The tensions between Claude Chabrol's use of realism and his stylized artificial mise-en-scene

Jacques Rivette defined mise-en-scene as 'a precise complex of people and decors, a network of relations, a moving architecture of relationships somehow suspended in space' (1954: 44). In the films of Claude Chabrol, the mise-en-scene seems to embrace this definition. On the one hand his near-documentary realism provides a portrait of his subjects that is credible enough to make a social commentary, and thus contribute to what Monaco (1976: 258) refers to as 'Chabrol's landscape'. On the other hand, this realistic 'portrait' is juxtaposed with extra-diegetic elements that reinforce the auteur's presence and perceptions, as well as serving to anticipate the action, as demonstrated in Que La Bete Meure (1969), in which a father looks for his son's killer and subjectivity and objectivity are interlaced. Chabrol also explores the blurring between 'real' and 'imagined' life in Le Boucher (1970), which follows the platonic friendship between a schoolteacher and the local butcher, and her efforts to deal with her suspicion of him as a serial murderer strikes in this quiet village in Sout West France. Chabrol finally uses chronological discrepancies to highlight the unchanging amoral behavior of a politically involved bourgeois family over time in La Fleur du Mal (2003).

[...] Charles, his hero, whose son is killed by Paul's car, is as guilty as the others yet he is the base on which are constituted illusions and the subjectivity of point of view, thus creating a tension between the auteur's distant realism and what Comolli (1969: refers to as scientific waltz of points of view'. Chabrol portrays a working-class 'beast' turned new bourgeois in the character of Paul but he does not comment openly on his environment. Instead, he merely presents an aesthetic of that world. [...]

[...] At the beginning of Les Cousins (1959), the character of Charles is just meeting his cousin Paul, yet the ominous soundtrack foreshadows an imminent drama and gives a clue to Paul's personality, highlighting the tension between the 'good' cousin and the 'evil' cousin. Similarly, in La Fleur du Mal (2003), François is driven away from the airport by his father and the somber soundtrack seems to be a warning sign directed at the viewer. There are indeed many instances in Que la Bête Meure where the viewer already knows what the character should expect. [...]

[...] Here the tensions created between Chabrol's use of realism and his stylized mise-en-scène lie mainly in the shifting of perceptions and points of view coupled with the notion of anticipation. Both serve to undercut the apparent 'realism' of the film. David Thomson talks about an aspect of Alexandre Astruc's film Une Vie (1957), pointing out that, At one level, the Brittany landscape is reproduced with all Claude Renoir's skill, evoking the atmospheric context admirably and filling the role of descriptive prose. [...]