(1943) Fish-out-of-watered in a provincial town, coolly suave Parisian doctor Pierre Fresnay (Grand Illusion, Marius in Pagnol’s Marseilles trilogy) finds himself the target of poison pen letters from “Le Corbeau” (the “Raven” or “Crow”) — but then, slowly but surely, so does everyone else, even as an unknowingly terminal patient gets the bad news, the postmaster confiscates one addressed to his own wife, and letters literally float out of the air in public places. Hysteria and finger-pointing rule, with a suspect’s panicky flight through deserted cobble-stoned streets to the tune of an off-screen lynch mob an unnerving highlight. Made by a German production company during the — never mentioned — Occupation, though from a pre-war original script, Corbeau got Clouzot banned from the French film industry for two years post-Liberation. 4K DCP restoration. Approx. 91 min.
Restored in 4K by Studiocanal, with the support of the CNC.
Presented with support from The George Fasel Memorial Fund for Classic French Cinema.
A RIALTO PICTURES RELEASE.
See also: Clouzot’s QUAI DES ORFÈVRES at Film Forum, April 13 - 19.
DAILY (except SAT/SUN & APR 23/25)
2:00 3:50 5:40 7:30 9:30
SAT, APR 21 12:30 2:30 7:00 9:20
SUN, APR 22 3:30 5:30 7:30 9:30
MON/WED, APR 23/25 2:00 3:50 5:40 9:30
SAT, APR 28 12:30 2:30 4:40 7:00 9:20
SUN, APR 29 1:20 3:10 5:10 7:00 8:50
Friday, April 20 - Tuesday, May 1
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“As sulfurous as [Clouzot’s] best-known films, The Wages of Fear and Diabolique, or indeed anything this misanthropic filmmaker ever did… Takes clinical pleasure in detailing a small town’s moral disintegration.”
– J. Hoberman, The New York Review of Books
“It is to the Occupation what Renoir’s Rules of the Game is to the years before the Second World War, a devastating allegory about the state of the nation as weak people betray friends and neighbors.”
– Phillip French, The Guardian
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