Screening of Le Corbeau (The Raven)

Screening followed by a discussion with Nicholas Elliott and Shanny Peer

A wave of anonymous poison-pen letters signed “Le Corbeau” (“The Raven”) unsettles a quiet provincial town, gradually revealing the paranoia, resentment, and moral decay lurking beneath its tranquil façade. Henri-Georges Clouzot’s Le Corbeau (1943) is a chilling psychological thriller and a razor-sharp allegory of authoritarianism, suspicion, and collective guilt.

Produced during the Nazi occupation of France, the film sparked outrage across the political spectrum. The Vichy regime condemned it as subversive; the Resistance press denounced its collaborationist undertones; and the Catholic Church decried its cynical view of human nature. After the Liberation, Le Corbeau was banned and Clouzot was temporarily barred from filmmaking.

Nicholas Elliott is a film critic and French/English translator. He is a contributing editor at BOMB and was the US correspondent for Cahiers du Cinéma for ten years. His writing on film has also appeared in 4Columns, Film Comment, and the Criterion Collection. Recent translations include Serge Daney's Footlights (Semiotext(e)) and Nicole Brenez's Jean-Luc Godard (forthcoming from The Film Desk). His French translation of the epilogue of Robin Coste Lewis's Voyage of the Sable Venus will be staged by Alice Diop at the Festival d'Automne in Paris in November 2025. 

Shanny Peer is the Director of the Columbia Maison Française and co-curator of the Censored Film Series.

This screening is part of Columbia Maison Française CENSORED FILM SERIES - FALL 2025.

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