Jean Renoir

C;OIS TRUFFAlIT INTRODUOION BY JEAN RENOIR
JEAN RENOIR
Andre Bazin
Edited with an Introduction by

FRAN~OIS
TRUFFAUT
Translated from the French by

W. W. HALSEY II and WILLIAM H. SIMON
W.H.ALLEN
London & New York
A division of Howard & Wyndham Ltd.
1974
CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION
by Fran90is Truffaut
ANDRE BAZIN'S LITTLE BERET
by Jean Renoir
PART ONE
7
11
13
1.
The Silent Films
15
2.
The First Talking Films
23
3. The Era of the Popular Front
36
4. The War Approaches
53
5. The French Renoir

6. Renoir in Hollywood
74
92
7. Renoir Returns
8. A Pure Masterpiece: The River
100
g. Renoir and the Theater
120
10.
Renoir's Third Period
PART TWO
10 4
12 9
147
"Memories" by Jean Renoir
149
The First Version of The Crime of M. Lange
159
An Early Treatment of Grand Illusion
17 2
6 .
CONTENTS
Before The Rules of the Game: An Interview with Jean Renoir
183
An Early Scenario for The Rules of the Game (extracts)
187
PART THREE:
INDEX
FILMOGRAPHY
199
311
Introduction
by Fran{:ois Trriffaut
No one should expect me to introduce this book with caution,

detachment, or equanimity. Andre Bazin and Jean Renoir have
meant too much to me for me to be able to speak of them dispassionately. Thus it is quite natural that I should feel that
Jean Renoir by Andre Bazin is the best book on the cinema,
written by the best critic, about the best director.
Andre Bazin died at forty on November 11, 1958. More
than a critic, he was a "writer of the cinema," striving to describe films rather than to judge them. Bazin's essays on Bresson, Chaplin, Rossellini, Buiiuel, von Stroheim, and Fellini, as
well as his masterful little book on Welles: have been translated throughout the world. His death interrupted his two most
interesting projects: this book on the work of Jean Renoir and
a short film on Romanesque churches.
A contributor to L'Ecran Franrais, L'Esprit, Le Parisien
Libere, Telerama (then called Radio-Cinema-Television) , and
L'Observateur, Bazin profoundly influenced the film makers of
the "New Wave," starting with those whom he brought together
at Cahiers du Cinema and who had just begun to make films
when he passed away after ten years of illness. Thus it was not
fortuitous that the filmography of Renoir's work reprinted at
the end of this book was put together under Bazin's direction by
* Orson W cUes. Edition Ie Chavanne, 1957.
7
1-\
INTRODUCTION
Jacques Doniol-Valcroze, Claude de Givray, Jean-Luc Godard,

Jacques Rivette, Eric Rohmer, and myself in 1957, and completed and updated by Claude Beylie, Jean Douchet, Michel
Delahaye, Jean Kress, and Louis Marcorelles in 1971.
Andre Bazin, whose health deteriorated year after year,
found the strength to look at films and to comment on them
until his last day. The day before his death he wrote one of his
best essays-the long analysis of The Crime of M. Lange*having watched the film on television from his bed.
Renoir's work excited Bazin more than any other. He was
working on this study of his favorite director when he died. His
fragmentary manuscript has been reconstructed and completed
by his friends with the assistance of his wife, Janine Bazin.
I am responsible for the final organization of the work, for
its division into ten chapters approximating the chronological
development of Renoir's work. Obviously Bazin would have
done it differently if he had had time. I think he intended to devote a chapter to the themes treated by Renoir, another to his
work with actors, another to the adaptation of novels.
In one of his last letters, Bazin wrote me:
"I am circling around Renoir by reading the life of Augustus, the novels of Zola: La Bete Humaine and Nana, Maupas.
sant . . . I will eventually have to approach him more directly, but I am now at a point where I know either too much
or not enough. Too much to be satisfied with approximations,
not yet enough to fill in all the variables of his equations" (July
7,195 8 ) .
I am not far from thinking that the work of Jean Renoir is
the work of an infallible film maker. To be less extravagant. I
will say that Renoir's work has always been guided by a philosophy of life which expresses itself with the aid of something
much like a trade secret: sympathy. It is thanks to this sympathy that Renoir has succeeded in creating the most alive films
Those of Renoir's films which were commercially distributed in the
United States are referred to herc by their Americar{ titlps. The dates are
those of the original release. American and French titles, as wpll as the
American release dates of the French films, are given in the filmography
at the cnd of thc book. Translators' notp.
INTRODUCTION
in the history of the cinema, films which still breathe forty

