Morality takes as many forms as there are cultures to manifest it. For some people, it is a question of commandments. For others it is a question of ideals. For other groups it is a question of economics, minutely calibrated cost-benefit analyses. But for all of these systems and all of these cultures, morality always [...]
Entries Tagged as ‘Chabrol’
October 8, 2009
La Rupture (1970) – The Tragic Demise of a Picaroon
Chabrol is a director whose best work is done in the margins of broad moral argument. The films of his so-called ‘Golden Period’ from the late 60s to the early 70s are a series of incendiary attacks upon an upper middle class morally corrupt enough to murder for the sake of social standing. In films [...]
September 22, 2009
Nada (1974) – The Political is in fact The Personal
It was never going to be easy for Claude Chabrol to move on from his most productive period. Between the late 1960s and the early 1970s, Chabrol produced a series of films that would not only secure his reputation to the present day, but also leave an indelible mark upon what comes to mind when [...]
September 10, 2009
Juste Avant La Nuit (1971) – Yearning for Submission
When Hamlet says “For there is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so” he is not pre-empting the modern shift towards moral relativism. Instead he is reflecting on the capacity for human thought to render moral judgement almost completely inert. He is begging for ignorance. Cursing his intellectual nature. Wishing for simplicity. [...]
September 9, 2009
Les Noces Rouges (1973) – Rumour and Calumny
It is surprising how much contemporary French cinema owes to Jean-Paul Sartre’s play Huis Clos (1944). One of Sartre’s more accessible pieces, No Exit is set in hell and features three utterly hateful and narcissistic characters slowly coming to realise that the ultimate torment is not only to be stuck in an unhappy relationship but [...]
September 2, 2009
REVIEW – Nous Ne Vieillirons Pas Ensemble (1972)
Videovista has my review of Maurice Pialat’s splendid We Won’t Grow Old Together.
I absolutely adored this film, so much so that I went out and purchased the rest of the Pialat films that Masters of Cinema/Eureka have released. Aside from the fantastic performances and the brutality of the relationship dynamic on display, I was also [...]
June 26, 2009
Cinematic Vocabulary – The Opening to This Man Must Die (1969)
As with most of the big names of the New Wave, Claude Chabrol began his cinematic career as a critic for the Cahiers du Cinema. This critical career culminated with the release in 1957 of a book about the films of Alfred Hitchcock. This attraction to Hitchcock’s style and subject matter followed Chabrol when he [...]
