Years & Movies: 1953

 The best film of world cinema in 1953, according to FilmGourmand, recognized the film by Henri-Georges Clouzot "Le salaire de la peur (The Wages of Fear)".

The premiere of this film took place on April 15, 1953 at the Cannes International Film Festival. At this festival, Clouzot's film was awarded the main prize - the Grand Prix.

After that, a truly triumphant procession of films on the screens of cinemas and film festivals in European countries began. In the same 1953, the film received the Golden Bear of the Berlin Film Festival, and in 1955 - the British BAFTA Prize as the best foreign film.

In 1955, the film was shown, albeit with small, about 5 minutes, cuts in the cinemas of the Soviet Union. But Soviet communist censorship, as they say, "shallow swimed" in comparison with the censorship of the "luminary of democracy." A month after being shown in the USSR, the film was shown in US theaters, but the “American” version was reduced by 35 minutes compared to the original, that is, by almost a quarter. The censorship of the "exclusive nation" could not allow the American ordinary cinema viewer to see the image of the American oil company in a negative context. And the fact that the American company indicates the source of evil in Clouzot’s picture is the fact that its abbreviation coincides with the abbreviation of Standard Oil.

But even after the castration by the American censors of this work of Henri-Georges Clouzot, the leading American film critics did everything to turn the American moviegoer away from viewing it. Thus, in the review of the film, which came from the pen of the oft-quoted Bosley Crowther, film reviewer of The New York Times, you can find such characteristics of the film: "At the outset, this lethally laden thriller looks as though it is taking off to be a squalid and mordant contemplation of the psychological problems of a group of men, stuck without hope of salvation in a fetid South American oil town....H. G. Clouzot's screen play of Georges Arnaud's novel goes wandering down slimy back alleys and gives evidence of having been trimmed.There's a vague bit about a young Frenchman who lives with a fat Italian, then mocks and deserts him to latch onto an older Frenchman who blows into town.What lies in this cryptic liaison is never clarified. It smacks of some noisome perversion, but the matter has obviously been cut. The film ran for two hours and a half in the original. It runs for an hour and forty-five minutes here.There is also a tow-headed German knocking around the town, being oddly sarcastic and mysterious. He, too, remains a blur.Further—and this is most bewildering—there are hints of resentment and fear on the part of these men and the natives against the American oil company that runs the town. Suggestions of hard-boiled exploitation dangle barrenly here and there. But nothing is ever made of them." - By Bosley Crowther, The New York Times Feb. 17, 1955

I do not know who has how, but personally, after reading this review, I had the feeling that its author tried in every way to present the film not as a social drama, but as a thriller about the complex, perhaps perverted, relationships of four men. And, of course, the role of the American oil company in the representation of this author is exceptionally benign.

It goes without saying that there was no question of any Oscar or Golden globe nominations for this film, which was recognized as a cinema masterpiece in almost all countries. However, just as there could be no question of participation in any other, much less significant, American film festivals. Since this film was directly and unequivocally accused of anti-Americanism by American critics.

After the triumph of Clouzot's film on the European film market (only in France it was watched by almost 7 million people, or more than 16% of the country's population), American filmmakers made two attempts to create their own remakes, one in 1958 (the film "Violent Road"), the other in 1977 (the film "Sorcerer"), but both almost failed at the box office.

The full version of Clouzot's film became available to the American audience only in 1992, almost 40 years after its release. Roger Ebert, who rated Clouzot's film with a maximum of 4 stars and included it in his list of "Great Movies", explained the return of previously cut episodes by the fact that they allegedly lost their political overtones over 40 years, and the film allegedly became what it was originally intended, i.e., a thriller. In addition, in his review from 1992, Ebert tried to explain the failure of the 1977 remake. "One thing that establishes "The Wages of Fear" as a film from the early 1950s, and not from today, is its attitude toward happy endings. Modern Hollywood thrillers cannot end in tragedy for its heroes, because the studios won't allow it. "The Wages of Fear" is completely free to let anything happen to any of its characters, and if all four are not dead when the nitro reaches the blazing oil well, it may be because Clouzot is even more deeply ironic than we expect. The last scene, where a homebound truck is intercut with a celebration while a Strauss waltz plays on the radio, is a reminder of how much Hollywood has traded away by insisting on the childishness of the obligatory happy ending." 

