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The Wages of Fear (1953)

post #1 of 12
7/12/09 at 11:43am
Thread Starter 
Watched the Criterion of Clouzot's THE WAGES OF FEAR last night. WOW. Watching this and STRANGERS ON A TRAIN back-to-back was a primer in suspense filmmaking. I yearn for the days when suspense thrillers drew out scenes for maximum impact, with no music hammering us over the head. Two questions to those who have seen it:

1) Did anyone else find the ending almost laughably nihilistic?
2) How does Friedkin's SORCERER compare to the original?
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post #2 of 12
7/12/09 at 1:47pm
It's been a long time since I've seen it, but I remember Sorcerer being about 10 times more nihilistic.
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post #3 of 12
7/13/09 at 10:38am
Friedkin gets all character background out of the way in the first 30 minutes. I find the Clouzot film lessens some of the tension in its use of flashbacks. Not nearly as effective.

And the ending is almost laughable. I simply can't believe the Yves Montand character would be that reckless and stupid.
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post #4 of 12
7/13/09 at 11:36am
Thread Starter 
My problems with the both the setup and the ending was the interaction between Montand and the irritating Linda character. He spends the first part of the movie shoving her aside (literally), then we're supposed to believe he's deliriously eager to get back to her at the end of the film? I didn't really buy that.

Save for those two quibbles, I thought the rest was exceptional. (Also, Luigi was a dead ringer for Carlos Mencia. That took a few minutes to shake.)
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post #5 of 12
7/15/09 at 6:09pm
Clouzot was no Hitchcock, but basically as close as we've got, or at least had during the same time frame. I like this one, but prefer Les diaboliques, and even Le corbeau. I don't think I'm alone in that one.
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post #6 of 12
7/15/09 at 6:12pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Mangy View Post
Watched the Criterion of Clouzot's THE WAGES OF FEAR last night. WOW. Watching this and STRANGERS ON A TRAIN back-to-back was a primer in suspense filmmaking. I yearn for the days when suspense thrillers drew out scenes for maximum impact, with no music hammering us over the head.
Change out Strangers on a Train for Les Diaboliques and you have a segment of one of my philosophy classes.
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post #7 of 12
7/15/09 at 6:26pm
Thread Starter 
Thanks, Tarkovsky. Diaboliques is in my queue, looking forward to it. That and Wages are the two Clouzot films I've heard about forever, so pointing me to any lesser-known gems is welcome.

Quote:
Change out Strangers on a Train for Les Diaboliques and you have a segment of one of my philosophy classes.
Interesting, would love to know what the segment is about, and how those films pertain to the topic.
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post #8 of 12
7/15/09 at 9:55pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Mangy View Post
My problems with the both the setup and the ending was the interaction between Montand and the irritating Linda character. He spends the first part of the movie shoving her aside (literally), then we're supposed to believe he's deliriously eager to get back to her at the end of the film? I didn't really buy that.
Try viewing it differently. He's the sole survivor of a life-threatening situation where everyone, including himself, expected him to die. He's exhilarated and eager to get back to the only place that has anything remotely close to friends and family. And he's got a girl waiting for him. She's arguably the best of a bad lot, but she's a girl nonetheless. He wants what any guy in that situation wants: He wants to get laid.

Had he survived, I have no doubt he would've played heroic big shot for a couple days and then blew town without the romantic baggage.
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post #9 of 12
7/16/09 at 4:24am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Mangy View Post
Thanks, Tarkovsky. Diaboliques is in my queue, looking forward to it. That and Wages are the two Clouzot films I've heard about forever, so pointing me to any lesser-known gems is welcome.


Interesting, would love to know what the segment is about, and how those films pertain to the topic.

His Le mystère Picasso is easily one of the more fascinating I guess you'd call it documentaries I've ever seen. It's an hour and twenty minutes of Picasso painting, and the time lapse process they use is quite stunning and very interesting. La vérité (The Truth) with Brigitte Bardot is also quite good.
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post #10 of 12
7/17/09 at 2:06pm
I'm quite fond of this film myself, but I have to say that as far as Clouzot goes, Diaboliques is the better realized film. I think what draws me most to WAGES is it's spare quality.

Also, for my money, SORCERER is one of those rare cases where a remake outdoes the original pretty handily. Like APOCALYPSE NOW, Friedkin's film (which still does not have an even half decent dvd release! ) benefits from things that didn't quite go as planned during filming actually enhancing the final film. The bridge sequence being a marked example of that.
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post #11 of 12
4/3/11 at 6:27pm

Just finished watching this. It was pretty nerve wracking, to say the least. Just so many great tension set pieces, and a really great evocation of time and place. It really felt like being in a completely different world for two hours.

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post #12 of 12
5/12/12 at 10:54pm

I have two strong memories of watching that Wages of Fear:

 

  • Holding my breath a lot during the journey
  • Wondering where on Earth it was set?

 

Someone should remake it with a nuclear weapon on board, perhaps through in a car chase (using trucks)    :)

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