years after they were made.
Andre Bazin, whom his friends remember as an extraordinary man full of joyous goodwill and intelligence. found himself in complete sympathy with the work of Renoir, with his
thirty films all of which revolve around the famous sentence
from The Rules of the Game (spoken by Renoir himself in the
role of Octave): "You see, in this world, there is one awful
thing, and tha t is tha t everyone has his reasons."
If this beautiful book by Andre Bazin is unfinished. consider it unfinished in the manner of A Day in the Country.
which is to say that it is sufficient to itself and, even in its fragmentary state, the finest portrait of Jean Renoir ever written.
Andre Bazin's Little Beret
by Jean RenoiT
The more I travel through life, the more I am convinced that

masks are proliferating. I have difficulty finding a woman
whose face looks as it really is. Our age is the triumph of make
up. And not only for faces, but, more important, for the mind
as well.
The modern world is founded on the ever increasing pro
duction of material goods. One must keep producing or die. But
this process is like the labor of Sisyphus. Forgetting Lavoisier's
dictum, "In nature nothing is created, nothing is lost; every
thing is transformed," we convince ourselves that our earthly
machines will succeed in catching up with eternity. But to
maintain the level of production on which our daily bread de
pends, we must ever renew and expand our enterprises.
One prefers that this process be peaceful, but events have a
way of getting out of hand. This is an age of violence, and it is
likely to become even more so. Still, we do everything we can to
conduct our operation peacefully, to conquer by persuasion. And
thus, the cancer of our society: advertising.
Occasionally in such troubled times, men or women come
forth to dedicate themselves to helping us reestablish a sense of
reality. Bazin was such a man.
I loved him because he belonged to the Middle Ages. I have
a passion for the Middle Ages, just as I have a distrust for the
Andre Bazin (1957)
11
12 JEAN RENOIR
Renaissance. That movement, which laid the foundations of in

dustrial society, is ultimately responsible for the atomic bomb.
The frail figure of Bazin, withered with sickness, was like
Pascal's "thinking reed." For me, he was the incarnation of
one of the saints in the Cathedral of Chartres who project a
luminous and magical vision through their stained-glass repre
sentations. I would have liked to visit Chartres with Bazin. I re
gret that I never had the chance. This enthusiast of the cinema
was as much at home in a medieval chapel as he was in front of
a screen on the Champs-Elysees.
Clothes looked different on Bazin. They were the same
clothes one saw on other people, but on him they lost their con
temporary appearance. The anachronism of his outward appear
ance was neither a protest nor a revolt, nor least of all, an aes
thetic declaration. It was involuntary. It identified him as an
aristocrat before he opened his mouth, and he was not even
aware of it.
His little beret perfectly suited the frail figure of the re
former of the French cinema. I will never forget it.
The sickness which gnawed at Bazin vanquished his spirit
before he was able to finish this book. Franc;ois Truffaut and
others of his friends undertook to complete it. Theirs are names
which, to my mind, figure prominently in the history of the
cinema. I would be falsely modest if I did not express my deep
gratitude to them. I do not know if I deserve this honor, but I
hasten to accept it. This moment is a beautiful gift from Bazin.
It is not the first, or the last: great men do not die.
At the thought of Bazin who dedicated this book to me and
of his disciples who completed it, I feel a very gentle pride. My
feeling is that of a man who has just been given a firm hand
shake by someone he admires greatly.
March 18, 1971
* "Man is but a reed, the most feeble thing in nature; but he is a think
ing reed. The entire universe need not 'arm itself to crush him. A vapor,
a drop of water, suffice to kill him. But if the universe were to crush him,
man would still be more noble than that which killed him, because he
knows that he dies and the advantage which the universe has over him;
the univcrse knows nothing of this." Blaise Pascal, Pensecs. Trans.
PART ONE
Catherine Hessling and Werner Krauss in N ana
CHAPTER
ONE
THE SILENT FILMS
In a remarkable article published in Le Point in 1938 Jean Re

