La Vérité [The Truth] **** (1960, Brigitte Bardot, Paul Meurisse, Charles Vanel, Sami Frey) – Classic Movie Review 2,358

Released in 1960, La Vérité [The Truth] was a runaway hit in France with an incredible 5,700,000 spectators and was Brigitte Bardot’s highest grossing film. She described it as her favourite of all her films.

In 1959, producer Raoul Levy suggested to director Henri-Georges Clouzot that his next film should star French sex symbol Brigitte Bardot so Clouzot wrote the script for La Vérité. The public was told that Clouzot was turning Bardot into a real actress, and that’s what he does.

The resulting film was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film, won the Golden Globe (shared with The Virgin Spring), and is considered as the film in which the star gave her best performance, winning the 1961 David di Donatello Award (the Italian equivalent of the Oscar) for it as Best Foreign Actress.

Bardot plays Dominique Marceau, who is on trial for the murder of her former boyfriend Gilbert Tellier (Sami Frey). The prosecuting attorney, Eparvier (Paul Meurisse), claims it was an act of premeditated murder that warrants the death penalty. The defence attorney, Guerin (Charles Vanel), maintains that it was an act of passion and not punishable by death.

The attorneys duel relentlessly, elaborating explanations why the pretty, idle and fickle young woman killed the talented and ambitious conductor newly graduated from the conservatory. Gilbert’s friends testify, as do Dominique’s previous lovers, as well as her sister Annie (Marie-José Nat), the studious violin player engaged to Gilbert. As her trial progresses, the relationship between Dominique and Gilbert becomes more finely defined.

Released in 1960, La Vérité was the second most popular film of its year in France (after Ben-Hur) with an incredible 5,694,993 spectators, and was Bardot’s highest grossing film and biggest ever success at the box office. She described it as her favourite of all her films.

In Britain it was the most popular foreign language film of the year but it was a box office disappointment in the US, earning little more than $500,000.

The Los Angeles Times said: ‘It is at once immoral, amoral and strangely moral. An amazing picture, a tour de force from all concerned.’

This was Clouzot’s last mainstream film since his next L’Enfer [Inferno] begun in 1964 was aborted due to his poor health and a subsequent one, La prisonnière [Women in Chains] (1968), was too specialised for mainstream audiences.

During the filming, Bardot had an affair with Frey that resulted in her breaking up with her husband Jacques Charrier. In September 1960 Bardot had an argument with Charrier and attempted suicide by slashing her wrist. Charrier had earlier attempted suicide, had a nervous breakdown and was hospitalised for two months.

Ironically, Jean Louis Trintignant was Bardot’s choice for the male lead before Clouzot decided on Sami Frey.

In August, Clouzot had a heart attack and filming was suspended for a week. His actress wife Véra Clouzot, who contributed to the script of La Vérité, had a nervous breakdown in July. She died of a heart attack shortly after the filming.

Clouzot’s reputation was damaged by the rise of the French New Wave directors who refused to take his thrillers seriously and attacked his work through articles and reviews in the influential French film magazine Cahiers du Cinéma. Yet they lionised Alfred Hitchcock, with whom Clouzot was closely compared. One of its most notable writers, Claude Chabrol, made some amends by adapting and filming Clouzot’s aborted script for his film L’Enfer in 1994.

Henri-Georges Clouzot died aged 69 on 12 January 1977 in his apartment while listening to the 1846 oratorio / opera The Damnation of Faust by the French composer Hector Berlioz. He is buried beside Véra in the Montmartre Cemetery, Paris.

Bardot retired in 1973 after acting in 47 films. She achieved international fame for And God Created Woman (1956), and later starred in Jean-Luc Godard’s Le Mépris (1963) and Louis Malle’s Viva Maria! (1965).

The cast are Brigitte Bardot as Dominique Marceau, Charles Vanel as Maître Guérin, Paul Meurisse as Maître Éparvier, Sami Frey as Gilbert Tellier, Marie-José Nat as Annie Marceau, Louis Seigner as Le président des assises, André Oumansky as Ludovic, René Blancard as L’avocat général, Fernand Ledoux as Le médecin légiste, Claude Berri as Georges, and Jackie Sardou as the concierge.

© Derek Winnert 2015 Classic Movie Review 2,358

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