{"id":3676,"date":"2011-10-18T13:52:07","date_gmt":"2011-10-18T17:52:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mondomark.com\/wordpress\/?p=2469"},"modified":"2011-10-18T13:52:07","modified_gmt":"2011-10-18T17:52:07","slug":"henri-georges-clouzot","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/?p=3676","title":{"rendered":"Henri-Georges Clouzot"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Beginning last Thursday, the TIFF Bell Lightbox began their \u00a0retrospective on French director Henri-Georges Clouzot<\/a>, best\u2013known for his classic double-crossing mystery Diabolique<\/strong> (1955) and the men transporting a deadly cargo across terrible terrain in Wages of Fear <\/strong>(1953).<\/p>\n

Long regarded as one of France\u2019s master filmmakers, there\u2019s a whole canon of work that\u2019s on DVD, and other titles yet to appear on home video, but even those on DVD and Blu-ray still can\u2019t hold up to the experience of seeing a major work on the big screen.<\/p>\n

What people choose to see is sometimes based on personal quirks, and within my own preferences, my taste focused on The Mystery of Picasso<\/strong> (1956). Once unavailable anywhere, it was brought back into distribution during the 1980s, and eventually made its way to Pay TV and home video.<\/p>\n

The current DVD release is 11 years old, and it\u2019s a non-anamorphic transfer that can\u2019t quite match up seeing the film in straight 35mm, because there\u2019s that last reel where the ratio pops from standard 1.33:1 to wide CinemaScope 2.35:1. The downside to the current print (which seems to date from \u201982 or \u201986) is the shrillness that affects Georges Auric\u2019s high brass, but that\u2019s more a case where the film ought to be given a restoration so it\u2019s not only up to par with current cinemas, but ready for a HD transfer for Blu-ray. That, and Auric\u2019s own style which can be sonically aggressive.<\/p>\n

The basic concept of Clouzot\u2019s film is simple: capture the artist as he begins a series of sketches and paintings, as though each stroke occurs on a blank film canvas. Using special paper and inks that bleed through to the other side where Claude Renoir\u2019s camera was positioned, Picasso does more than create art. He creates ideas that flow between a mood or story in flux, or as the artist himself tells the director, he wants the audience to see the total story at work.<\/p>\n

Dramatic becomes playful when Picasso sketches what resembles a handful of bugs, which in turn become a rooster, and then expands into a fish with a rooster-like pattern. Picasso keeps challenging audience expectations as he plays with his graphics, and Clouzot similarly uses the camera to hyper-compact the creative process into something cinematically efficient: in one case, what flows in less than a few minutes took 5 hours to paint.<\/p>\n

In-camera editing creates fluctuating stages, whereas reverse montages show how pre-laid geometric patterns become a panorama of characters, and revert back to their original, simple geometry \u2013 a trick that cleanly demonstrates the complexity of Picasso’s mindset.<\/p>\n

The colours in the 35mm print aren\u2019t blazingly vibrant, but the camera and film stock capture the contrasts as Picasso begins to add colour, first as dots, patterns, X\u2019s, and integrate every component into a boudoir, or a matador. Bullfighting is a major component, and the most startling is a matador in mid-toss, sprawled in shock over the bull\u2019s back after being knocked off his feet.<\/p>\n

Picasso alternates the shading in a continuous flow, and while it sounds like a trivial detail to describe, onscreen it\u2019s part of a painting\u2019s evolution, and the artist figuring out what he likes, and what doesn\u2019t work.<\/p>\n

The film\u2019s finale \u2013 in \u2018scope \u2013 consists of a seaside resort which flows from line drawings to colour painting, then collage, after which Picasso explains \u2018it\u2019s not going well,\u2019 and warns the director (and audience) \u2018it will get worse.\u2019 Erasing unworkable ideas or wrong turns, he starts again, and reconfigures core elements intp new formations before literally signing off, and walking away from the camera into a grainy blue darkness.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s surprising there haven\u2019t been any major imitations of Clouzot\u2019s film, but perhaps it\u2019s due to the film\u2019s tough availability, audience awareness, or interest in such an unusually conceptualized film. Two people walked out during the screening this past Sunday, perhaps because they were wholly unaware of its content and narrative structure.<\/p>\n

Mystery of Picasso<\/strong> is straightforward, but its simplicity of presentation \u2013 painting on film, so to speak \u2013 may feel a bit oppressive for some; or those simply not in the mood to see birthed art underscored with Auric\u2019s music.<\/p>\n

The film screens again Tuesday October 25th at 8:45pm, and at 78 mins., it\u2019s a perfect gem. (See sample trailer <\/a>on YouTube.)<\/p>\n

Films in this series not available<\/em> on home video (in North America) include The Murderer Lives at 21<\/strong> (1942) +La Terreur de Batignolles<\/strong> (1931), Oct. 27: Manon<\/a><\/strong> (1949) [read review at KQEK.com<\/a>], Nov. 8: Miquette et sa mere<\/a><\/strong> (1950), Nov. 10: La Prisonni\u00e8re<\/a> <\/strong>(1968), Nov. 15: La V\u00e9rit\u00e9<\/a><\/strong> (1960), and Nov. 24: Les Espions<\/a><\/strong> (1958).<\/p>\n

.<\/span><\/p>\n

.<\/span><\/p>\n

Mark R. Hasan<\/strong>, Editor
\nKQEK.com <\/strong>( Main Site<\/a> \/ Mobile Site<\/a> )<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

With a retrospective of French filmmaker Henri-Georges Clouzot underway at the TIFF Bell Lightbox, I’ve added a blog regarding Sunday’s screening of The Mystery of Picasso (1956), and info on upcoming titles currently unavailable on home video.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false},"categories":[6,5],"tags":[804,805,806,658],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8nuyW-Xi","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3676"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3676"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3676\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3676"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3676"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3676"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}