According to FilmGourmand, "The Wages of Fear" has a rating of 9.385 and ranks 93rd in the Golden Thousand.

In addition to Henri-Georges Clouzot’s film “The Wages of Fear”, the following films are included in the top ten best films of world cinema of 1953 according to FilmGourmand:

- Ugetsu monogatari  雨月物語 (Tales of a Pale and Mysterious Moon After the Rain), by Kenji Mizoguchi, Japan. Movie's Rating - 9,132; 137th Rank in the Golden Thousand.
- Roman Holiday, by William Wyler, USA. Movie's Rating - 8,366; 390th Rank in the Golden Thousand.
- Tôkyô monogatari  東京物語 (Tokyo Story), by Yasujirô Ozu, Japan. Movie's Rating - 8,152; 532nd Rank in the Golden Thousand.
- I vitelloni (The Young and the Passionate), by Federico Fellini, Italy. Movie's Rating - 7,937; 827th Rank in the Golden Thousand.
- El (This Strange Passion), by Luis Buñuel, Mexico. Movie's Rating - 7,888; 887th Rank in the Golden Thousand.
- Gycklarnas afton (Sawdust and Tinsel), by Ingmar Bergman, Sweden.
- Stalag 17, by Billy Wilder, USA.
- The Big Heat, by Fritz Lang, USA.
- Le comte de Monte-Cristo (The Count of Monte Cristo), by Robert Vernay, France

10 most "cinegenic"*, in our opinion, events of 1953:    

- Doctors' plot. In the USSR, a criminal case was initiated against a group of prominent Soviet doctors, mainly of Jewish nationality. Doctors were charged with conspiracy and murder of a number of Soviet leaders. The reason for organizing the campaign was a medical error committed in 1948, when doctor Lydia Timashuk, based on an electrocardiogram, diagnosed Zhdanov with a myocardial infarction, however, the leadership of the Kremlin's Medical and Sanitary Directorate forced her to write a different diagnosis and prescribed Zhdanov treatment that was contraindicated in a heart attack that led to death one of the closest Stalinist associates..
- Death of Stalin. Stalin died in the USSR. The government was headed by Georgy Malenkov, N.S. Khrushchev was elected leader of the CPSU. Beria was shot.
- End of the Korean War. The signing of the Armistice Agreement ended the war between the DPRK and South Korea.
- Conquest of Everest. New Zealand climber Edmund Hillary and Sherpa Tenzing conquered Mount Everest.
- Riots in East Germany. In East Germany, unrest broke out among workers, in which more than 1 million people took part. The unrest was brutally suppressed with the participation of Soviet troops. According to various estimates, between 55 and 75 participants in the protests and strikes were killed.
- Flooding in the North Sea countries. The high tide on the shores of the North Sea claimed the lives of 2,400 people in 6 countries.
- Hungary: the beginning of reforms. Stalin's death led to a change of government in Hungary. Imre Nagy came to replace Rákosi Mátyás, "Stalin's best student", as chairman of the government. Nagy changed his economic policy towards light industry and agriculture, as a result of which he quickly became very popular with the Hungarian people.
- Assault on the Moncada barracks. In Cuba, a group of armed rebels, including 135 people, led by Fidel Castro, carried out an unsuccessful attempt to storm the Moncada barracks. Most of the attackers were killed during the assault or immediately after it. Some of the rebels, including the Castro brothers, were sentenced to lengthy prison terms.
- Soviet thermonuclear bomb. The Soviet Union tested the first thermonuclear bomb.
- Coup in Iran. The secret services of the United States and Great Britain organized a coup d'etat in Iran, as a result of which the Mossadegh government was overthrown. General Zahedi stood at the head of the government at the suggestion of Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi.

- Jim Jarmusch, Lybushe Shafrankova, Elena Proklova were born

* -With "cinematic" in the present context, we mean events that either have already found their reflection in world cinema, or deserve to become the basis of the plot of a future film.