Film Review
Le Salaire de la peur (a.k.a.
The Wages of Fear) represents the
absolute highpoint in the career of director Henri-Georges Clouzot, an
intoxicating mix of film noir-style adventure and road movie that is by
far his bleakest work and a masterpiece in the suspense thriller
genre.
Before he made this film, Clouzot had already acquired a
reputation as a fully paid-up cynic with the lowest regard for
human nature, through such films as
Le Corbeau (1943) and
Quai
des Orfèvres (1947). Here, in his darkest
exploration of human frailty, he surpasses himself and seems to wallow
in the unedifying carnival of misogyny, greed, exploitation and
sado-masochism that he conjures up for our amusement. You can
hardly imagine a more viciously misanthropic portrait of humanity than
the one that Clouzot paints here, in the cruellest and most pungent
tones. Yet despite its grim subject matter,
Le Salaire de la peur is also
Clouzot's most compelling film, the one that allowed him to be likened
to that other great master of suspense, Alfred Hitchcock.
Clouzot's motivation for making the film was initially political.
Whilst visiting Brazil on his honeymoon (he had just married Vera
Amato, the daughter of the Brazilian ambassador), Clozout was struck by
the extent to which the natives of South American countries were
exploited and maltreated by American owned petrol
companies.
By adapting Georges Arnaud's 1950
novel
Le Salaire de la peur,
he saw an opportunity to make an attack on the kind of rampant
capitalist imperialism which allowed the rich countries of the northern
hemisphere to economically rape the poorer countries of the
south. At its heart, Clouzot's film is a study in the abuse of
power - the cynical behaviour of an oil company which appears to be
lacking in scruples of any kind mirrors the fraught relationship
between the four central protagonists, whose greed, desperation and
macho posturing transforms them into dehumanised brutes, the debased
end-product of a flawed economic system. The film's strident
political undertones make it just as relevant today as it was in the
early 1950s; depressingly little has changed in the intervening half a
century.
It is in the first hour of the film, the languidly paced prelude to the
nightmarish road journey, that Clouzot establishes his characters and
plots out the trajectory that will drive them to their ineluctable
doom. The dusty shantytown setting serves as a stark metaphor for
the spiritual and moral aridity of the protagonists who, driven to the
limit of human endurance by self-inflicted misfortune, are
prepared to grasp any opportunity, however risky, to escape and find a
new life elsewhere. It is the classic film noir set up -
characters trapped in a milieu they desperately want to escape from,
but who are destined to fail in their bid for freedom through their own
character faults. Their fate is sealed in the opening shot, where
a little boy is seen innocently hanging four beetles.
The two most interesting protagonists are Mario and Jo, the former a
young woman-abusing cynic (who seems to be modelled on Clouzot
himself), the latter a middle-aged gangster-type whose homosexual
leanings are exposed through the ease with which he lures Mario from
his girlfriend Linda. Even before the film is underway, we are
confronted with a power struggle - Jo's determination to separate Mario
from Linda and his friend Luigi, for reasons which are readily
apparent. Mario's willingness to fall under Jo's spell reveals
the former's latent homosexual tendencies, which will later colour the
relationship between the two men and take it into some very dark
places. The sexual tension between the four male protagonists will grow to
explosive proportions just before the film reaches its dramatic
climax.
The creepily homoerotic sequence in which Montand wades into an
oil-filled crater to rescue a now crippled Vanel is laden in
symbolism. It is painfully evident that their two characters have
arrived at their moral nadir. Covered in black slime, they no
longer even resemble human beings, but appear to have been transformed
into mere blobs of primal savagery. But to say this is the nadir
implies that it is also a turning point. The oil bath
represents not only the zenith of moral corruption, it also serves as a
kind of renewing baptism, from which Montand's character emerges as a
better individual, his newfound humanity revealed in the next scene in
which he tries to comfort his dying friend. Just when you least
expect it, Clouzot throws in a note of optimism - mankind may not after
all end up drowning in the mire of capitalist greed and
self-interest. Alas, the candle of hope is kicked into the dust
within minutes of it being lit, and the film ends as it must, with
another dramatic shock.
Clouzot's most ambitious film,
Le
Salaire de la peur was made on a blockbuster budget of the kind that was
exceedingly rare in French cinema at the time. A series of
mishaps, caused mainly by adverse weather conditions, sent the film way
over budget and extended the shoot by several months. Filming
began in the Provence location (a convincing substitute for South
America) in August 1951 and was not completed until September
1952. An eight month break in filming came as a result of a
tragic accident (in which two members of the crew drowned) and Vera Clouzot
falling seriously ill. Extreme wind and rain storms
repeatedly demolished the sets and imposed substantial delays on the
filming. Clouzot and his team may have been justified in thinking
that the project was jinxed from the outset.
