Quiet Days in Clichy

This one is, by far, the most surprising project to be tackled by Claude Chabrol and one that seems to be greatly despised by devotees of Henry Miller (author of the autobiographical source). Being an aficionado of the French director myself (especially after going through the current comprehensive tribute and even if I omitted several of his best-regarded work, with which I was already familiar), I give no weight to such criticisms and, frankly, having preceded this with the vulgar 1970 Danish version, Chabrol's stylish treatment of the same material grew that much more in my estimation (despite this being a rather choppy edition, since it loses some 20 minutes from the original running-time)! If anything, the film under review is far closer in look and approach to Philip Kaufman's biopic HENRY & JUNE (1990), a portrait of the life and times of the taboo-breaking novelist himself, than the earlier cinematic rendition!

Whenever he chose to make period pieces, Chabrol always managed a detailed evocation of time and place: here, he seems to be particularly inspired by the ornate production design (not least a flashback/fantasy structure set in a desert limbo that recalls the "Angel Of Death" sequences in Bob Fosse's autobiographical ALL THAT JAZZ [1979]), which provide a striking visual backdrop to the necessarily candid narrative. That said, the ample nudity (in this case, all the women are gorgeous) and potential tastelessness (the two protagonists simultaneously marry an underage girl, who is also not the retard depicted in the earlier version) are handled with sensitivity, eschewing sensationalism to the point of them appearing quite natural!

Incidentally, the loosely-related events of the original (and, presumably, the book) are presented here in a fairly organized manner and, while the whole may still feel insufficiently interesting (as per the "Cult Filmz" website), they certainly hold one's attention much more than before. One of the thorns in the side of Miller fans here is the central casting, which I admit Chabrol could have improved upon, and also the way that their constant penury is basically ignored in this version (while adding a political subtext in its latter stages). That said, Andrew McCarthy (looking quite a bit like Johnny Depp!) is better than one could have anticipated in the role of Miller's alter-ego Joey, while Nigel Havers is appropriately urbane as his more experienced pal Carl. By the way, one of the venues where McCarthy goes for a pick-up is a cinema which is screening Fritz Lang's THE TESTAMENT OF DR. MABUSE (1933) – this is not only in keeping with Chabrol's renowned admiration for the Austrian master film-maker but also foreshadows his very next effort, DR. M (1990), in which McCarthy himself appears in a bit part!

As I said earlier, the gallery of attractive females is given its due here: Barbara De Rossi (as McCarthy/Miller's true love Nys, though she finally opts for security with mild-mannered Dominique Zardi, a Chabrol fixture), Stephanie Cotta (as the teenage temptress Colette – even lustfully ogled by middle-aged aristocrat Mario Adorf), Eva Grimaldi, Anna Galiena (perhaps coming off best as the client who demands payment for her services at gunpoint – a scene which turns up towards the end here whereas it opened the 1970 version!) and, of course, the ubiquitous Stephane Audran – the former Mrs. Chabrol and whom he apparently still could not do without, at least in his films – as a sprightly Madame. Ultimately, therefore, while I was all prepared to hate this going in - after having bumpily made it through the 1970 original - and denounce it as a huge mistake for Chabrol, I have to say that I was sufficiently entertained and titillated by the (pardon the pun) heady cocktail of sex and death.

This Claude Chabrol film is (obviously) quite unpopular with Henry Miller fans because it is not especially faithful to his original book. Still, the late Chabrol was a talent nearly on par with Stanley Kubrick, and has certainly earned the right to "re-imagine" works of literature the same way Kubrick often did with stuff like Stephen King's "The Shining" or Vladimir Nabokov's "Lolita". Miller was a better writer than King, of course, if certainly not in the class of Nabokov. Like Nabokov though, a faithful film adaptation of his best books would be well nigh impossible, which is why this unfaithful one is really no less successful than the more faithful 1970 Danish version. It has its share of sex scenes, of course, but is not as sexually fixated as Miller's writings or the earlier Danish adaptation, choosing instead to focus on the two male characters' fixation/unrequited love for the teenage "Collete" character, who falls into their lecherous hands after her prostitute grandmother dies and wills one of them her brothel.

The modern-day flashback story where an elderly Miller is painting a nude picture of a "Collete" look-alike (who may only exist in his imagination) while cursing the "one-that-got-away" has nothing to do with Miller, of course, but is actually the best scene in the movie (unrequited fantasy is always more thematically interesting than the sexual over-indulgence Miller usually traded in). At any rate, the modern-day scenes don't detract from the 1930's setting nearly as much as the hippie-looking girls and that horrid Country Joe and the Fish title song featured in the dated 1970 Danish version.

The acting is indeed a liability. Andrew McCarthy is better than usual, but then he's usually awful. Barbara DeRossi (as a prostitute/love interest) is good, but underused, and newcomer Stephanie Cotta (who plays "Collette") doesn't need to act too much, which is fortunate because she really can't. This IS certainly a misfire within the oeuvre of Chabrol, who is much better at subtle Hitchcockian thrillers and is actually one of the few French directors who HASN'T generally traded in sex-oriented films like this. This isn't bad, just not really noteworthy either.

Different from many other Chabrol movies that follow "Hitchock-like" patterns, _Jours tranquilles à Clichy_ relates the days a young American writer (Henry Miller) spent in the Gay Paris of the early thirties, with his polish-descent friend and their young Colette, a 14 years old-ish girl with whom they both fall in love. The story in itself doesn't send us from a surprising even to another but slowly lifts the curtain over the prostitution, pornography, libertinage and partying that seemed to oppose Paris so much to New York, in the eyes of Miller, searching for a change from the dull like he lead before. The story is a quest for Proust and his lost time, a quest for a new life, for thrills, for truth in forgetting oneself...

As a big fan of Henry Miller, I must vehemently trash this movie. The director misses the point of the novel completely, and instead INVENTS a tediously pretentious story around the most basic elements of Miller's book. It's an embarrassment, really. Miller and Carl's poverty is such a factor in the book, yet the movie's setting is extravagant and overblown. I had thought that the 1970 version was a poor facsimilie, but I see that that film at least attempted to capture the down-and-out feel of the book, the crudeness of Miller's language in that particular telling, and made some effort to follow the plot of the book. Andrew McCarthy is a snivelling newt with no charisma. McCarthy as Miller? I was cringing the entire time. I couldn't even bear to fast-forward the second half of this version. Dear god, avoid this waste of everyone's time. Why did the director even bother?

The American writer Joe (Andrew McCarthy) arrives in Paris to research and write about Proust. He meets the Polish Karl (Nigel Havers) and they become friends and costumers of brothels and restaurants. When the fifteen year-old Colette (Stéphanie Cotta) arrives in Paris, they both fall in love with her.

"Jours Tranquilles à Clichy", a.k.a. "Quiet Days in Clichy" (1990), is a dull and pointless movie by Claude Chabrol based on the story of Henry Miller and Alfred Perlès. The movie is boring and absolutely different from the other works of this great French director. My vote is four.

Title (Brazil): "Dias de Clichy" ("Days of Clichy")

Note: On 21 December 2024, I saw this film again.