The Storm Within (1948)

Interesting facts

Les Parents terribles is a 1948 film adaptation directed by Jean Cocteau from his own stage play Les Parents terribles. Cocteau used the same cast who had appeared in a successful stage revival of the play in Paris in 1946. The film has sometimes been known by the English title The Storm Within.

Production

Cocteau made the decision that his film would be strictly faithful to the writing of the play and that he would not open it up from its prescribed settings (as he had done in his previous adaptation, L'Aigle à deux têtes). He wrote no additional dialogue for the film, but substantially pruned the stage text, making the drama more concentrated.

Another significant contribution to the atmosphere of the film was the art direction by Christian Bérard which filled the spaces of the apartment with objects and décor - awkward heavy furniture, piles of trinkets and ornaments, pictures crooked on the walls, unmade beds, and dust - which described the way in which the characters lived.

Cocteau refuted however the suggestion of some critics that this was a realist film, pointing out that he had never known any family like the one portrayed, and insisting that it was "painting of the most imaginative kind."

Filming took place between 28 April and 3 July 1948 at the Studio Francœur. Cocteau's assistant director was Raymond Leboursier, who was joined by Claude Pinoteau (uncredited).

At the time of shooting the final shot (where one sees the apartment receding into the distance), some insecure tracks for the camera produced a shaky image on the film. Rather than reshoot the scene, Cocteau made a virtue of the problem by adding the sound of carriage wheels on the soundtrack together with some words (spoken by himself) to suggest a deliberate effect: "And the caravan continued on its way.

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