Fr : version française / En: english version

.Bathing

The bath in mythology

The bath in mythology

Susanna and the Elders

Susanna and the Elders

The bath in the Latin world

The bath in the Latin world

Bathing in the Middle Ages

Bathing in the Middle Ages

The "dry wash"

The "dry wash"

Louis XIV's bathtub

Louis XIV's bathtub

The bath's return to favor

The bath's return to favor

Healthy body, healthy mind

Healthy body, healthy mind

The principles of hygiene

The principles of hygiene

The "bathing hit"

The "bathing hit"

Bathing is a pleasure

Bathing is a pleasure

Medieval steam rooms

Medieval steam rooms

The Garden of Delights

The Garden of Delights

Cover this breast which I cannot behold

Cover this breast which I cannot behold

Pleasure hidden beneath morality

Pleasure hidden beneath morality

The relaxation of moral standards

The relaxation of moral standards

The nude in the bath becomes realistic

The nude in the bath becomes realistic

The 20th century: La Dolce Vita

The 20th century: La Dolce Vita

The suicide of Seneca or the fatal bath

The suicide of Seneca or the fatal bath

The Assassination of Marat

The Assassination of Marat

"Enter now, Jean Moulin!"

"Enter now, Jean Moulin!"

The Masters of Suspense

The Masters of Suspense

Masters of Suspense

The bath has been a source of inspiration for many film-makers, not least the "masters of suspense" themselves, Alfred Hitchcock and Henri-Georges Clouzot.

In both Psycho and Les diaboliques, the murderer is in fact two people, a couple engaged in an illicit affair in Clouzot's case, and the schizophrenic killer's split personalities in Hitchcock's. Something else these two films had in common was the insistence of both directors that no-one be permitted to enter the auditorium once the film had started.

Finally, Hitchcock's enthusiasm for Les diaboliques prompted him to ask Boileau-Narcejac to write him a screenplay... the result was Vertigo.

Clip from Les diaboliques

The 1955 film Les diaboliques, written by Boileau-Narcejac, stars Simone Signoret, Paul Meurisse, Vera Clouzot (the director's wife), Charles Vanel and Pierre Larquey. The film moves through various genres: starting off as a film noir, it slips into fantasy before returning to pure thriller.

The wife and mistress of a boarding school headmaster who tyrannizes them both decide to murder him. But the body disappears... while it seems to appear to the killers...

And that is all we can tell you for, as it says in the anti-spoiler message at the end of the film: "Don't reveal the plot of Les diaboliques to your friends!"

Among the young actors making their debut in the film are Jean Lefebvre, Michel Serrault, and Johnny Hallyday as a young schoolboy.

Henri-Georges Clouzot

The French film director Henri-Georges Clouzot was born in Niort in 1907. On completing his traditional studies, he became a journalist before getting involved in adapting screenplays for the cinema. He made his first feature film in 1942—The Murderer Lives at Number 21—with Pierre Fresnay and Suzy Delair (his companion), followed by Le corbeau in 1943, which led to a temporary ban on working in films after the Liberation. After the ban was lifted, he re-established his reputation and made the most successful films of his career, including Quai des Orfèvres (which won Best Director at the 1947 Venice Film Festival), Manon (an adaptation of Manon Lescaut), Le salaire de la peur (The Wages of Fear) and Les diaboliques. He turned to documentary film-making with the highly-acclaimed Le Mystère Picasso.

A traditional director and a perfectionist who was interested in the darker side of human nature, he had a reputation for tyrannizing his actors to get the most out of the highly polished screenplays. Gradually, producers and the public alike began to turn away from him in favor of filmmakers of the New Wave. He died in Paris in 1977.

© Inès Clouzot / TF1 International