How about a weekend of hell? Or L'Enfer as we've chosen to call it. You might be wondering about what's going on, with films on both Saturday and Sunday, so here's the pitch: one of France's greatest film directors,Henri-Georges Clouzot, decided that he had the idea for a masterpiece, and wrote the script for a film which was to be called L'Enfer. For various reasons, which will become clear, Clouzot's great new film was never made, but his widow made important parts of it available to Serge Bromberg, a gifted young documentarist, and he was able to create a fascinating movie (from interviews, those 'rushes' and his own knowledge) which we're showing on Sunday at 5pm. So this one is called L'Enfer d'Henri-Georges Clouzot. Peter Bradshaw calls it a 'must-see' and the collective view of most reliable critics is similar. It gets the small matter of 100% on Rotten Tomatoes!
Now on Saturday at 5pm, we're screening the film that another of France's best-known directors, Claude Chabrol, made from the script of L'Enfer that was acquired for him from Clouzot's estate, about 30 years later. So you'll have a chance to compare the two films and gain more understanding of the script-to-film process, as well as enjoying two pictures that could stand alone as fascinating in themselves. Emmanuelle Béart, or Romy Schneider - which one would have better played the role of a wife likely to inspire a man's jealousy? You'll have the choice...