The classic blockbuster that unexpectedly inspired Gaspar Noé
From the beginning of his career, Gaspar Noé has caused as much controversy as he has received critical praise. The Argentinian-born filmmaker, who has been based in France since he was young, released his first feature in 1998. I Stand Alone was a bold and violent exploration of a lonely butcher, featuring themes of incestual abuse and murder.
The film was certainly an unforgettable debut, but it was Noé’s next film, Irréversible, which caused much more of a stir. Told in reverse, we follow two men as they seek revenge on a violent rapist who has left one of the men’s girlfriends in critical condition. From the beginning, we see brutal depictions of people getting their heads smashed in or beaten up in seedy bars. The camera rotates, and pounding music plays, leaving the audience in a state of disorientation. We also see the rape sequence played out in real-time, which caused many viewers to walk out when it was screened in cinemas.
Since then, Noé has continued to garner controversy, but none in the same vein as Irréversible. His erotic film Love featured plenty of unsimulated sex (and a 3D cumshot), while Lux Æterna used so many flashing and strobing lights that paramedics were present at its debut screening. With Climax, he gained widespread critical acclaim, although viewers still found it an incredibly intense watch. By utilising many unique filming techniques, such as continuous long takes and birds-eye view shots, Climax becomes a hallucinatory and extreme watch, with the characters all descending into madness after drinking spiked sangria.
The movie is set in an isolated building where a dance troupe are practising and celebrating. After dancing, they all share drinks and let loose, but it doesn’t take long until everything collapses in on itself. Arguments, fights, manipulation, torment and murder ensue, with the group ganging up on a pregnant member and forcing her to stab herself while another is shunned outside where conditions are freezing. As electronic music from the likes of Aphex Twin and Daft Punk play over the scenes of chaos, Noé allows the worst of each character to emerge as their reality becomes a kind of living hell.
The film was inspired by various classic titles, like the dance horror Suspiria and an array of disaster-themed flicks. Talking to Robert Ebert, the director explained, “This movie really reminds me of catastrophe movies, like The Towering Inferno, but also there’s Shivers, the first horror film by David Cronenberg, or Dawn of the Dead by [George A.] Romero, which were taking place in a closed space in which everybody was turning into a zombie, or a building in which everybody was turning psychotic.”
The Towering Inferno, a huge Hollywood movie, seems like an unlikely influence for Noé to cite, who typically picks out arthouse and foreign-language movies as his inspirations. Yet, he was enraptured by the film when he was a child, and it clearly stuck with him. “I remember The Towering Inferno when it came out, I was probably ten years old, but I could watch it seven consecutive days in the week,” he added. “I would go and watch it over and over and over. But yeah, in those big American movies, it was always the nice people who would survive at the end, besides one, and the cruel people who would die at the end.”
The Towering Inferno was the highest-grossing film when it was released in 1974, and featured many classic stars like Steve McQueen, Fred Astaire, Faye Dunaway, Paul Newman and William Holden. The film sees a massive fire rip through the world’s tallest building full of celebrity guests, and as chaos unfolds, several men are tasked with saving them from their deaths. Like Climax, the drama unravels in one building, with audiences left on the edges of their seats as the fates of the characters hang in uncertainty.
