In Contention

Tag: Henri-Georges Clouzot

  • THE LISTS: Top 10 horror films of all time

    It’s Halloween week and since we are a movie site, we are under some kind of unspoken obligation to provide our dear readers with a list to fit the festivities. You may remember a similar list popping up two years ago, in which all current contributors voiced an opinion and the final results represented a collective agreement. Since I was not a contributor at that time, Tapley asked me to offer up a new take this year.

    A little backstory on my relationship with scary movies seems appropriate. I was raised by two Christian parents who were very protective of the images that I put into my head. When I was six years old, I was playing at a friend’s house when he suggested we watch “Beetle Juice.” Knowing that it was a potentially objectionable title, I called my mom and asked if it was okay and she said it was not. Kids being kids, we watched it anyway.

    What did I think of it? It scared the crap out of me. So much so, that I understood why my mom didn’t want me to watch it and actively avoided scary images on my own free will from then on. When one or two infiltrated me, such as “Ghostbusters,” I was always a little rattled. As I’ve grown, I’ve only become slightly less sensitive to these types of images and only actively seek out scary films if I hear there is a lot more going on to make it worthwhile.

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  • LIFE WITHOUT OSCAR: 1943 and 1944

    Catch up with the idea behind this series here.

    The Academy and America were in the thick of World War II and patriotism or sentimentality were the order of the day. “Casablanca” and “Going My Way” were the two big winners in the history books and while I can hardly argue with the former, the latter hasn’t aged well at all. It was the first film to win Best Picture in front of a nationwide audience as ABC broadcast the ceremony for the first time… on the radio. The event was still filmed for newsreel purposes though. Don’t believe me? Ask the dishes (Youtube!)

    The ceremony was beginning to look more and more like what we are used to, with Best Picture getting whittled down to five, powerhouse films taking more and more of the awards and one guy getting nominated for Best Actor and Best Supporting Actor for the same performance. Okay, maybe we never got used to that last one. A quickly changed rule made sure that never happened again but it’s too bad they can’t as easily change the history books to reward these films instead.

    1943 – “Le Corbeau” (Henri-Georges Clouzot)

    I’m not sure why some foreign titles retain their original title in popular conversation and some don’t, but the American DVD release of this film goes by “Le Corbeau” and so shall I. Translated as “The Raven,” it’s an early film made by one of my absolute favorite filmmakers of all time, Henri-Georges Clouzot, who only ever received one nomination for Best Foreign Film in his life.

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