In this short video, Wallace Shawn and Andre Gregory rummage around in the DVD closet of the Criterion Collection, to note the release of a new box set of their collaborations on film. The set includes special editions of My Dinner with Andre and Vanya on 42nd Street. And if you haven’t seen those two yet, put them at the top of your list.
Although it is always a pleasure to watch Wally and Andre chat about pretty much anything, in fact it’s not much of a video. Wally does note that when he first saw Godard’s Weekend, he thought it was “the most horrible thing” he had ever seen, but soon came around to the view that “it was a great, great film.” Unfortunately, we here at Mid Century Cinema, as of yet, are still stuck in phase one.
But wait, there’s more. Near the end (5:27), when discussing would-be favorite national cinemas, Wally is non-committal, but offers this gem: “If I had to watch ten films by one person, I’d watch Chabrol.” (And as a bonus, Andre responds, “Oh, yeah, I love Chabrol.”) An outstanding and refreshingly original choice, it also makes for a nice little birthday card, as the great (and irresistible) Claude Chabrol (1930-2010) would have turned eighty-five on June 24.
But of course, this begs the question: which ten? Chabrol made over fifty films across six different decades. Wally doesn’t say. Here are our desert-island selections:
Chabrol’s first two films are justly credited as inaugurating the French New Wave; the second, Les Cousins (1959), captured the youth, energy and moral ambiguity of the Nouvelle Vague, and won the Golden Bear at the Berlin Film festival. Les Bonnes Femmes (1960), the tale of four young working-class women, is considered by many to be Chabrol’s greatest—Robin Wood described it as “an intensely personal work, for all its appearance of detachment and objectivity,” and saw its controversial conclusion as “an extraordinary, beautifully judged balancing of uplift and despair.”
From 1968 to 1975, Chabrol directed a dozen films. It was a high point in his career, and choosing among these is not easy. But, emphasizing variety and biased against the obvious suspects, we will go with This Man Must Die (1969), which features director Maurice Pialat in a small role, Just Before Nightfall (1971) a brilliant inversion of Hitchcock’s classic man-wrongly-accused-on-the-run motif (and one of many collaborations with actress Stephane Audran), and Innocents with Dirty Hands, starring Romy Schneider, Rod Steiger, and a scene-stealing Jean Rochefort.
Poulet au Vinaigre (1985), with regulars Audran and Michel Bouquet, introduces Inspector Lavardin (Jean Poiret), a charismatic but hard-edged character for whom Chabrol had a great affinity. Story of Women (1988) features Isabel Huppert (in her second of seven films with the director), as a woman who performs abortions, illegally, in occupied France. Betty (1992), one of many Simenon adaptations, is distinctly cinematic, fascinating, and inscrutable (Janet Maslin described it as a film of “eerie intelligence.”)
The last decade of Chabrol’s life saw another remarkable run of high notes (I have discussed all of these films at length here)—once again, picking out the desert island discs from this set will leave some greats behind. Non-negotiable is The Color of Lies (1999), with Sandrine Bonnaire; another great, distinct, and distinctly Chabrolian take on the essence of guilt. The Flower of Evil (2002) comes close to bringing all things Chabrol under one roof—and, without announcing its intentions, leaves the viewer mulling the inescapable weight of the past. Comedy of Power (2006) is a treat—suspenseful, funny, and unmistakably shot by a master at the height of his craft.
We’d like to mention a few more . . . but that was eleven. Happy Birthday Claude! We miss you.
Les Cousins
Just Before Nightfall
The Color of Lies