noir looked back on his days as a silent film director a decade
earlier. He emphasized his admiration for the American cinema
of the 1920S, but said that his real desire to make movies was
born the day that a showing of Le Brasier Ardent* taught him
that a film of quality could be produced somewhere other than
Hollywood. This first conversion was followed, like Pascal's, by
another, more profound and radical vision when Renoir saw von
Stroheim's Foolish Wives. "This film astounded me," Renoir re
called. "I must have seen it at least ten times. Destroying my
most cherished notions, it made me realize how wrong I had
been. Instead of idly criticizing the public's supposed lack of
sophistication, I sensed that I should try to reach it through the
projection of authentic images in the tradition of French
realism"t
Renoir sought to cultivate the realism, the authenticity,
which he had found in the popular American productions and
in von Stroheim's work through the proper direction of his
A 1923 film made in France by the Russian emigre actor-director Ivan
Mosjoukine. Trans.
t The famous Le Point article is reproduced in e.rtenso in Part II.
Fran<;ois Truffaut.
THE SILENT FILMS
17
actors. "I was beginning to realize," he said, "that the move

ment of a scrubwoman, of a vegetable vendor or of a girl comb
ing her hair before a mirror frequently had superb plastic value.
I decided to make a study of French gesture as reflected in my
father's paintings."
Renoir's silent work is dominated by his principal actress,
Catherine Hessling. It was to set off her extraordinary personal
ity that he made Une Fille sans loie (produced and written by
Renoir, directed by Albert Dieudonne), La Fille de l'Eau, Nana,
Charleston. and La Petite Marchande d' Allumettes.
One cannot help but wonder how much of the credit for
Jean Renoir's work belongs to this woman, who was both his
wife and his favorite actress. It is true that this remarkable doll
faced girl with the charcoal circles under her great bright eyes,
and the imperfect but strangely articulated body reminiscent of
the figures in certain Impressionist paintings, was an extraor
dinary incarnation of femininity. She was a curious creature,
at once mechanical and living, ethereal and sensuous. But it
seems to me that Renoir saw her less as a director than as a
painter. Enchanted by the unique beauty of her body and her
face, he worried less about directing the actress in her dramatic
role than he did about photographing the woman from every
possible angle. This more or less conscious aim is clearly dis
cernible, for example, in Charleston, whose thin and whimsical
scenario is little more than a pretext for an incoherent but
charming exhibition of Catherine Hessling.
It is possible. then. that this actress helped Jean Renoir to
the self-discovery which is essential to his art at the same time
that she slowed his passage from the simple photographing of
actors to true movie making. In any case, it is with good reason
that in the same article in Le Point Renoir set three films apart
from the rest of his silent work: Nana, La Petite Marchande
d'Allumettes, and Tire au Flanc.
It is common to consider La Petite Marchande d'Allumettes
as a fairy tale and to classify it as a work of the French avant
garde. But if this judgment is correct historically, it is hardly
so from an aesthetic point of view. More precisely, La Petite
Catherine Hessling in La Petite M archande d' Allumettes
ll4archande d'Allumettes represents an intrusion of Renoir's

realism into the themes and techniques of the avant-garde. The
source of the still radiant charm of this little film is apparent to
day: it is the very realism of Renoir's fantasy. It is not Ander
sen's tale but Renoir's fascination with technical effects-the al
most sensual pleasure he derives from the originality of his fan
tastic images-which is the basis for the film's poetry. While
normally one goes to great lengths to, hide technical effects,
to camouflage photographically the imperfection of sets and
makeup, Renoir does not hesitate to reveal in close-up and sharp
focus the actor beneath the wooden soldier's mask or the actress
playing the porcelain doll. He goes so far as to emphasize the
tricks of perspective and the differences in scale between the
actors and the miniatures to draw on these incongruities as ma
terial for his imagery.
And the protagonists of the tale-Karen, the handsome of
THE SILENT FILMS
19
ficer, and the Hussar of Death-are not simply caricatures

