Day 36: The Wages of Fear (1953)

Henri-Georges Clouzot’s “The Wages of Fear” is another example, after yesterday’s “Diabolique,” of this director’s keen ability to bring severe tension to a scene. While “Diabolique” was more Hitchcockian in its thrills, leaving the audience to grow anxious while resolution or answers stayed in the shadows, “Wages” brings everything into the broad daylight, delivering a more action oriented tale utilizing “edge of your seat” situations.

“The Wages of Fear” takes place in Las Piedras, a small South American desert town practically owned by “The Southern Oil Company” (or SOC), who operate the nearby oil fields. Though the SOC provides the town with work, the pay is low and the danger high and many feel the risk too great. Among those are the Frenchmen Mario and Jo, the Dutch Bimba and the Italian Luigi, each with a dark past, which has stranded them in Las Piedras. Though each desires to leave, the only way out is the town airport, requiring a ticket price and a visa that are both out of reach for their empty pockets.

Suddenly, a solution to their dilemmas has arrived in the form of an oil fire, which has begun devouring the oil fields. To eliminate the problem, the SOC needs four drivers to transport two truck loads of highly unstable nitroglycerine to the field so it can be used in an explosion to consume the fire and extinguish it. At two thousand dollars a driver, all four men leap at the dangerous opportunity, seeing it as their way out and to a new life. But, what none of them count on is just how difficult the assignment truly is and, with a path of cliffs, rocks, jungle brush, and potholes in their way, the four will have to tred lightly both with their trucks and each other if they don’t want it all to end in fire.

With “The Wages of Fear” Clouzot gives his audience an enemy that would become a typical archetype in the years to come. Instead of a single person or group playing the antagonist, we are given a corporation, which is drived by greed and treats its workers much like an evil king would treat his subjects- poorly and with little mercy. Though this idea of a “corporate enemy” had been played with before in such works as Charlie Chaplin’s “Modern Times” and Fritz Lang’s “Metropolis,” with “Wages” the corporation is also firmly represented by a single nationality, in this case, “The Southern Oil Company” is an American enterprise.

While this concept have having America play the “baddie” seems fairly normal in today’s cinema, it was unheard of at the time and caused quite a stir for Clouzot, who had already been called unpatriotic by his home country of France for his previous film, “Le Corbeau.” Fresh off of World War Two, the idea of America being the oppressor was something people could not get behind and, upon it’s state-side (and heavily edited) release in 1955, “Time Magazine” still called it “a picture that is surely one of the most evil ever made.

In retrospect, it can be seen that “The Wages of Fear” was not truly anti-American, but more anti-capitalism or even anti-everything. The four main characters of the film are hardly likable people and, from start to finish, we never really care if they’ll ever get out of Las Piedras or not. The main concern to the audience is more whether (or when) will the explosions blow and in what way. Though they are not despicable protagonists, we are not stretched to find them appealing and that’s certainly one of the reasons the film seems so bleak. Not to mention, when one of the four finds himself on death’s door, his last muttered words are, “There’s nothing.” Not exactly a pick-me-up movie.

But, even if considered dreary and unpatriotic, “The Wages of Fear” is still a classic action thriller and a tense story of men on the edge playing, both figuratively and literally, with fire.

To learn more about “The Wages of Fear,” check out Criterion’s page here.

If you would like updated on all things Nathan and “The Criterion Summer,” check out our Facebook page here.