Karajan artists: Henri-Georges Clouzot – a great (concert) film maker

Henri-Georges Clouzot was one of the best-known film-makers in French cinema, internationally acclaimed for films like “Le salaire de la peur” and “Les diaboliques”, and one of Karajan’s most important partners in producing concert films centring around works by Verdi, Dvořák, Mozart, Schumann and Beethoven between 1965 and 1967. It is not quite clear when they met for the first time. Karajan said in an interview in 1965 he had “known him for ages”. That certainly means since before 1960. That was the year when Clouzot brought out his new film “La vérité”. The main character is the music student Gilbert. His first conversation with Dominique (played by Brigitte Bardot) contains these sentences:

DOMINIQUE: Are you a violinist too?

GILBERT: No, piano, organ and composition. And now, conducting. Being a soloist is fine, of course, but to serve music in the best way, conducting is another matter.

As a young man in Vienna, Karajan studied the piano under the tutorship of Professor Hofmann who said to him: “You see, I think that you could achieve a good, even an exceptional career as a pianist, but the way you listen is so special that you will be never satisfied with this instrument. […] I think you’re born to conduct. You have to prove it to yourself and to others. This is the only thing which will satisfy you.”

There is a remarkable similarity here. While preparing the script, Clouzot may have asked Karajan why he became a conductor and not a pianist and Karajan told him the same story. In that 1965 interview Karajan discussed plans that we know weren’t entirely realized:

“We’re doing 13 concert films for TV, summarized under the title “The Art of Conducting”. We managed to engage the French director Georges Clouzot for three films [ultimately there were five films with Clouzot]. You know, he is a true master of his profession, above all in photography. I have known him for ages. He is a wonderful musician too, so in our meetings we agreed on many matters concerning the visual aspect of things on stage and backstage. I’m really looking forward to doing this with him. Every feature lasts 54 minutes and has a sort of prologue, as it were. I want to talk about some elements of interpretation and music in general. For example, I’d like to talk to a soloist [Yehudi Menuhin] or to my students about a certain problem – rhythm, melody, the sound of an orchestra. I want to convey to the audience how at a rehearsal music develops out of nothing. What makes the beauty of music, its rhythm? This is what I’d like to talk about in a nutshell in these 13 features.”

Only the Clouzot films were produced, so the series “The Art of Conducting” got stuck after five episodes and not every filmed performance was accompanied by a special feature, but the standard they set is remarkable up to today.

In their first collaboration, Clouzot filmed Karajan rehearsing Schumann’s 4^th symphony with the Vienna Symphony and created a beautiful one-hour documentary in black and white. Karajan’s biographer Richard Osborne wrote: “The Schumann film […] is a unique document because it is the only visual recording that shows Karajan in rehearsal of a complete piece in all its details from the very beginning to the end.” And Peter Uehling says:

“The collaboration was sometimes problematic but it is a good example for Karajan’s willingness to subordinate himself to someone who knows more about a subject than he does.”

Karajan sometimes felt uncomfortable with the situation. He had to explain his instructions in rehearsal not only for the musicians but for the camera. In the case of the Schumann film, he had to do it in English – an awkward situation with a German-speaking orchestra that Karajan knew very well. He also was insecure about the impression of certain shots that Clouzot suggested: the hands of the conductor in close-up and some stone-faced musicians listening to his instructions. On the other hand, Clouzot’s settings brought up some unseen aspects, a sort of “personal side” of Karajan’s work and character. After their last collaboration, Karajan thanked Clouzot for “relieving him from fear”. He explained to his biographer Ernst Haeusserman the impact that Clouzot had on him:

“He is very gifted for music and he is very quick. He understands exactly what I want to say and so it is in return. He told me once about his strengths: ‘It is not so much what I am able to do but I can reassure people. Brigitte Bardot worked very well with me because I relieved her from fear. I took her hands and she felt secure.’ That’s right. That’s his strength. It is a feeling of freedom.”

Karajan had opposed TV films for years because he didn’t believe they could achieve a satisfying result. He refused to agree to a live TV broadcast of the inauguration of the new Salzburg Festspielhaus where he conducted the opening night of “Der Rosenkavalier” in 1960. This caused some serious discord with Austrian broadcasting and public opinion. Many people criticized the fact that the population – which had paid for the very expensive building – was not in on the opening festivities, a point of view Karajan had a degree of understanding for in his later years. Indeed, he started thinking about the prospects and the responsibility of conveying art to as many people as possible. He told Ernst Haeusserman in 1967: “I am convinced that in a period when television has reached such a wide distribution that one can’t ignore it any more, it is a duty to produce concert films, especially of symphonic music. […] I don’t think we have any right to reserve a piece of work that is made with so much dedication to an exclusive club of only 3,000 people in the concerts and to exclude all the others by refusing to work for television. Nowadays, the cameras are much better and because of the higher photosensitivity of the film material there is no need for additional lighting.” Karajan emphasized the concurrence of aims in his collaboration with Clouzot:

“We agreed that the films should be a visual interpretation of the music. The point of view should be different from the concert-goer’s, who if he’s lucky can just about see the conductor’s back. The spectator should be taken to the middle of the orchestra. He should also see it from above and from the side. He should witness the burning intensity with which the score is transformed into sound. He should see from close range those who are beautified through their service to beauty. It would have been enough if it had been a documentation about the profession and the dignity of orchestra musicians who surpass themselves because they serve the same ideal.”

Karajan said that this already had an impact on the French cameramen who had never been in touch with classical music but after the sessions started building up a record collection. The five Karajan/Clouzot films are:

1965    Schumann, symphony No. 4

1966    Mozart, violin concerto No. 5, with Yehudi Menuhin

Dvořák, symphony „From the New World”

Beethoven, symphony No. 5

1967    Verdi, Requiem

This photo is a document from our archives, with Karajan thanking Clouzot for the collaboration in 1966.
(“J’ai (pas) pu vous rejoindre, je pars demain à 6 heures. Je veux vous dire MILLE FOIS MERCI de tout mon coeur.” Which means “I couldn’t meet you, I’m leaving tomorrow at 6. I wish to say you THANK YOU A THOUSAND TIMES from the depth of my heart.”)

—  P.R. Jenkins