Cine-File French Film Guides
2 total works
Hugely enjoyable and exciting, long awaited book by top world authority on French cinema. This is the first book to focus on this very contemporary film. "Les Diaboliques" is often shown and is easily available on DVD and video "Les Diaboliques" was a top grossing film in 1955. Clouzot shrouded his film in mystery and also radically changed the original story of the novel, heterosexualising the original lesbian plot. "Les Diaboliques" still intrigues perhaps due to its excessive ambiguities and numerous plot twists that make it a 'film noir' to end all 'films noir', and not least the great performance of Simone Signoret. In this enjoyable and challenging "Cine-File", Hayward sets "Les Diaboliques" against the political culture of its time and demonstrates the importance of Clouzot as a master of the thriller genre. She gives an illuminating in-depth textual analysis of the film and presents a comparison with its US remake.
"Nikita" (1990) is the story of a nineteen-year old junkie, Nikita (Anne Parillaud) who is given a second chance in life through being trained to be - and becoming - a skilled assassin for the State. "Nikita" is a cult classic, directed by Luc Besson (with Thierry Arbogast as director of photography) in his hallmark powerful style. The film was an international hit, which spawned a TV series and a Hollywood remake. Susan Hayward develops here a fresh and provocative way of understanding "Nikita"'s plot structure as a neo-baroque symphony. She goes in depth into key sequences of the film, examines its reception as a popular film by audiences and critics, and looks at "The Assassin", the Hollywood remake of "Nikita". This is a wonderfully exciting book on an underrated film. It also shows that the woman placed at the centre of a film noir can', as Susan Hayward points out, 'for once win - or at least 'get away with it".