Corbeau, Le (1943)

Le Corbeau, Henri-George Clouzot’s 1943 film, was met with outrage upon its initial release and withdrawn by successive Right and Left-wing Vichy governments in France.  Clouzot himself was barred from making any other films for a lifetime.  Gradually the film gained its rightful place among his finest work.  His career was back on track after the likes of Jean-Paul Sartre and Jean Cocteau, amongst others, acclaimed it as a fine film noir that perfectly captured the aura of suspicion that was a mark of the way the Gestapo and subsequently, several Totalitarian regimes operated by spreading fear, distrust and doubt.  Indeed, very frequently, the most vulnerable and oppressed of society’s lot would be the ones to suffer most.

Clouzot’s film Noir, taut and gripping and expertly shot, brilliantly captures a community falling apart and crumbling away –prey to the cancer-like suspicion that spreads among them, bringing out the worst characteristics of self-preservation in people in the form of blame and pettiness to the extreme.  Fingers are pointed, tongues wag, and venom and poison pollute the air causing misery, death and horrifying witch-hunts.

The film was highly controversial mostly because it hit a nerve so close to reality that governments of the day saw it as dangerously subversive and no doubt questioning their methods and intentions.  This gripping and strongly performed film effectively killed Clouzot’s career.  Still, he recovered to go on to further masterful work such as Les Diaboliques and The Wages of Fear, consolidating his reputation as a filmmaker of the highest calibre given the title of “The French Hitchcock” by some regarding his cinematic mastery.

Le Corbeau is a film that is essential viewing for historians as well as for those who admire the finest film noir, which this undoubtedly is.