I don’t understand to a certain degree why this film is so praised. I like Clouzot’s Diabolique, but I didn’t care, for the most part, for this film. There might be a few scenes that I liked such as the truck’s backing up on that wooden deck and the old man being covered in oil. However, the first part is very slow and basically goes nowhere. I don’t know. I mean, two trucks carrying I believe liquid nitrogen to a plant. I guess, after a while, that part drags as well. The old man and the young man in the truck together is kind of interesting where we find out that the young man really shows that he is brave and the old man puts up a front about his bravery which can be seen in the scene where the young man thinks that the old man has fallen down the hill where that wooden deck is. I guess that scene basically shows that the old man is a coward and the young man shows his anger for the old man deceiving him. I don’t mean to get anybody mad about this. What are your reasons for liking or not liking this film? I haven’t seen this film in a while, so I can’t remember it quite clearly. Please, I don’t want to polarize anybody or anything like that. I just want to know why people think it’s a great film.
I don’t, it was intense.
Yes, the film drags, and drags. it takes about an hour for it to pick up momentum, but when it does, boy oh boy! So, I’m conflicted. It’s not a film i’ll watch over and over again.
I tried to put the title in the link your topic to a film
“However, the first part is very slow and basically goes nowhere.”
The plot arc is not a traditional parabola but that curve that starts parallel to x from infinity and ends parallel to y to infinity. It moves from very slow and contemplative to the literally insanity-driven cut-per-second end scene and builds the character in a smooth and regulated curve from there. The movie’s main structural interest for a lot of people who dig that stuff is it’s unmatched pacing.
However, the opening sequences are a lot more about setting up the characters, understanding their social situations, importantly understanding their boredom and need to get out of their funk, and in contrast to the fast-paced movement of the end of the film shows that this movie isn’t just here to describe action or tension in the lives of larger-than-life characters, but that this is an unusual and unexpectedly dangerous event in their lives that they normally would not do, but which the long first sequences set up their desperate need to. Without it, the movie can feel a lot more like an action adventure movie with an undeserved dark ending. With the beginning, it becomes a character study and social indictment.
—PolarisDiB
I loved everything except the ending, which felt tacked-on and contrived. Mario’s suddenly chipper after all the horrible things he’s been through? So much so that he’s swerving merrily all over the road? Hmm, I wonder where this is going…
I would have much preferred if it had ended with his collapse before the oil fire. That’s a sad and beautiful enough ending, without the tragi-comic business that follows.
Yes, PolarisDiB pretty much sums up the reasons why the first hour is as important as the rest of the film even though it isn’t as directly effecting as a visceral experience. The idea is to experience the tension as both as a drastic change and horrifying event in the characters lives as well as being a part of a larger social picture. It isn’t aiming to be a standard action/suspense drama, there is more meat on the bones than that.
SORCERER pwnz WAGES OF FEAR.
…but admittedly I haven’t watched it in a long time. I just remember feeling REALLY let down by the end: NOT by it’s fatalism, but by how shoddily its fatalism was conveyed. Otherwise, definitely some incredible direction of tension. I do tend to agree that it drags…perhaps the non-director’s cut which is 40 minutes shorter would do the trick. Anyone know if that’s included on the Criterion disc?
The second best example of sustained tension in a film (see Das Boot for the best example).
The film also has a very naturalist and realist feel to it, which I found very appealing. I can believe every thing that is happening in the film. I can feel the heat, I can taste the dust in the air. I can smell the diesel of the engines. It does begin a little slow, and I can agree with the argument that the ending is not how I would have liked it to end. That doesn’t hurt the 90 minutes of pure cinematic mastery that is sandwiched in the middle of this film.
I agree that the film was unbalanced. I also thought that its reputation as a masterpiece of suspense was a little overblown. And I surely thought that the ending was silly, almost ruining the film for me. Not a film that I am interested in watching again anytime soon, which leads me to opine that it is not one for the ages.
Brilliant film not overrated I don’t think, only problem I have is the absolutely bizarre out of place ending, I like a good downer ending but it just seemed really really silly as soon as he started swerving about it was obvious what would happen and instantly unbelievable alienating and arbitrary. As with Hillcoat’s The Road, I just pretend that it ended differently.
Do people think Clouzot was actually trying to say by killing him off?
