004 - Wednesday, January 4, 2017
Le salaire de la peur (The Wages of Fear), 1953, France, Italy. Dir. Henri-Georges Clouzot.
You may know that the great Christmas classic It's a Wonderful Life features the cop and the cab driver Bert and Ernie, but how about a movie that features roommates Mario and Luigi?
That is the least important thing about The Wages of Fear, and it is just as coincidental as the pair of names in It's a Wonderful Life. But it is fun.
What is important about this film is the bond among men and the tensions with which they deal. Some of those tensions are life and death.
The film begins in the isolated town of Las Piedras. Look it up. There is a Las Piedras in Puerto Rico and a Las Piedras in Uruguay, but we know that our director, Henri-Georges Clouzot had just returned from his honeymoon in Brazil with his new Brazilian bride, Vera.
How do you know you are a filmmaker? When you take your film crew on your honeymoon! Henri-Georges and Vera went to Brazil on their honeymoon and worked on their documentary of Brazil while there. Clouzot insisted on filming the people, including the poverty-stricken areas, and not only what the government wanted the tourists to see.
When he returned home he was offered a script about a Frenchman living in South America. Perfect! Clouzot made the movie and wrote a role for his new bride.
If you have travelled to certain small outposts in South America, you may recognize the setting in the opening scenes--the boy without pants tying beetles together, the deep potholes in the dirt streets, the women walking with pots and baskets on their heads, the old American car serving as a taxi, racing through the streets, splashing through the potholes, barely missing the women with pots and baskets on their heads, the mule walking down the street, the ice cream vendor, the men sitting idly on the porch sweating in the heat of the day, the airplane nearly hitting the buildings as it lands in the grass field.
Yes! It looks just like a place you may have visited in South America--the architecture, the people, the climate, the culture. And it was filmed in the south of France!
From Clouzot's memory.
Good thing he took that film crew on his honeymoon.
This film comes in two parts: about an hour in the town of Las Piedras, and about an hour-and-a-half on the road with four men driving two trucks loaded with nitroglycerin. And boy, does it get exciting.
In the first hour we see the relationships between Mario and Linda (played respectively by international star Yves Montand in his first starring role, and by Clouzot's wife Vera), Mario and his roommate Luigi, and Mario and newcomer Monsieur Jo. Mario's relationships with Linda and Luigi quickly give way when M. Jo arrives, another Frenchman, who bribes his way into town and bonds with Mario over their common culture. Luigi is from Italy, and he grows jealous that Mario would throw him off so quickly for this new Jo. And Linda grows jealous as well.
There are scenes in the village and in the bar where Mario expresses his new loyalty, and his girlfriend and his roommate struggle to adjust. The roommate and the new Jo even have a public showdown involving broken bottles and a gun. Watch out.
But the film moves on to the story that drives it the rest of the way.
The town exists because an American oil company has oil wells in the area, and one has just exploded. In order to put out the raging fire, they need to create an even larger explosion that will consume all the oxygen in the area. And in order to create the larger explosion, they need to transport two truckloads of nitroglycerin from our town of Las Piedras to the site of the fire.
And boy are those trucks big.
One single drop of nitroglycerin dropping on the floor can cause a small explosion by itself. We know this because the American boss Bill O'Brien demonstrates it. So imagine what a large truck full of jerrycans of nitroglycerin will do.
They only need one truck but they are sending two. Just in case one truck blows up along the way. Who wants to volunteer for the job? The men are so desperate for work that they line up and fight for it.
The journey is a series of incidents and near calamities. Mario and Jo drive one truck, and Luigi and the German Bimba drive the other one. They have to drive slowly enough in one area, fast enough in another. They could run into one another. They could run off the mountain. They have to remove a great boulder from their path. They have to get through an oil spill. The challenges keep coming.
This is a great film for dramatic action. You may find yourself on the edge of your seat, hoping you do not explode. It is also a great film for showing the relationships between men, and the navigating between courage and cowardice.
To understand this fascinating film, let us take a quick look at its fascinating director.
Clouzot's father owned a bookstore, so he grew up reading voraciously. He studied political science in Paris but aspired to be a writer. In school he wrote song lyrics, plays, and screenplays and was hired by the German Adolphe Osso to work for the great studio UFA in Germany. While there he wrote and translated over twenty different German films into French and other languages. While there he was also exposed to the films of F. W. Murnau and Fritz Lang, and thereby discovered German Expressionism. He also saw the Hitler parades and was shocked by French apathy over what was happening. He was fired from his job at UFA for his friendship with Jewish producers, including Osso, and back in France he contracted tuberculosis and spent the next four years in a sanitarium.
Imagine that. Clouzot was practically bedridden for four years, perpetually at the point of death. He read voraciously and studied human behavior. By the time the disease left him he was ready to work.
Clouzot made critically and financially successful films and became an international star director.
He was known for being demanding. He would do whatever it took to get a performance out of an actor, from charm to manipulation to coercion.
The results can be fantastic.
Watch The Wages of Fear and you will see.
The film is almost fully satisfying, but in the end it does have one weakness. You will have to discover that for yourself.
https://www.criterion.com/films/370-the-wages-of-fear
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