Film Diary: LA VERITE (Henri-Georges Clouzot, 1960)

‘Is she on trial for promiscuity or murder?’

Essentially a courtroom drama with extended flashbacks, La verite was the penultimate film of the great French director Henri-Georges Clouzot (if one discounts Clouzot’s unfinished L’enfer). Sadly, Clouzot’s approach to filmmaking was eclipsed in the early 1960s by the filmmakers of the nouvelle vague, who had dismissed Clouzot’s approach as an example of the cinema de papa (fuddy-duddy cinema); already, by the time of the production of La verite, Clouzot’s measured style seemed in stark contrast to the immediacy of films such as Godard’s A bout de souffle and Truffaut’s Les quatre cents coups.

In this context, La verite seems like an attempt to channel the inter-generational conflict within the filmmaking world. Dominique (Brigitte Bardot Bardot) is put on trial for the murder of her lover, Gilbert (Sami Frey, in a role that nearly went to Trintignant or Belmondo, among others). Most of the film takes place in a courtroom, where Dominique and others give evidence either for or against the allegation that she killed Gilbert; these witness statements are presented via extended flashbacks, each of which is like a piece in a jigsaw puzzle – and each of which casts the relationship between Dominique and Gilbert in a slightly different light. The overall effect is not dissimilar to Rashomon: which of these versions of events captures the ‘truth’ (la verite)?

The trial is presided over by middle-aged men who struggle to sympathise with Dominique. Clouzot takes pains to show the selecting of the jury, an all-male group who come to the trial with their own prejudices. At the start of the trial, one of the jury members asserts that Dominique is a ‘bitch’ who will ‘get away with it’. In the flashbacks, we see the flighty Dominique falling in love with Gilbert, an uptight and earnest music student. However, as the story progresses we come to see Gilbert as manipulative and borderline abusive. Dominique and Gilbert are eternally incompatible, and the older generation struggle to understand their tribulations – especially those of Dominique.

Bardot excels in her role, which was written for her following her rise to stardom in the late 1950s. Behind the scenes, events were just as traumatic as those in the story, paralleling the production of another film produced in 1960, John Huston’s The Misfits. Whilst La verite was being made, Clouzot’s wife Vera, who had co-written La verite, suffered a mental breakdown, and would die of a heart attack shortly after production was completed. Bardot’s husband Jacques Charrier also experienced a breakdown, when he discovered that Bardot was conducting an affair with her co-star Sami Frey. Charrier attempted suicide, and following a dispute with Charrier, Bardot attempted suicide also.

Viewing Notes. The Criterion Blu-ray release contains a superb presentation of the film, in its original aspect ratio of 1.66:1. The 35mm monochrome photography is captured excellently on the disc, with defined midtones and balanced highlights and shadows. The French dialogue is presented via a lossless track and accompanied by optional English subtitles.