America: Fuck Yea!
05-15-2008, 11:09 AM
so, after loving the original The Wages of Fear (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0046268/) (thanks to Kevin's recommendation), I decided to read up more on this guy. Hitchcock apparently considered him his only competition, and it shows. Even though I have been doing school work all week, I managed to rent Les Diaboliques (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0046911/) (the original, not the shitty American remake from a few years ago):
In a French provincial town, Michel Delassalle, a sadistic headmaster of a school belonging to his wife Christina, a fragile young woman with a weak heart, carries on an affair with Nicole Horner, a strong, forceful teacher who has been his mistress from the day she arrived. He has, however, treated her as badly as his wife, and the two women have been driven into an alliance to plot to murder him.. They drown him in the bathtub and dump the body in the school's filthy swimming pool...When, shortly after, the pool is drained, watched in anguished expectation from a window by the women, the body has disappeared from the pool. Soon other mysterious events begin to occur
and Le Corbeau (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0035753/):
This takes place in a small French town in 1943. Someone called "The Raven" is sending poison pen letters to various people in the town. They're filled with half-truths or outright lies but it begins to affect people and one after another, they turn on each other as their hidden secrets are unveiled - but the one secret that no-one can uncover is the identity of the letters' author. Quickly the whole town falls apart--relationships are destroyed, mistrust and suspicion are all over and it finally leads to suicide and a murder.
The interesting thing about these two other films is that they don't meander or waste any time; whereas, the Wages of Fear is methodical and takes its time. The plot doesn't even begin until an hour into the film. In these two, not a scene is wasted. I can't recommend these three movies enough.
This guy might have entered my top 10 directors of all time, but I need to see more of this work. has anyone else seen any of his other stuff? If these three films are any indicator of his overall work, he is grossly underrated.
In a French provincial town, Michel Delassalle, a sadistic headmaster of a school belonging to his wife Christina, a fragile young woman with a weak heart, carries on an affair with Nicole Horner, a strong, forceful teacher who has been his mistress from the day she arrived. He has, however, treated her as badly as his wife, and the two women have been driven into an alliance to plot to murder him.. They drown him in the bathtub and dump the body in the school's filthy swimming pool...When, shortly after, the pool is drained, watched in anguished expectation from a window by the women, the body has disappeared from the pool. Soon other mysterious events begin to occur
and Le Corbeau (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0035753/):
This takes place in a small French town in 1943. Someone called "The Raven" is sending poison pen letters to various people in the town. They're filled with half-truths or outright lies but it begins to affect people and one after another, they turn on each other as their hidden secrets are unveiled - but the one secret that no-one can uncover is the identity of the letters' author. Quickly the whole town falls apart--relationships are destroyed, mistrust and suspicion are all over and it finally leads to suicide and a murder.
The interesting thing about these two other films is that they don't meander or waste any time; whereas, the Wages of Fear is methodical and takes its time. The plot doesn't even begin until an hour into the film. In these two, not a scene is wasted. I can't recommend these three movies enough.
This guy might have entered my top 10 directors of all time, but I need to see more of this work. has anyone else seen any of his other stuff? If these three films are any indicator of his overall work, he is grossly underrated.