The truth (film)

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Movie
German title The truth
Original title La vérité
Country of production France
original language French
Publishing year 1960
length 124 minutes
Age rating FSK 18
Rod
Director Henri-Georges Clouzot
script Jerome Geromini
Michèle Perrein
Véra Clouzot
Simone Drieu
Henri-Georges Clouzot
production Raoul Lévy
camera Armand Thirard
cut Albert Jurgenson
occupation

The truth (original title: La vérité) is a feature film by the French director Henri-Georges Clouzot from 1960. Brigitte Bardot was recognized as a serious actress for the first time with her role in this judicial and love drama.

action

Dominique, a simple girl whose parents prefer his sisters, comes to the big city of Paris with his sister Annie and is part of student and artist circles. She leads an unsteady life and tries to get by without sustainable work. One day she meets her sister's friend, the music student and prospective conductor Gilbert. He falls in love with the beautiful, lascivious Dominique lying on the bed. The two sisters quarrel over it, and Dominique finds accommodation with Daisy.

Gilbert seeks her there and woos her. Dominique makes him fidget, they go out together, but the capricious Dominique is not averse to other men either. Dominique and Gilbert keep coming back together. One day there is a row over another man, which leads to a breakup.

Some time later, Dominique sees Gilbert conducting on television and she goes to him. They spend the night together, but Gilbert breaks up with her the next morning. In the meantime, Gilbert and Annie have gotten back together and want to get married.

Dominique, who has already tried to commit suicide once because of the very unfair treatment, becomes melancholy. She wants to shoot herself in front of Gilbert. When she visits him, however, he is angry and wants to get rid of her. She points the gun at herself. He talks himself into a rage, insults her and tells her to die. In the affect, Dominique points the gun at Gilbert and pulls the trigger several times. When she tries to judge herself there is no more bullet in the gun. She turns on the gas to die too. She is rescued by attentive visitors and will be tried in court.

The prosecution and co-plaintiffs, who represent Gilbert's mother, take on the many points of attack in her lifestyle that arise from people's gossip. In the verbal exchange of blows between those present, very different moral and life ideas come together. Dominique's defense attorney tries to justify her act with Gilbert's behavior in order to save her, but she refuses to drag his memory into the mud. The firing of the shots is undisputed. Whether the death penalty is threatened, however, depends on whether the act was planned. Her sister also testifies against her in the process. The process is characterized by personal attacks on Dominique and half-truths, not least by the attorney for the accessory prosecution. After all, all of this is too much for Dominique, who cuts her wrists in her cell at night. The next day, the court president reads her suicide note, which says that she only loved Gilbert. He also loved her, “only we didn't love each other at the same time”. When the president of the court receives news of her death, he breaks off and declares the proceedings to be closed.

Structure and statement

Clouzot attended a court case in 1959 that inspired him. He wanted to demonstrate the ambiguity and uncertainty of truth and portray an event from different angles. It shows the events section by section in chronologically arranged flashbacks , then each section is negotiated in the courtroom. We see the "truth" first and then recognize the lies in the allegations of the prosecutors , defense lawyers and witnesses . So the truth is not the goal of Clouzot's investigation, but an assumed tool of social analysis. The search for truth is also not the goal for prosecutors and defenders; rather, they are fighting a competition and when the proceedings are over they shake hands like two athletes after a game. Clouzot presents the sexual morality of the time and the prevailing notion of a decent life as the main drive for the lies of those who testify. Dominique judges society by preferring death to the possibility of living in that society.

Clouzot said that the judiciary showed no appreciation for feelings. His film laments the judicial system in which men in their fifties, in Dominique's case, judge the young generation they don't understand. They come from the middle class; the cases before them have often occurred in settings unknown to them. The judicial system does not accuse Dominique, but rather her way of life. Conversely, Clouzot's production presents the young people as more personable than the older ones. Clouzot: “I am against the death penalty and condemned assassinations as well as the way in which they are prosecuted.” His statement on this film should be seen in the context of the time: France had been in the Algerian war since 1954 , assassins carried out many attacks on French soil, and the The death penalty was often imposed.

criticism

On the one hand, contemporary film criticism in France was positive. Positif saw the quality of the film in the encounter between a talented director and a mythical star, in the encounter between brains and hearts, of clarity and passion. Arts found Brigitte Bardot the ideal marionette in Clouzot's hand . The script is evidence of ingenuity and precision, the direction leaves nothing to chance and leads the actors masterfully, judged Le Monde .

