The Wages of Fear
1955 ‘Le Salaire de la Peur’ Directed by Henri-Georges Clouzot
Synopsis
In a squalid South American oil town, four desperate men sign on for a suicide mission to drive trucks loaded with nitroglycerin over a treacherous mountain route. As they ferry their explosive cargo to a faraway oil fire, each bump and jolt tests their courage, their friendship, and their nerves. The result is one of the greatest thrillers ever committed to celluloid, a white-knuckle ride from France’s legendary master of suspense, Henri-Georges Clouzot.
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The Wages Of Fear is a film that doesn't really seem to fit in with its time. It also doesn't seem to fit easily into any category relating to its origin. Furthermore, it's still quite unlike many films that have ever been made.
Here, you have a mid-1950s French-Italian action adventure thriller that features dialogue in at least four different languages, has at least three or four different scenes that surely put it at odds with censors around that time (especially Vera Cluzot on all fours scrubbing the floor and leaving nothing to the imagination), and lasts, in the version I saw, over two and a half hours long.
It seems to defy easy categorisation and doesn't really fit into…
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Tensions of all kinds are explored: Emotional, physical (both in humans and in the trucks), economic, and of course the tension of us in the audience. Seeing it in a theater with an audience was religious, there were moments when I was worried there wasn't going to be any oxygen left in the theater.
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Movie #1 in my Journey Towards Entry-Level Cinephilia
Clouzot's film The Wages of Fear managed to be a gripping tense thriller while simultaneously commentating on the nature of greed and the struggles of the proletariat.
The story of The Wages of Fear is fairly simple. An South American oil company hires 4 men to drive a large shipment of nitroglycerin in order to stop an oil fire. The first hour or so focuses on Jo and Mario, two Frenchmen struggling to make ends meet in this small South American town. When they hear of this job opportunity, they jump on it, making sure they get hired as it would assure their return home.
It is important to note that Jo…
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Rightfully considered one of the Criterion Collection's best inclusions, this classic thriller is a complete viewing experience. Set in a poverty-stricked town in South America, the plot revolves around a group of unemployed men (referred to as "tramps") who are sent on a suicide mission that requires them to deliver massive shipments of nitroglycerine needed to extinguish a fire. French director Henri-Georges Clouzot uses patient pacing to create heavy doses of tension.
For the first hour we get to know the various characters inhabiting the town and all of their unique situations that lead to them becoming stranded in their hopeless situations. We learn that the major means of work is at the American-owned Southern Oil Company (SOC) where accidents…
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Henri-Georges Clouzot takes on Hawks and Huston, his first shot puts man on the ground with cockroach and vulture for the benefit of Peckinpah. The South American cactus-town is the parched void in which men exercise their petty cruelty on dogs and each other, "there’s so little to entertain us." Third World misery is catnip to American imperialism ("If there’s oil around, they’re not far behind"), Rita Hayworth appears as part of the mural in a sordid cantina, the film’s equivalent of the movie poster in "Bicycle Thieves". When a refinery explodes, the Southern Oil Company seeks men desperate enough to drive the nitroglycerin to the burning well; pub king Yves Montand, Parisian gangster Charles Vanel, weak-lunged Italian worker Folco…
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Don't want to put a dampener on this classic film by only giving it a 4 star review, but I found it to be merely very good.
A masterclass in tension as 4 men are hired to transport nitroglycerin across hazardous South American roads. Health & Safety would have a fit! Clocking in at 2 1/2 hours, the first hour is spent leisurely setting up our characters and the setting. It is this first hour that did have me almost twiddling my thumbs but the next 90 minutes more than make up for an overly slow start.
The ending though...
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Still one of the most intense movie experiences ever. It was a real special treat to see this in 35. Now if only I can be sure to see SORCERER in 35mm before that digital re-release...
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Tensions of all kinds are explored: Emotional, physical (both in humans and in the trucks), economic, and of course the tension of us in the audience. Seeing it in a theater with an audience was religious, there were moments when I was worried there wasn't going to be any oxygen left in the theater.
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Basically the scene with the van* from MACGRUBER, but stretched out to an entire movie.
*Worst film analysis ever -
Of The Place Beyond the Pines, md'a recently said, "Cianfrance should try making an unpretentious genre flick in which the heady concerns will take care of themselves," and honestly that applies here: The script's heavy-handedness is rough going in the first hour, in which Clouzot also does a poor job of establishing his characters and instead generates what Ebert called "mostly aimless ennui." That said, once those trucks hit the road, the movie is dynamite (NAILED THAT), featuring scene after scene that could each rank among the most suspenseful and best edited I've ever seen — and making Clouzot's point for him more effectively than all that earlier clumsiness ever could. Unfortunately the ending is nothing but cheap irony, dulling the human cost so deeply felt only moments before.
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Henri-Georges Clouzot takes on Hawks and Huston, his first shot puts man on the ground with cockroach and vulture for the benefit of Peckinpah. The South American cactus-town is the parched void in which men exercise their petty cruelty on dogs and each other, "there’s so little to entertain us." Third World misery is catnip to American imperialism ("If there’s oil around, they’re not far behind"), Rita Hayworth appears as part of the mural in a sordid cantina, the film’s equivalent of the movie poster in "Bicycle Thieves". When a refinery explodes, the Southern Oil Company seeks men desperate enough to drive the nitroglycerin to the burning well; pub king Yves Montand, Parisian gangster Charles Vanel, weak-lunged Italian worker Folco…
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That's how you write a bar fight -- get to know the people, how dangerous they are, spray champagne in their faces, and _then_ have a man off.
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Moving nitro up a mountain? Prepare to ruin whatever you're sitting on with sweat and fear.
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Don't want to put a dampener on this classic film by only giving it a 4 star review, but I found it to be merely very good.
A masterclass in tension as 4 men are hired to transport nitroglycerin across hazardous South American roads. Health & Safety would have a fit! Clocking in at 2 1/2 hours, the first hour is spent leisurely setting up our characters and the setting. It is this first hour that did have me almost twiddling my thumbs but the next 90 minutes more than make up for an overly slow start.
The ending though...
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Clouzot is often compared with Hitchcock but Hitchcock was on another level as far as i'm concerned. This is an interesting story let down by clunky dialogue and a lack of palpable suspense. Compared with the pictures Hitchcock was making at the same time I found this to be an average film. Les Diaboliques is far superior.