meant to terrify or reassure us. They assert themselves with an
intimate clarity which endows them with a poignant human ap
peal. From this Scandinavian fairy tale, Renoir has made a
tender and sensual, bittersweet poetic fantasy in which even
Death becomes a friend and accjuaintance.
Unlike La Petite Marehande d'Allumettes, Tire au Flane is
considered one of the light-hearted concessions to commer
cialism which Renoir was forced to make from time to time. For
example, Rene Jeanne and Charles Ford wrote in their Histoire
du Cinema: "In these declining years of the silent cinema one
finds Renoir's name on Tire au Flane ("Goldbrick"), a film no
better than any of the other military comedies scattered through
French film history." One would like to believe that these his
torians, unable to see the film again, were betrayed by their
memories, for Tire au Flane is much different from the others
of its genre. And Renoir is perfectly justified in recalling it
fondly: "I had the good fortune in this film," he wrote. "to in
troduce Michel Simon, who was already the great actor he is to
day. And I remember the collaboration with the dancer Pomies,
who was to die soon thereafter, as a pleasant episode in my ca
reer. Making this partly tragic, partly whimsical burlesque,
with no clear relation to the play it was taken from, gave me
great satisfaction."
Made rapidly with minimal resources, Tire au Plane really
bears only superficial resemblance to the traditional military
comedies. A little attention and sensitivity enable one to share
the obvious pleasure that Renoir derived from his successful
effort to transcend the conventions of the genre imposed upon
him. Tire au Flane owes more to Mack Sennett and to von Stro
heim than it does to Mouezy-Eon. * And one can see today in its
juxtaposition of comedy and tragedy, of fantasy and cruelty, the
beginnings of Renoir's quest for the drame gai which was to cul
minate ten years later in The Rules of the Game.
This quality stands out in many of Renoir's silent films
A. Mowlzy-Eon was the author of several highly popular, though quite
conventional farces, one of which was th(' source of Renoir's film. Trans.
THE SILENT FILMS 21
not only in N ana, La Petite IHarchande d' Allumettes, and Tire

au Flanc, but even in the films reputed to be thoroughly com
mercial. such as Le Bled. It was on these films that Renoir served
his technical apprenticeship. The importance he accorded to
photographic style and, above all, to the choice of lenses is ap
parent in La Petite lt1archande d'Allumettes, and perhaps even
more so in Le Bled. This latter film is a technical absurdity from
beginning to end: although many of the scenes were conceived
with important elements in the background, Renoir insisted on
using fast lenses, which gave a very soft image and virtually no
background clarity. These results led him later to take the op
posite tack, requiring his cameramen to take all their shots with
one deep-focus lens. Renoir only barely emerged from this pe
riod of technical groping with Boudu Saved from Drowninr; in
193 2 .
The early films also give the impression that in the silent
period Renoir had not yet found reliable guidelines for his edit
ing; the shots follow one another with no logical or dramatic
coherence. He was still preoccupied with his performers and
not yet able to subordinate acting to the demands of storytelling
on film. I do not believe that there is a single pan shot in either
Nana or Le Bled, although this device would become crucial to
all his sound films. On the other hand, he developed in these
early films a considerable prowess for lengthy deep dolly shots,
which is scarcely apparent at all in The Rules of the Game. In
his subsequent work Renoir's fundamental preoccupation be
came the widening of the screen-already deepened by the
lenses-through lateral reframing. To this end panning and
lateral dollying became his two main camera techniques.
The themes which Renoir developed in his sound works
were also present in rough and sketchy form in the silent films.
There is, for example, the theme of mechanical toys in La Petite
Marchande d'Allumettes or the hunt in Le Bled. which we find
so brilliantly handled in The Rules of the Game.
In considering Jean Renoir's work in the years preceding
1930, then, we must fight the critical prejudice that would have
us believe that with the exception of Nana and possibly La Pe
22 JEAN RENOIR
tite IHarchande d'Allumettes the creator of The Rules of the

