Claude Chabrol's Aesthetics of Opacity

The first critical appraisal of Chabrol's œuvre as a whole (from 1958 to 2009)

Claude Chabrol's cinema is generally associated with a specific type of psychological thriller, one set in the French provinces and fascinated with murder, incest, fragmented families, unstable spaces and inscrutable female characters. But Chabrol's films are both deceptively accessible and deeply reflexive, and in this innovative reappraisal of his filmography Catherine Dousteyssier-Khoze explores the Chabrol who was influenced by Balzac, Magritte and Stanley Kubrick. Bringing to the fore Chabrol’s ‘aesthetic of opacity’, the book deconstructs the apparent clarity and comfort of his chosen genre, encouraging the viewer to reflect on the relationship between illusion and reality, and the status of the film image itself.

Key features

• Uncovers new influences on Chabrol, including Balzac, Magritte and Kubrick
• Offers original insights into Chabrol’s most famous film, Le Boucher
• Analyses some of Chabrol’s latest, little studied films (La Fleur du mal, La Demoiselle d’honneur, La Fille coupée en deux and Bellamy)
• Engages with Foucault’s concept of heterotopia and Deleuze's ‘crystal-image’
• Surveys Chabrol’s influence and legacy on the contemporary French thriller