Four years after his last feature film in La Verite starring Brigitte Bardot, Henri-Georges Clouzot has finished a script he wrote with Jean Ferry and Jose-Andre Lacour as it would revolve around a hotelier’s suspicion about his wife having an affair with another man as he becomes paranoid and jealous. Set in the Cantal region in France, the film is to be this surrealistic-drama that was the antithesis of what was happening in French cinema in the 1960s that was dominated by the French New Wave. The film would also have references to Dante’s Inferno and Marcel Proust’s In Search of Lost Time with the latter being the name of its protagonists in Odette and Marcel. The film was to star Romy Schneider as Odette and Serge Reggiani as Marcel with an ensemble that was to include Dany Carell, Jean-Claude Bercq, Maurice Garrel, and Mario David. With Columbia Pictures offering to fund the film giving him an unlimited budget, which was unusual for a non-American director making a film in his native language, Clouzot would take advantage of this offer to experiment with visuals.
The documentary on the making and unmaking of Clouzot’s film features interviews with several people who participated in the production including actress/comedienne Catherine Allegret who had a small role in the film as her mother Simone Signoret who had worked with Clouzot in Les Diaboliques. Another notable figure involved in the production is filmmaker Costa-Gavras who was then an assistant director helping Clouzot with the production. The footage from the unreleased film is provided by Clouzot’s widow Ines who met co-director Serge Bromberg in an elevator when it was stuck as she had 150 cans of film reels featuring outtakes and scenes that were shot in the production. Most notably colorful outtakes are included that play into Clouzot’s experiment with colorful photography, lenses, and practical lighting effects. It would play into Marcel’s own paranoia in what he sees as it adds a surrealistic tone to the film.
Since much of the film’s original audio was lost, Bromberg and Ruxandra Medrea Annonier would have Berenice Bejo and Jacques Gamblin perform scenes in a soundstage to dialogue that were either lost or not recorded. Shot by Irina Lubtchansky and Jerome Krumacker, the scenes showcase the drama that Clouzot was aiming for while the interviews are presented in a unique fashion with production designer Nicolas Faure putting up screens in a room while the interviewees are sitting that include Irina’s father William who was an assistant cinematographer on the film. Several people who worked on the film reveal what went wrong during the production as it was shot near Garabit viaduct including an artificial lake that was to be drained as it was one of many problems. Editor Janice Jones gathers much of the outtakes and available footage from the film that includes an actor standing in for Reggiani in running sequences. Bromberg and Annonier also reveal that since the film was shot in the Cantal region, it was also during one of its hottest years that added to the troubled production including tension between Clouzot and Reggiani as the latter was becoming frustrated with Clouzot’s demands.
The sound work of Jean Gargonne and Jean-Guy Veran is superb in not just creating sound textures in what Clouzot might have wanted but also in the sparse nature of the performances from Bejo and Gamblin. One key scene involving the rare audio that was found from the film is presented as it is in decent condition though it is a shame that a lot of the film’s original audio is lost. The film’s music by Bruno Alexiu is a mixture of somber piano pieces that play into the footage of the film as it adds a lot of dramatic weight as well as some eerie electronic pieces for the lighting experiments in the film. Even as the piano pieces also play into how the production was abandoned due to Clouzot having a heart attack as the film was shelved as Clouzot would eventually make one more feature film in 1968’s La Prisonniere before his death in 1977.
Henri-Georges Clouzot’s Inferno is a phenomenal film by Serge Bromberg and Ruxandra Medrea Annonier. It is a riveting documentary film that explores one of the best films that never got made as well as exploring what happened to a film that had so much intrigue only to fall apart three weeks into production. It is also a look into the creative process with those involved in the film explaining what happened and why it was never finished. In the end, Henri-Georges Clouzot’s Inferno is a sensational film by Serge Bromberg and Ruxandra Medrea Annonier.
Henri-Georges Clouzot Films: (Caprice de Princesse) – (Tout pour l’amour) – (The Murderer Lives at Number 21) – (Le Corbeau) – (Quai des Orfevres) – (Manon) – (Miquette et sa mere) – The Wages of Fear - Les Diaboliques - (The Mystery of Picasso) - (Les Espions) – (La Verite) – (Grand chef d’orchestre) – (La Prisonniere)
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