Game made only clumsy and insignificant films in his early pe
riod. For even the worst of these films is full of a charm which
testifies to the genius of its creator. And one can see in all of
them the first tentative, but spirited and ambitious, efforts of a
nimble talent groping for the course it would find several years
later in La Chienne.
vVhich is to say, in sound' For it must be admitted that
while his silent films foreshadowed what was to come, there is
no comparison between even the best of the silents and the worst
of the sound films. Unlike Rene Clair, who perfected his style in
1927 with The Italian Straw Hat and confirmed it with Les
Deux Timides, Renoir is decidedly a sound director.
Renoir's silent work is irrevocably marked by an unfinished
and expectant quality, as if he had been waiting for the tech
nical discovery that would liberate his visions. With his adapta
tion to sound, Renoir established himself as a man of the future.
He welcomed technological advance because it helped him
achieve the realism he had sought since his first half-conscious
experiments in the silent era.
CHAPTER
TWO
THE FIRST TALKING FILMS
On Purge Bebe
(1931 )
"My first talking film was sort of a test. People didn't trust
me, so I had to prove myself. I managed to get a job directing
On Purge Bebe, based on Georges Feydeau's play. This film is
not much, but r shot it in only four days. * Even so, it is more
than 2,000 meters long.t It cost the producer less than 200,000
francs, and earned more than a million. . . . It was the age of
bad sound. The props and the sets were arranged around the
mike with an unbelievable naIvete. These practices annoyed me,
and to show how dissatisfied I was I decided to record the flush
ing of a toilet." t
Renoir's first sound film is famous for the flushing toilet
and for the debut of Fernandel. Having only seen it in negative
and on a Movieola, I can say little except that it has the least
cutting of any of Renoir's films. There are just a few shots per
Questioned recently, Jean Renoir said six days, which doesn't really
alter the point. (Notes not otherwise attributed are by Bazin. Trans.)
t Nevertheless, the existing negative is only five and a half reels long, or
1,675 meters. (If the original was 2,000 meters, it must have been about
1 hour and 10 minutes long. The existing copy runs about an hour. See
page 156. Trans.)
t One also sees and hears a chamber pot shattering on the floor.
23
24
JEAN RENOIR
reel and only half a dozen close-ups, including that of the cham
ber pot. Most of it was shot within the three walls of a stage set.
And the film was completed after six days of preparation, four
days of shooting, and six of editing. Less than two weeks later it
opened at the Aubert-Palace, and by the end of the first week it
had earned back its entire cost.
La Clzienne
(1931 )
The film opens with a prologue introducing the work and

its characters. A gendarme appears and intones, "You are going
to see an allegorical drama, etc., etc." Guignol * arrives, thrashes
the gendarme, and insists that the film has no message and will
not teach anyone anything at all.
M. Legrand appears at the beginning as a model employee.
He is a cashier in a small hosiery company. Bored at a small
party given in honor of the boss by the employees, he nonethe
less refuses to follow his colleagues to a brothel. On his way
home he encounters a drunk, Dede, beating his mistress, Lulu.
He intervenes and takes the young woman home in a taxi. Lulu
promises to write him.
At home he accidentally makes some noise and awakens his
wife, Adele, who castigates him and invokes the memory of her
first husband, Sergeant Godard. M. Legrand waits for the storm
to pass and turns to his paintings. M. Legrand is a Sunday
painter.
M. Legrand has set Lulu up in a small Montmartre apart
ment. He visits her during the day while Lulu saves her nights
for Dede. But Dede becomes more and more demanding. He is
angry that Lulu cannot get more money out of Legrand, whom
they both believe to be quite wealthy. One day, Dede takes Le
grand's canvasses (which the poor man has brought to Lulu's
Guignol is a stock ,haracter of the French puppet theater. A colorful
figure, he is good-humored and clever, and while sometimes duped, he
is never bested. Trans.
26
JEAN RENOIR
place in response to his wife's nagging) and makes the rounds

