Henri-Georges Clouzot's "Inferno"

Inflamed by the success of 8½, master filmmaker Henri-Georges Clouzot (Diabolique, The Raven, The Wages of Fear) set out in 1964 to outdo Fellini’s mod subjective experimentation. The ensuing aborted production, L’enfer, was a tale of deforming jealousy that seemed to crystallize the director’s gloating worldview of suspicion, cruelty, madness, and contaminated relationships. It was also, alas, a laundry list of behind-the-scenes calamities: too much money, not enough discipline, schedules capsized by ballooning avant-garde effects, a bullied leading man (Serge Regianni) walking off the set, and the filmmaker’s own physical collapse. Obsession is the theme, not so much the protagonist’s for his young, possibly adulterous wife (Romy Schneider) as Clouzot’s for the looser, mid-1960s cinematic liberties which allowed him to literally project his mania onto the skin of a tantalizing actress. The footage was locked away for decades. Clouzot’s widow, Inès de Gonzalez, has turned the project’s surviving material—185 cans of camera negative—over to archivist Serge Bromberg, co-director (with Ruxandra Medrea) of the documentary HENRI-GEORGES CLOUZOT’S ‘INFERNO’

Midway between documentary and narrative, HENRI-GEORGES CLOUZOT’S INFERNO unveils, for the first time in nearly half a century, these luminous visions. It delivers an in-depth look at the masterpiece that might have been and explores the unnerving parallels between an artist and his work.

HENRI-GEORGES CLOUZOT’S ‘INFERNO’ premiered out of competition at Cannes 2009 and has since been selected by some of the world’s leading film festivals including Telluride, Toronto, Melbourne, New York, BFI London, and the upcoming San Francisco International.

A “dazzling evocation of what may be one of the greatest films never made.” (Catherine Wheatley, Sight & Sound)

The “definitive doc about an obsessive movie director running amuck.” (Stephen Farber, Hollywood Reporter)

“The riveting story of one of cinema history’s great “lost” movies…a must-see.” (Peter Bradshaw, Guardian)

“The resulting reconstruction is a triumphant realization of Clouzot’s vision.” (Stephen Cole, Toronto Globe & Mail)