3 Classic Films by Chabrol
The standard measure is that if a filmmaker made three great films, we can call him great. But what do we make of someone like Claude Chabrol, who made almost nothing but good films for over 50 years? Yes, he made a few movies that weren’t so good, but nothing awful. And sure, he made several films, such as “Le Cérémonie” (1995), that could be defined as great if we want to push him into the pantheon by the usual means.
But if we’re to be perfectly honest, Chabrol was a maker of good movies, but so many of them that we have to call him great, if only out of gratitude. He made about one a year. Usually he wrote them, or had a hand in the writing, and if you’ve seen a few, you can recognize the signature style. He liked suspense and was sometimes called the French Hitchcock, except that he was like a Hitchcock who could get a date. He wasn’t afraid of women. Most of his movies featured women in the lead roles.
He liked to fancy himself a social commentator on class divisions, but he was enough of an artist that he transcended (and sometimes accidentally contradicted) what he thought he was trying to say. If you like Chabrol, you end up liking even his weaker films for their familiar atmosphere. His personality was appealing, and it came through in his work. He was epicurean, enthusiastic. Like Woody Allen he was notorious for giving few directions to his actors, but as the actress Valeria Bruni Tedeschi once said, he exuded such power on the set that actors knew what to do through some mental osmosis. He often elicited great performances. This 3-disc set from the Cohen Film Collection features three solid, good (not great, but definitely good) Chabrol films from the 1990s.
“Betty” (1992) stars Marie Trintignant as a pathetic alcoholic who is rescued from complete dissolution by a fellow alcoholic (Stephane Audran). They start going out and getting drunk together, but somehow this is better. “Torment” (1994) -- I prefer the French title, “L’enfer” (hell) -- is the story of a man (Francois Cluzet) who is cracking up because his wife is so beautiful that he can’t believe she’s not cheating on him. The wife is played by Emmanuelle Beart, so we can understand the strain. And “The Swindle” (1997) is a delight, with Isabelle Huppert and Michel Serrault as a pair of small-time swindlers who get in over their head. The Blu-ray transfer is gorgeous. — Mick LaSalle