Coup de Torchon [Clean Slate] **** (1981, Philippe Noiret, Isabelle Huppert, Stéphane Audran) – Classic Movie Review 7055

Co-writer/ director Bertrand Tavernier’s 1981 French crime drama stars Philippe Noiret, who gives an excellent in-depth performance as Lucien Cordier, a mild cop who commits revenge murders in 1930s French West Africa.

Tavernier’s taut black-comedy thriller is most satisfactorily reworked from Jim Thompson’s novel Pop. 1280, which is located in the 1910s American Deep South.

With its fine cast, dark humour and spot-on mood and tone, Coup de Torchon [Clean Slate in the UK] is one of Tavernier’s best films. It was an Oscar nominee as Best Foreign Language Film. It was a nominee for 10 César Awards in France in 1982 and did not win a single one.

Tavernier explains: ‘It’s about revenge but it’s also about God and free will, and it has a lot of religious and metaphysical implications, some of which Jean Aurenche and I invented, and some of which are in the book.’

Also in the cast are Isabelle Huppert, Stéphane Audran, Jean-Pierre Marielle, Eddy Mitchell, Guy Marchand, Michel Baune, Jean Champion and François Perrot.

Coup de Torchon (Clean Slate) is directed by Bertrand Tavernier, runs 128 minutes, is made by Les Films de la Tour, Antenne 2 and Little Bear, distributed by Parafrance (France), is written by Jean Aurenche and Bertrand Tavernier, is shot by Pierre William Glenn, is produced by Adolphe Viezzi and Henri Lasse, and scored by Philippe Sarde.

© Derek Winnert 2018 Classic Movie Review 7055

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