Claude Chabrol - 1957-1967: Early Film Career

1957-1967: Early Film Career

The most prolific of the major New Wave directors, Chabrol averaged almost one film a year from 1958 until his death. His early films (roughly 1958–1963) are usually categorized as part of the New Wave and generally have the experimental qualities associated with the movement; while his later early films are usually categorized as being intentionally commercial and far less experimental. In the mid-sixties it was difficult for Chabrol to obtain financing for films so he made a series of commercial "potboilers" and spy spoofs, which none of the other New Wave filmmakers did.

Chabrol had married Agnès Goute in 1952 and in 1957 his wife inheirited a large sum of money from relatives. In December of that year Chabrol used the money to make his feature directorial debut with Le Beau Serge. Chabrol spent three months shooting in his hometown of Sardent using a small crew and little known actors. The films budget was $85,000. The film starred Jean-Claude Brialy as Francois and Gérard Blain as Serge, two childhood friends reunited when the recent medical school graduate Francois returns to Sardent and discovers that Serge has become an alcoholic after the stillbirth of his physically retarded first child. Despite suffering from tuberculosis, Francois drags Serge through a snowstorm to witness the birth of his second child, thus giving Serge a reason to live while killing himself in the process. Le Beau Serge is considered the inaugural film of the French New Wave Film movement that would peak between 1959 and 1962. Chabrol was the first of his friends to complete a feature film (although Jacques Rivette had already begun filming his first feature Paris nous appartient), and it immediately received critical praise and was box office success. It won the Grand Prix at the Locarno Film Festival and the Prix Jean Vigo. Critics noticed similarities to Hitchcock's films, such as the motifs of doubling and re-occurrences and the "Catholic guilt transference" that Chabrol had also written about extensively in his and Rohmer's book the year earlier. Chabrol stated that he made the film as a "farewell to Catholicism", and many critics have called his first film vastly different from any of his subsequent films.

Chabrol quickly followed this success up with Les Cousins in 1958. The film is a companion piece and a reversal to Le Beau Serge in many ways, such as having the responsible student Brialy now play the decadent and insensitive Paul while the reckless Blain now plays the hard-working law student Charles. In this film, the country cousin Charles arrives in the big city of Paris to live with his corrupt cousin Paul while attending school. This was the first of many Chabrol films to include characters named Paul and Charles, and later films would often include a female named Hélène. More so than his first film, Les Cousins features many characteristics that would be seen as "Chabrolian", including the Hitchcock influence, a depiction of the French Bourgeoisie, characters with ambiguous motives and a murder. It was also Chabrol's first film co-written with his longtime collaborator Paul Gégauff, of whom Chabrol once said "when I want cruelty, I go off and look for Gégauff. Paul is very good at gingering things up...He can make a character look absolutely ridiculous and hateful in two seconds flat." Les Cousins was another box office success in France and won the Golden Bear at the 9th Berlin International Film Festival.

With the profits of his first two films, Chabrol formed his own production company AJYM Productions and began funding many of the films of his friends. AJYN helped fund Eric Rohmer's feature debut The Sign of Leo, partially funded Rivette's Paris nous appartient, and Philippe de Broca's films Les Jeux de l'amour and Le farceur. He also donated excess film stock from Les Cousins to Rivette to complete Paris nous appartient. Chabrol was also a technical advisor on Jean-Luc Godard's feature debut Breathless and acted in small parts in many of his friends and his own early films. For his support to the early careers of so many of his friends, Chabrol has been referred to as "the godfather of the French New Wave", although many film histories and tend to overlook this contribution and dismiss Chabrol altogether.

After two box office hits in a row, Chabrol was given a big budget to make his first color film, À double tour (Léda) in the spring of 1959. The film stars Jean-Paul Belmondo as Laszlo and Antonella Lualdi as Léda, two outsiders of a Bourgeoisie family who experience different results when attempting to enter that family. Chabrol adapted the script with Paul Gégauff from a novel by Stanley Ellin, and the film is known for its oedipal sex triangle and murder sceanrio. The film was shot on location in Aix-en-Provence with cinematographer Henri Decaë and includes choppy, hand-held camera footage that is atypical of a Chabrol film despite being present in many of the New Wave films made at the same time. The film was both a box office and critical disappointment, and critic Roy Armes criticized "Chabrol's lack of feeling for his characters and love of overacting."

In 1960 Chabrol made what is considered by many critics as his best early film, Les Bonnes Femmes. The film stars Bernadette Lafont, Clotilde Joano, Stéphane Audran and Lucile Saint-Simon as four Parisian appliance store employees who all dream of an escape from their mediocre lives, and the different outcomes for each girl. Most critics praised the film, such as Robin Wood and James Monaco. However some left-wing critics disliked Chabrol's depiction of working-class people and accused him of making fun of their lifestyles. The film was another box office disappointment for Chabrol. It was followed with two films that were also financially unsuccessful and which Chabrol has admitted to making purely for "commercial reasons". Les Godelureaux was made in 1960 and hated by Chabrol. The Eye of Evil (L'Oeil du Malin), released in 1961, received better reviews than Chabrol's previous films, with critics piointing out that the films that Chabrol wrote without Paul Gégauff were much more compassionate and realistic than the ones with Gégauff. It was shot on location in Munich. Although she had appeared in supporting roles in several Chabrol films before, The Eye of Evil was the first film that Stéphane Audran appeared as the female lead in a Chabrol film. They later married in 1964 and worked together until the late 1970s.

In 1962 Chabrol made Ophelia, a loose adaptation of Hamlet that was another box office disappointment. Later that year he had a minor hit film with Landru, written by Françoise Sagan and starring Charles Denner, Michèle Morgan, Danielle Darrieux and Hildegard Knef. the film depicts the famous French serial killer Henri Désiré Landru, a story that had previously inspired Charlie Chaplin's film Monsieur Verdoux.

From 1964 to 1967 Chabrol made six films and one short that were critically and commercially disastrous, and this period is considered a low point of his career. Four of these films were in the then-popular genre of spy spoof films, including Le Tigre aime la chair fraiche and Le Tigre se parfume à la dynamite. Chabrol had said that "I like to get to the absolute limit of principles...In drivel like the Tiger series I really wanted to get the full extent of the drivel. They were drivel, so OK, lets get into it up to our necks." During this period a Variety headline read "Vital To Keep Making Pictures, and What Sort Not Relevant; Chabrol No 'Doctrinaire' Type." In 1965 Chabrol also contributed to the New Wave portmanteau film Six in Paris with the segment "La Muette". Chabrol co-starred with Stéphane Audran as a middle aged couple dealing with their rebellious teenage daughter. In 1964 Chabrol also directed a stage production of MacBeth for the Théâtre Récamier.