huppert gives a riveting performance. Actually, this actress plays in many Chabrol pictures and they are among their best pictures individually. I recommend warmly Violette Nozières (1978) where she plays also a real person. Violette Nozières is the daughter of a lower-middle-class family who tries to kill her mother and father. With such a part, she does wonder. The same with Madame Bovary (1991) where she gives her Emma all the self-loathing necessary. Again, La Cérémonie (1995) based on a Ruth Rendell novel is an incredible study of class distinction in provincial France. (Be aware that the film is rather disturbing but equally impressive).

Among his earlier features, my favourite is Que La Bête Meure (1969) (based on a novel by Cecil Day-Lewis) where a father whose son was killed by a hit and run driver looks for the murderer to avenge the crime. It sound very dark, but the film is full of black humour and played brilliantly by a host of great French actors. For such a dark story, it's shot in sunny Brittany in the middle of superb seascapes. Le Boucher(1970), that Alison mentioned, is also superlative. I am also very fond of Landru (1963), the story of real French serial-killer during WWI. Landru killed widows and single women for their money. This masterpiece of black humour boasts a great female cast: Danielle Darrieux, Michèle Morgan, Hidegard Knef, Catherine Rouvel et Stéphane Audran. The film looks like a Gaumont feature of the teens with its elegant sets.

When I heard that Chabrol had died, it was quite a shock. Most film lovers like me were expecting their little treat every year with a Chabrol picture. It won't happen again. But thank God, there are still all the pictures he made that we can enjoy for ever.

[charliechaplinfan]

I've just been completely engrossed in Une Affairs De Femmes Moira's description didn't put me off at all, in fact it made me want to watch this fascinating movie. I found it strange because it's very difficult to empathise with Marie, I can empathise with her situation, I can empathise if she thought she was doing it for the good of the woman like in Vera Drake but she loves the money too much to make it possible to be on her side. The money is her driving force, she shuns her husband completely not even caring to keep her affair secret. The only love she shows is to her children. She could have redeemed herself when the abortion went wrong but she still took the money and the poor woman with 6 extra mouthes to feed.

I felt she hadn't a conscience, that somewhere her conscience had been lost and perhaps that's the point that Chabrol was trying to make, France was suffering so badly through the occupation, why have a conscience when others don't. It's easy to think that what you are doing is alright when others are doing worse. Marie displays an incredible niavete, not covering her tracks, spending her money freely. She is the key to her own undoing. Her demise, she is held up as an example to others in 1943 whilst France was struggling to overcome the Nazis and rid themselves of bigger horrors than what Marie inflicted on the world.

[charliechaplinfan]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marie-Louise_Giraud

This is the link to the real life case, Marie Louise Giraud didn't take money for abortions. It's interesting what is said about the birth rate, something I never knew.