of the art galleries. He passes the paintings off as the work of an
American woman, Clara Wood. At Walstein's an art critic
named Langelard sees possibilities in the work of this primitive
woman artist.
Clara Wood's career is launched with a reception at Wal
stein's. The atmosphere is rather decadent, and Langelard paws
Clara/Lulu with a practiced hand. Walstein suggests that Clara
begin immediately to paint a portrait of one of his customers.
She refuses (and with good reason!), but Dede convinces her to
try to string the customer along and get some money out of him.
(The customer is played by Jean Gehret.)
While passing by the gallery, Legrand sees one of his paint
ings on display and realizes that Lulu is selling them. He does
not hold this against her, and this revelation has no consequence
later in the scenario. It is perhaps one of the more improbable
elements of the script.
To "help" Lulu/Clara, whose demands for money (for her
Dede) are increasing, Legrand has filched his wife's savings
from under a pile of linen. One night in the street he runs into
his wife's old husband, Sergeant Godard, who has not died after
all but has taken on the identity of a dead man in order to escape
Adele. Sergeant Godard first tries to blackmail Legrand by
threatening to reappear to reclaim his wife (!), but Legrand has
another idea. He suggests to Sergeant Godard that he come and
rob his "widow" that night at eleven o'clock. It is a trap de
signed to lead to a confrontation between the sergeant and Adele
and allow Legrand to regain his freedom. The trap works per
fectly, and taking advantage of the confusion, Legrand flees
with his suitcase to Lulu's. But Lulu, not expecting him, is
bedded down with Dede. Legrand discovers them and retreats
in dismay. A violent scene ensues between Dede and Lulu: she,
completely in love and not giving a damn about anything; he,
caring only about Legrand's bankroll.
The next morning Lulu is reading in bed when Legrand re
turns, ready to forgive. He tells her that he understands that she
is at the mercy of this evil man . . . But Lulu abuses him. It is
THE FIRST TALKING FILMS'
27
Dede she loves, and as for Legrand, he has been had: "You never
looked at yourself in the mirror . . . ," she says. Beside himself
with anguish, Legrand takes a letter opener and strikes Lulu
until she is dead.
Outside a singer in the street sings, "Be true, 0 my un
known beauty . . ."
Dede returns by car. He enters the building, and the con
cierge yells at him for failing to say hello. A minute later he
hurries out again, pale and upset, and in view of everyone gets
back in his car and drives off. Naturally it is he who is suspected
ofthe crime. He is arrested a little later in a cafe.
The witnesses assemble at the inquest. \IValstein tries to take
advantage of the occasion to talk Lulu's mother into turning
over to him any canvasses Lulu might have left with her. Le
grand is completely exonerated. Dede, clumsy in his denials and
intolera bly cocky, is of course indicted.
Legrand is fired from the hosiery company when 2,50
francs is found to be missing from his books. Obviously, it is
money that he has embezzled to give to Lulu.
The trial: the witnesses (the concierge, the colonel of Dede's
regiment . . .); the summation interrupted by Dede to pro
claim that all this is pointles blather and that he did not kill
Lulu (his lawyer: "It is suicide"). Dede is condemned to death.
Epilogue: Legrand, dirty and ragged, opens car doors in
front of the art galleries on the Avenue Matignon. Another dere
lict does him out of a tip. It is Sergeant Godard. They both laugh
as the customer carries off Legrand's self-portrait in his car.
The photography in La Chienne already shows a marked
attempt at depth of field identical to that of Boudu Saved from
Drowning. The sets are designed to emphasize the deep focus.
The window of the house opens on a narrow courtyard, and
through the windows of the neighboring apartments we see a
woman doing housework, a child practicing scales on the piano.
Inside Legrand's apartment, too, the staging is organized around
actions which move from foreground to background as the char
acters go from one room to another
28 JEAN RENOIR
The cutting in th{' great scene where Legrand discovers

that Lulu is sleeping with Dede somewhat foreshadows the edit
ing at the end of The Crime of M. Lange. The camera is first
behind Legrand, picking up the bed through the door. Then
it jumps to the exterior of the house and observes the scene
through the curtains in the window. There is a deliberate at
tempt here to use a frame within the frame to underline the
importance of all that lies beyond the limits of the screen.
The sets are admirably realistic, notably Legrand's apart
ment, and particularly the kitchen. Lulu's rooms are strikingly
detailed (the porcelain bibelots). The importance of the street
is emphasized by the realistic set, which is defined and concre
tized by sharp detail s (the slope) and by pictorial effects such
as reflections in shop windows or automobile mirrors. The
street's importance is also underlined by the simultaneously re
corded sound.
.
The sound track of La Chienne is consistently excellent
thanks to the on-location recording. The atmospheric noises are
fantastic because they are real. For example, the romantic dia
logue between Legrand and Lulu beneath her apartment is
accompanied by the loud rushing of water in the gutter. On the
other hand, the street singer's song was clearly recorded in the
studio. Even in the scenes consisting completely of dialogue,
which were shot in the studio, the sound is realistic. When a
character walks away, we feel him walking away: this is no
technical effect.
In La Chienne the dialogue and the direction of the actors
reach the sublime. Difficult to define, the style seems to be the
simultaneous expression of the greatest fantasy and the greatest
realism. We have the impression that the dialogues were par
tially improvised to fit each actor's style.
At the core of this realism there is a feeling of passivity.
For example, when the art merchant Walstein, sitting in the
waiting room at the court, asks Lulu's mother if the girl has left
any paintings or drawings, the old woman remains stubbornly
silent and expressionless. This is a realism of manners, not of
29
psychology. Psychological realism is never complete realism.

