Fear and Paranoia in Clouzot’s Le Corbeau

Fear is something that all humans have felt and experienced, especially when the object of our fear is mysterious or anonymous to us.  According to horror writer, H.P. Lovecraft, “the oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear, and the oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown.”  Expanding further on the concept of fear, Jiddu Krishnamurti (a spiritual philosopher) states that, “fear begins and ends with the desire to be secure…To find security and be secure is the everlasting cry. It is this insistent demand that breeds fear.”   As one can see, fear is a very powerful emotion and it’s not surprising that film directors have tapped into this emotion to scare us for entertainment purposes or to point out something (usually, negative) about ourselves as human beings.  Henri-Georges Clouzot is one such director that has utilized the emotion of fear to portray the negative side of human beings.
     
Perhaps, Clouzot’s best film to illustrate this point is Le Corbeau (The Raven), which depicts a small French town where all the residents receive “poison-pen” letters from an enigmatic figure called “The Raven” and the fear and paranoia that follows from them.  The town is thrown into chaos and people begin to accuse one another of being “The Raven” and writing the letters.  The fear and paranoia only increases when a young patient after receiving one of these letters, kills himself.  The townspeople immediately assume that Marie Corbin (a nurse with a strict attitude) is “The Raven” (though she is not) because she reportedly did not like the patient and because she disapproved of Dr. Germain who is constantly attacked by “The Raven” in the letters for having an affair and giving abortions.  At one point in the film, the town politicians desperate to do something about “The Raven” decide to get rid of Dr. Germain by setting him up, in the hope that “The Raven” would stop writing the letters; the plot is exposed and foiled.
       
The two incidents in the film illustrate how far the letters have driven everyone in the town to fear and paranoia. How Clouzot illicit these reactions from the citizens of the town is interesting and effective.  For instance, most people would assume that a funeral procession would be safe from one of “The Raven’s” letters, but no Clouzot has a letter fall out of a wreath as the mourners follow the casket of the decease (the young man who killed himself).  Even more suspenseful than the funeral procession, Clouzot saves the biggest place that we would assume that “The Raven” would never strike would be a Sunday morning Catholic mass.  Yet, Clouzot being the director he is, has the letter dropped from the gallery during the sermon.  Once again, this is effective what Clouzot did, because it shows the townspeople and us, the audience that nowhere is safe from “The Raven’s” claw.   Believe you and me, the scene with the letter coming down from the gallery and seeing how the people react, sends chills down my spine.  It’s that good of a scene.
     
Another thing that Clouzot does well with portraying fear and our reactions to it is the use of false clues and the twist ending.  As stated earlier, Marie Corbin was an initial suspect of being “The Raven”, but thanks to Clouzot’s suspenseful scene where the letter falls from the gallery, Marie is found to be innocent because earlier in the film, she was in jail.  That powerful scene helps illustrate the notion that “The Raven” could be anyone in the town and not the person we assume looks like a guilty party.  In fact, Clouzot shows us two other potential suspects, Laura (Dr. Vorzet’s young wife) and Denise (a flirtatious woman who has fling with Dr. Germain).  Both are not “The Raven,” yet the evidence that Clouzot provides us before the actual identity of “The Raven” is revealed made me think one of them was guilty.  After all, Denise was seen in the film dusting a stuffed raven and said raven ended up near Dr. Germain’s front door.  Both Denise and Laura were caught red-handed writing letters similar to “The Raven”, yet the real “Raven” was Dr. Vorzet (Laura’s husband) who discovered that his wife wanted a relationship with Dr. Germain and in act of revenge, came up with this scheme as way to expose other people’s skeletons in the closet.  
       
The ending of the film was shocking and satisfying to me because the mother of the young man who committed suicide got her revenge when she killed Dr. Vorzet.  Overall, Clouzot did a wonderful job with using fear and paranoia.  Using unexpected places that the townspeople and audience would not expect to see a letter appear, shows us how Clouzot masterfully manipulates his audience into feeling fearful and paranoid because the audience like the townspeople are wondering when will the letters stop.  In the end, Le Corbeau is a great thriller that keeps you wondering who the culprit is until the very end.

Illusion vs Reality: understanding Kurosawa’s Rashomon

When thinking about great film makers, Akira Kurosawa is on top of my list, as one of the greatest Japanese directors of all time. I was first introduced to Kurosawa, a few years ago, when I watched Seven Samurai (1954). At first, I was a little bit skeptical about watching this film because the film was over three hours long and it was subtitled, but after watching this masterpiece, I became a huge fan of Kurosawa. Outside of Seven Samurai, perhaps the best known Kurosawa film to American and European audiences is Rashoman (1950), a murder-rape mystery set during the twelfth century.

Rashoman is based on two Ryunosuke Akutagawa short stories entitled, “Rashomon” and “In a Grove”.Rashomon, in a sense, is a film about illusion vs truth. What do I mean by this? It’s simple, throughout the whole film, the audience is provided with four testimonies that conflict with each other over how the murder-rape took place. The audience does not really know who to trust in the film because all the testimonials are different and contradictory.

First, you have Tajomaru (Toshiro Mifune), a bandit who states that he deceived the murder victim (a samurai played by Masayuki Mori) into following him to look at some swords he hidden in the forest. Taromaru then ties him up and proceeds to rape the samurai’s wife (Machiko Kyo) who eventually gives in and is willing to go with him, provided that Taromaru engages in a one-on-one battle with her husband, in order to hide her shame of being raped. Taromaru and the samurai fight honorably, but in the end Taromaru kills the samurai; the samurai’s wife meanwhile flees from the fighting. 

The samurai’s wife’s story, however, is different from Taromaru’s story where she portray’s herself as a helpless victim, (as opposed to Taromaru’ story where she is portrayed as a proud woman willing to defend herself and her husband, but sucombs to Taromaru’s advances in the end), who is brutally raped and after Taromaru departs, she begs her husband to forgive her. The husband, however, looks at her with disdain. His unforgiving look, frightens her and she faints. When the samurai’s wife awakens, she discovers that her husband is dead with her dagger in him. After learning of her husbands death, the samurai’s wife tries to drown herself in a river, but is ultimately unsuccessful.

Reflections on anime and cartoons

For the last few weeks, I have been pondering on an age-old question; why did I take this class (i.e. animation history)? What compelled me to take a class on the comedic talents of Bugs Bunny and Mickey Mouse? Why was Coraline a much better film than Pocahontas? Why did I write such a long review for Princess Mononoke? These questions are hard to answer, but as I thought about it, taking a class on animation history would be neat and cool. Anime and cartoons have always fascinated me because they provide entertainment, moral lessons, education, drama, and comedy. In my opinion, anime and cartoons provide not only entertainment and escapism, but also a window into the creative imagination of the human mind.

Believe or not, my first experience with the movies was when I was 5, when my parents took me to see Don Bluth’s, The Land Before Time (see picture below), in 1988. Ever since than, I have always enjoyed going to the movie theaters and getting lost in these wonderful animated treasure troves. Disney films and Don Bluth films were always at the top of my list when I was younger to go see because I felt that they were well animated and had entertaining plot lines and characters. As I got older, I discovered anime and my love for animation solidified even more. In fact, anime or Japanese animation has become my favorite form of 2D animation because of the details that Japanese animators pay attention to when animating a series or a movie.