The casting of Yves Montand in the lead role was a gamble which paid
off handsomely. Better known at the time as a singer than as an
actor, Montand had yet to make his break into the movies, despite
having appeared in Marcel Carné's
Les Portes de la nuit (1946)
and opposite his then lover Edith Piaf in
Étoile sans lumière
(1946). Montand's interpretation of the brutish Mario shows
little if any of the actor's innate charm and humanity and looks like a
proto-Steve McQueen, pure machismo driven by the most basic of primal
instincts. It is only in the last twenty minutes of the film that
Montand is allowed to humanise his character, and in doing so reveals
his true talent as an actor, a talent that other film directors would
be eager to exploit. In a long and distinguished film career he
would work with such notable filmmakers as Alain Resnais (
La Guerre est finie, 1966),
Jean-Pierre Melville (
Le Cercle rouge, 1970),
Costa-Gravras (
L'Aveu, 1970), Claude Sautet (
César
et Rosalie, 1972) and Jean-Luc Godard (
Tout
va bien, 1972), whilst also making his mark as a singer and
political activist.
Suitably cast opposite the young and virile Montand is the well-worn
Charles Vanel, arguably the greatest and most prolific character actor
in French cinema, with a career that stretched back as far as
1910. Surprisingly, Vanel was not the first choice for the role
of Jo. The part was initially offered to Jean Gabin, but he
turned it down, fearing that playing a coward would jeopardise his
future career. Almost from the very first shot, where he wanders
into town like Charles Bronson looking for a fight, Vanel proves that
he is perfect for the role and, assisted by some exceptional screenwriting,
he gives one of his finest performances. It is his harrowing portrayal of a man
slowly going to pieces which gives the film its emotional intensity and
makes it so excruciatingly suspenseful. Vanel's Jo is the
complete opposite to Montand's character, who blithely plays the role
of the Teflon-coated hero as though oblivious to the peril that lurks
around every corner. By contrast, like one of those irritating
backseat drivers who sees terror in every pothole and road bump,
Vanel's character makes us constantly aware of the danger that the four
protagonists are in, makes us anticipate the worst whenever a
potentially lethal obstacle presents itself. Fear is perhaps the
hardest emotion for an actor to convey convincingly in front of a
camera, but Vanel does it effortlessly and presents us with the
gruesome spectacle of a man who, initially so sure of himself, ends up
being reduced to a quivering wreck. Montand and Vanel's arresting
performances are well complemented by Peter van Eyck and Folco Lulli,
who provide the merest smattering of light relief. For the part
of Linda, Clouzot cast his own wife Vera, who would subsequently appear
in two of his later films,
Les Diaboliques (1955) and
Les
Espions (1957).
Although it would prove to be a global box office hit, the American
release of
Le Salaire de la peur
was compromised when the film was subjected to forty minutes' worth of
cuts, which were intended to remove all of Clouzot's perceived
anti-American commentary. The film was particularly successful in
France, where it attracted an audience of seven million (making it the
second most popular French film of the year after
Le Retour de Don Camillo).
It won two awards at Cannes in 1953 - the Grand Prize (which hadn't yet
been named the Palme d'Or) and a special award for Charles Vanel.
It also picked up the Golden Bear at the 1953 Berlin Film Festival
and the 1955 BAFTA Best Film award. The film was remade in 1977
by William Friedkin as
Sorcerer,
starring Roy Scheider and Bruno Cremer. Yves Montand turned down
an invitation to reprise his role in this film, which is little more
than a shallow echo of the original.
Le Salaire de la peur secured
the international reputation of its director Henri-Georges Clouzot, who
went on to win further acclaim with his equally suspenseful, equally
grim thriller
Les Diaboliques (1955).
After that, health problems and a lack of inspiration would diminish
and truncate Clouzot's filmmaking career, although he would still turn
out some noteworthy pieces of cinema, including:
Le Mystère Picasso (1956),
La Vérité (1960)
and
La Prisonnière
(1968). As interesting as Clouzot's later work is, none of these
films is as well-known nor as viscerally intense as
Le Salaire de la peur. A
gripping noir thriller, this film offers the most gruelling of viewing
experiences, never failing to hold an audience spellbound and shock
with its dramatic set-pieces and unremittingly nihilistic tone.
This is one journey you will not forget in a hurry - if you dare to take it.
© James Travers 2000
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Next Henri-Georges Clouzot film:
Les Diaboliques (1955)