The Wages of Fear Is the Pick of the Week

For my Pick of the Week, there’s one only film that interests me, and that is legendary French filmmaker Henri-Georges Clouzot’s 1953 tense masterpiece The Wages of Fear (Le Salaire de la peur), which is basically one of the greatest films ever made and a testament to stark, thrilling storytelling.

The great Yves Montand headlines this tale of four very desperate men from a poor and desolate town who sign onto a suicide mission delivering trucks loaded with nitroglycerin over an unforgiving mountain route to a remote oil field to prevent a deadly explosion. As the obvious and fateful trek gets more and more dangerous, so does the tension between all four men as their rivalries threaten their courage, sanity, and eventually their lives.

One of the absolutely tense films of all-time, The Wages of Fear successfully details the themes of risk, toxic masculinity, and the stupid things people are willing to for money. Clouzot doesn’t let the characters (nor audience) off the hook. You feel the same pings of terror as they do, where a single false step on the journey can make your heart leap from your throat. The unpredictability of the film is also clever because none of the men are particularly likable, so you are equally reviled by them while at the same time, you are terrified for them. I think that is the essence of great and potent filmmaking, and a primal reason why Clouzot should always be celebrated as the French master of suspense.

Being re-released on 4K UHD and Blu-ray by Criterion, the only new supplement is a program on the film’s new 4K restoration. However, the vintage supplements are still vital and informative. They include Interviews with assistant director Michel Romanoff and Marc Godin, Clouzot’s biographer; 1988 interview with Montand; Henri-Georges Clouzot: The Enlightened Tyrant, a 2004 documentary on the director’s career; Censored, an analysis of cuts made to the film for its 1955 U.S. release; and trailers. There is the same great essay by novelist Dennis Lehane, but this release also includes a compilation of interviews with the film’s cast and crew.

If you happen to be a fan of this all-time favorite of world cinema, then this release is definitely for you! It’s a masterpiece for good reason.