To their credit, the French are largely responsible for the literary ascension of late Twentieth Century American pulp fiction. Yet curiously enough, French-made film adaptations of that fiction, such as Claude Miller’s Patricia Highsmith transposition TELL HER THAT I LOVE HER/Dites-lui que je l’aime (1977) and Jean-Jacques Beineix’s David Goodis pastiche THE MOON IN THE GUTTER/La lune dans le caniveau (1983), tend to dilute the material with excess pretention. That’s definitely the case with SERIE NOIRE, a 1979 take on Jim Thompson’s hardboiled classic A HELL OF A WOMAN, co-scripted by the acclaimed novelist Georges Perec (1936-1982) and directed by Alain Corneau (1943-2010).
Thompson, for those who don’t know, was the hardest of the 1950s-era hard boiled scribes. His novels include THE KILLER INSIDE ME (1952), THE GETAWAY (1959) and POP. 1280 (1964), all of which were adapted for film. A HELL OF A WOMAN, published in 1954, seems an especially unlikely candidate for a screen adaptation, as it’s more experimental in form than his other novels, with a narrator who develops a split personality midway through the text.
That narrator takes the onscreen form of the late Patrick Dewaere (1947-1982). He plays Franck Poupart, a scraggly-haired young man working for a door-to-door sales outfit run by the vile Staplin (Bernard Blier). Stuck in an abusive relationship with his wife Jeanne (Myriam Boyer), Franck becomes obsessed with Mona (the late Marie Trintignant, whose mother Nadine married Alain Corneau in 1997), a teenaged seductress living with her shrewish aunt (Jeanne Herviale). As Franck becomes increasingly involved with Mona, she reveals that her aunt has an outrageously large stash of cash hidden away. Franck plots to kill the old woman, steal the money and pin the blame on a Greek immigrant acquaintance named Andreas (Andreas Katsulas)—a plot that goes off as planned.
It was at this point in A HELL OF A WOMAN that the protagonist lost his mind completely. Corneau makes no attempt at replicating Thompson’s prose, which told the story through two different viewpoints (which in the final chapter took the form of alternating sentences). Instead, Franck gradually unravels as the aftermath of the crime doesn’t go as planned, with Jeanne and Staplin growing increasingly suspicious about Franck’s sudden influx of cash. Needless to say, more killings are on the horizon.
Alain Corneau made his mark with a handful of heavily stylized thrillers that allegedly took the French noir mantle from the great Jean-Pierre Melville (1917-1973). I say that’s an unjust comparison, as Corneau, talented though he was, couldn’t approach Melville on his worst day. That’s evident throughout SERIE NOIRE, which is plenty stylish but suffers from slack pacing and an unfocused narrative (two things, incidentally, that didn’t afflict A HELL OF A WOMAN).
What ultimately resonates is a stifling atmosphere of grit and decay (every structure depicted in this film appears is old and rusty) and the insanely unhinged performance of Dewaere. One of France’s top actors before his suicide at age 35, Dewaere invests his characterization with a range of unpredictable quirks and mood swings that evidence a Robert De Niro-level of commitment.
This, alas, means there’s no slow descent into madness, as it’s clear from the start this character has long since reached that state. Corneau was evidently quite enamored with the work of Dewaere and the supporting cast, which likely explains why the film overall is so inert (according to co-star Myriam Boyer, “there was no direction”); Corneau’s attention, in short, was too concentrated, and very likely in the wrong place.
Vital Statistics
SERIE NOIRE
Studiocanal
Director: Alain Corneau
Producer: Maurice Bernart
Screenplay: Georges Perec, Alain Corneau
(Based on a novel by Jim Thompson)
Cinematography: Pierre William Glenn
Editing: Thierry Derocles
Cast: Patrick Dewaere, Myriam Boyer, Marie Trintignant, Bernard Blier, Jeanne Herviale, Andreas Katsulas, Charlie Farnel, Samuel Mek, Jack Jourdain, Fernand Coquet