Well, ’til I watch Kino's Blu-ray of
the Champagne Murders next month, I've now seen every Chabrol film that is possible
to see-- 69 movies by my count, and soon to be 70, though I may have missed one or two with a number that high!
Let's start with the good news first: I've long considered
Bellamy a mediocre note for such a master as Chabrol to go out on. But, turns out that wasn't his last film... Chabrol's last film
s were two hour-long adaptations of a pair of ancient mysteries, and both give us the Chabrol we know and love and serve as a fitting finish I thought Chabrol was denied! Made for the
Au siècle de Maupassant: Contes et nouvelles du XIXème siècle series, the first
Le petit vieux des Batignolles (2009), finds Pierre Arditi on a rare jaunt away from Resnais as a Sherlock/Lavardin hybrid detective, who enlists a hapless young medical student to be his Watson whether he likes it or not! I was struck once again by Chabrol's ambivalent treatment of his detectives, who always seem to teeter between admirable know-it-alls and assholes who like to use knowing it all to fuck with innocents (see whichever Lavardin movie has him messing with the hotel employee during the entire movie for the best and most hilarious evidence of this). But even better-- listworthy better-- is Chabrol's swan song,
Le fauteuil hanté (2010), which not only caps one of Chabrol's great cinematic loves (the film features the journalist Fandor from
Fantômas in a supporting role) but gives us what must be his funniest film-- rewatching his comic shorts recently, I can confirm that while Chabrol has a wicked sense of humor, like Hitchcock this doesn't always translate to effective comedy when the primary focus. But this one's a riot, a mashed up murder mystery in which new members of the Académie française keep turning up dead, resulting in the org picking an unlikely candidate whose election becomes a riotous punchline halfway through when he reveals a secret Chabrol had once mined for drama earlier in his career! Once we enter the promised era of Chabrol restorations and mass Blu-ray releases of all his works, let's hope these show up as bonuses or even as a dedicated two-film set-- they are sad evidence that Chabrol was taken from us at the height of his powers. Also
Le fauteuil hanté features discussion of the Illuminati by name, so feel free to start your conspiracy theories on Chabrol's untimely end!
Dr M (1990) and
Fantômas (1980)-- Chabrol's pastiche films of Mabuse and, well, Fantômas, respectively-- are interesting, but
Fantômas is the more successful of the two. Chabrol only directed the first and fourth feature-length installments, but the casting of Helmut Berger as the titular thief and Jacques Dufilho (Carrying over the casting of a comic French actor in the Juve role from the 60s adaptations) is consistent, and there’s something of an overarching story (and Bunuel's entries are about as good as Chabrol's, really). The first three installments give us much of the same serial points as the original Feuillade films with some fun differences. But the fourth presents us with a different last act, and I must say of the lot I by far favored this last tale of a kidnapped king, mistaken royal identity, and a priceless Hungarian jewel, though I liked the long sequence in the first installment in which Chabrol slavers over a complete tutorial in how to set up a guillotine— a process that honestly never occurred to me to be something I wanted to know, but was glad to learn!
Dr M starts promisingly with some anti-Lang anti-sound bridging during a series of mass suicides, but the film is ultimately rather ugly and drab and cursed with a damned lead performance by some German guy who looks like Lorenzo Lamas in
Renegade. Alan Bates threatens to save the film with his noble attempts to be as over the top as possible, especially late in the film when he dons a truly unforgettable disguise, but the film still doesn’t quite work.
I’m curious to see the English-version of
Le scandale (1967), because the French version’s dialogue and plot mechanations by Paul Gégauff are sleep-inducing— the English version’s dialog was written by a pair of American film critics selected by Chabrol, so I’m curious to see where they steer the film within the same plot perimeters. However, the last twenty minutes of
Le scandale self-correct marvelously— the basic plot is Maurice Ronet (in a truly abrasive perf) continuously blacks out and finds himself in the general vicinity of murdered women, so no points for guessing there’s a twist and who’s involved, though perhaps extra points could be awarded for also guessing who’s
not— but then the ending hits like a TKO and I was completely stunned at the confident audacity of the INSANE finale. When the screen went black and I realized
that was the ending, I can’t even tell you how much joy it gave me. This may be, in a career filled with amazing and sudden endings, his masterpiece in this (and only this) regard. And it’s my understanding that the ending is one of the big differences between the French and English versions— of course the Americans would fuck this perfection up! I’ll weigh in more on the differences (the American version is also heavily cut for content against Chabrol’s wishes) next month. Other than the ending, my biggest takeaway from
Le scandale was legit appreciation for Henry Jones’ fluent French skillz!
L'oeil de Vichy (1993) is Chabrol’s only documentary as a director, and it shows a heavy influence from Chabrol’s own beloved
Mein Kampf, Erwin Leiser's Hitler doc which likewise consisted of existing footage arranged to tell a historical story— here in Chabrol's film, the image of Vichy France as forced down the throats of the French. The copious propaganda viewed in snippets and excerpts is fascinating— other than some errant narration to explain context here or there (by Brian Cox in the English version— Michel Bouquet does this duty in the original French version, unheard by me), everything we get comes from this footage created to play before movies in theatres. Apart from all the expected horrors of anti-Semitism, Nazi brown-nosing, and Allied-bashing, there’s also a truly terrifying newsreel bragging about how Occupied France was melting down all American films to make nail polish!
And of course, here’s my Zardi Sightings from recent viewings and rewatches:
L'Homme qui vendit la Tour Eiffel: Eiffel Tower guard
Le scandale (1967): Red-shirted ruffian
Fantômas: Train porter