The film journalist Georges Sadoul also stated in the year of the blaze of the Nouvelle Vague that Clouzot had not revolutionized cinema. His style was also attacked as obsolete; the traditional and the artificial displace the freshness and authenticity in his work, which in the age of Resnais and Antonioni can no longer be endured. Some even judged the work to be dull and colorless, banal and flat.

The Truth was a first high point in Bardot's career . It was her first tragic role and it earned her recognition for her acting skills. On the occasion of a Bardot exhibition in Paris in 2009, the Neue Zürcher Zeitung said that she had made “her most captivating and emotionally rousing performance” in this film. Decades later, Bardot also declared that of all her roles, the one in The Truth was her favorite. According to a film lexicon (2005), The Truth is technically successful and convincing in terms of performance. The speech duels between the lawyers are brilliant pieces.

background

The production budget was 600 million old Francs (approx. 1.3 million euros), of which 70 million (approx. € 147,000) went to Bardot as a fee, which was a record for a French vedette at the time. Before Sami Frey had confirmed the role of Gilbert, Jean-Paul Belmondo and Hugues Aufray had also been in discussion. During the almost 100 days of filming, the atmosphere was tense because Clouzot led the actors rigidly and he did not appreciate Meurisse's rebellious humor; On the other hand, he quickly found a good rapport with Bardot, who was considered capricious and haughty.

The line between film myth and real life was blurred. During the shoot, rumors circulated of an alleged affair between Bardot and Frey, and even one between Bardot and Clouzot. The press repeatedly linked Bardot's behavior to her multiple suicide attempts. The star was also chased and felt harassed by paparazzi. When Clouzot met her again after filming, she seemed very depressed. A few days later, on her 26th birthday on September 28, 1960, she cut her wrists. Her life was in danger for several days. Her second marriage to Jacques Charrier soon failed. Clouzot was also hit by difficult personal events; his wife Véra fell seriously ill while filming and died shortly after the premiere. The film itself became a huge success; With over 5 million admissions, it was one of the best-attended domestic films of the early 1960s in France. In the Federal Republic of Germany, production started at the end of 1960 with the age rating of 18.

Awards

In addition, the film was nominated for an Oscar for best foreign language film in 1961 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e f g h i José-Louis Bocquet: Henri-Georges Clouzot Cinéaste. La Sirène, Sèvres 1993, ISBN 2-84045-015-1 , pp. 117-125.
  2. ↑ Le Monde . November 3, 1960, cit. in: Bocquet 1993, p. 117.
  3. ↑ L'Express . August 25, 1960, cit. in: Bocquet 1993, p. 117.
  4. ↑ a b c d e f Dirk Manthey, Jörg Altendorf, Willy Loderhose (eds.): The large film lexicon. All top films from A-Z . Second edition, revised and expanded new edition. Volume VI (V-Z). Verlagsgruppe Milchstraße, Hamburg 1995, ISBN 3-89324-126-4 , p. 3038-3039 .
  5. ^ Henri-Georges Clouzot in Le Monde. November 3, 1960, cit. in: Bocquet 1993, p. 122. Je suis contre toute peine de mort, et réprouve autant les attentats que la façon dont on les réprime.
  6. ↑ Positif . quoted in: Bocquet 1993, p. 125.
  7. ^ Arts . quoted in: Bocquet 1993, p. 125.
  8. ↑ Le Monde. quoted in: Bocquet 1993, p. 125.
  9. ↑ Georges Sadoul , cit. in: Bocquet 1993, p. 125.
  10. ^ France Observateur and Cinema 61. both quoted. in: Bocquet 1993, p. 125.
  11. ↑ Cinema 61. cit. in: Bocquet 1993, p. 125.
  12. ^ A b Dictionnaire du cinéma populaire français. Nouveau monde editions, 2004, ISBN 2-84736-082-4 , p. 67
  13. ↑ Jean Tulard : Guide of the film. PZ. Editions Robert Laffont, Paris 2005, p. 3469; Georges Sadoul: Dictionnaire des films. Editions du Seuil, Paris 1967.
  14. ↑ Marc Zitzmann: Small ego, big heart . In: Neue Zürcher Zeitung . December 16, 2009, p. 49.
  15. ↑ Tulard 2005, p. 3469.
  16. ^ Revue de cinéma. 1991.