I don’t know what you people are talking about. “The Wages of Fear” is incredibly tense and suspenseful.
Maybe you’re expecting something slick and smart-assed like QuentinTarantino so you have no patience with real cinema.
Freidkin’s remake is not bad overall, but he doesn’t have Clouzot’s (incredibly bleak) view of humanity. And that’s all the difference in the world.
‘real cinema’ as opposed to Tarantino, rolls eyes
Precisely.
Tarantino is to cinema as Paris Hilton is to acting.
let’s not insult Paris, at least she is nice to look at.
Thanks for the response. I like the input I have received. I agree that the ending is a little bad too with him swerving on his way back from the plant. I wonder why he would do that if he is driving on a road he could possibly fall off of. I think I still stand by what I stated before, but would love to hear more on whether you do or do not like the film.
I’m wondering how the subtitle Wages of Fear topics title got at the top there of the screen. I’m wondering if I had put it in or Bruce Willis did.
@Bruce Willis Was that you? If you did, thank you very much.
I like everything about the movie except the very end. That was unintentionally funny.
The Wages of Fear is underrated on this thread…Friedkin’s remake didn’t work for me at all.
Overrated by who?
Whenever there is an argument about the idea of a movie being ‘overrated’ the argument is more with critics than with the film. Clouzot did not overrate his film. He simply made it hoping you would like it. You know what I mean? It becomes an academic excercise when we talk about overrated or underrated.
I also think you [maybe] approached the movie with high expectations. Few films can [usually] match high expectations. I have to say I go into every movie with a bit of skepticism. The director has to impress me on some level before I get into it. And the first time I saw Wages back in my early 20’s I was hooked from the start.
Anyway, I think it builds terrific suspense. Remember, it’s not a slam bang movie. It’s not meant to be. The ending is rather ironic too. I find it one of the great films. If anything it is a pretty unique film.
Its not perfect and a little slow to start, but I still loved it and the ending is one of the best in film.
Several people are picking on the ending, which I’m not sure I understand. The ending is a refreshing example of an unhappy ending. Unhappy endings are few and far between nowadays and everything has to be tied up and neatly resolved with a nice little bow. Is it that it was ‘too obvious’ because he was weaving all over the road? Is the Strauss waltz not a nice touch? Perhaps the director was playing a bit on typical endings. I liked the movie because…. C’mon!!.. 4 guys driving around with nitroglycerin? It may be a tad unrealistic since dynamite had been invented for this very reason – but really.. we’re going to pick on it for not being realistic? There’s always a documentary on cable somewhere.
The Wages of Fear is underrated if anything, better than Diabolique in my mind. Absolutely love the scene where they’re literally drowning in oil.
And it’s to this day one of the tensest films I’ve ever seen.
The ending is silly because it just happens too quickly and the actor has an ultra corny look on his face when it happens. I have no problem with the idea of killing him that way myself, but the execution was poor.
The Sorcerer had 2-3 great scenes—has there ever been a more menacing looking truck in cinema than in the scene on the bridge!??!?!!—but like Peabody i felt it just didn’t work overall. has its moments though.
i love Wages Of Fear. i enjoyed the first half for the reasons that Polaris and Greg did. I felt it developed both the characters, and the desperation of their situation.
Agreed. The execution was a joke. I also have no problem with downbeat endings. But this one was pathetic.
“Wages of Fear” was made in 1953. So there was nothing refreshing or novel about fatalistic endings then. We had seen a decade full of them in classic film noir already at that point. Maybe it’s so exaggerated that it plays as a parody of the downbeat conclusion?
^^i walked away with a similar impression. it HAS to be parody, right? especially considering how methodical and deliberate the rest of the film is. why throw it all away with such a frivolous ending?
who knows.
Yes. It is completely at odds, stylistically and tonally, with the rest of the film. Whether parody or not, it doesn’t quite come off either way.
Doesn’t the ending say something about luck/randomness?
That is the way I read it – not as a parody.
Most canonical films are overrated, and Wages of Fear is hardly a masterpiece; but for what the conventional Hollywood thriller strives for it is among the best I’ve ever seen, silly ending notwithstanding.
HAL 9000
I tried to put the title in the link your topic to a film, but couldn’t do it for some reason. I’ll try to copy and paste what I said in my previous post.