Realism works in relation to the freedom of the mise en scene. *
Night at the Crossroads
(1932)
Andre Bazin left no writings on this film. See the note by

Jean-Luc Godard in the Filmography. FT.
Strictly speaking, mise en scene refers to the material organization of a
stage or film production: the choice of sets, the lighting, the positioning
and the direction of actors. Bazin frequently uses it in a broader sense
to suggest the translation of an idea or story into visual or cinematic
terms. Trans.
Pierre Renoir (standing with glass) as Inspector Maigret in Night at

the Crossroads
30
JEAN RENOIR
Boudu Saved from Drowning
(1932)
One of the most paradoxically appeaEng aspects of Jean

Renoir's work is that everything in it is so casual. He is the only
film maker in the world who can afford to treat the cinema with
such apparent offhandedness. It took Renoir to muster the au
dacity to film Gorki on the banks of the Marne or to handle the
casting as he did on The Rules of the Game, in which almost all
the actors, except the servants, are so marvelously out of their
usual characters. If one had to describe the art of Renoir in a
word, one could define it as an aesthetic of discrepancy. Boudu
Saved from Drowning is no exception: in this film the scenario
is tangential to the subject; the casting, incidental to the char
acters; and the plot, obEque to the situation. Only the decou
page* is to the point, for it is the editing which directs the dance
with diabolical cleverness and which shapes the contradictory
clements in this aesthetic universe into a coherent style.
I would not go so far as to say that the best moments in
Boudu are those which arc most false. But while the pinnacles of
Decoupage has a variety of meanings and cannot always be translated
by the English "editing." It may mean simply "shooting script" or "con
tinuity"; it may mean the process of breaking down an event into separate
visual "shots"; it may refer to the style inherent in the conception of these
shots; it may mean simply the "techniques" used to record thc shots on
film. Bazin writcs at onc point, for cxample, "d,;coupage, which is to say,
framing and camcra movcmcnt . . . " (Qu'cst-ce que Ie ciw'ma,) Vol. II,
p. 57). More frcqucntly, howevpr, hc usps the tprm as he does hpre, in its
abstract sensc, to refer to the entirc operation of translating an idea into
cinematic terms. (For a detailed discussion of the French concept of
d/'coupage, sel' NijP] Burch, Praxis du cinema, Gallimard 1969.)
The French term which most closdy approximatl's "pditing" is mon
tage, the organization of separate bits of film. It is important to note, how
ever, that montage has a spl'cial, usually negative, meaning for Bazin. As
a rule, hc usps it only to describe editing in which shots are juxtaposed
in such a way that they mean more together than they do separately (a
shot of people emerging from a subway followed by a shot of a herd of
sheep, for example, as in the opening sequence of Modern Times). To the
f'xtent that this tf'chnique fragments the essential continuity of reality
and imposes upon it a meaning which is not necessarily its own, Bazin
disapproves. Trans.
Severine Lezinska, Graudval, Michel Simon, and Marcelle Raina in

Boudu
Renoir's work are often remarkable for the sureness and realism
of their tone, they also sometimes owe their dazzling impact to
carefully contrived dramatic disharmonies.
One of the best scenes in Boudu Saved from Drowning, the
suicide attempt from the Pont des Arts, was made in total de
fiance of the logic of the scene. The crowd of unpaid extras gath
ered on the bridge and the river banks was not there to witness
a tragedy. They came to watch a movie being made, and they
were in good humor. Far from asking them to feign the emotion
which verisimilitude would demand, Renoir seems to have en
couraged them in their light-hearted curiosity. The film does
not for a moment convince us that the crowd is interested in
32
JEAN RENOIR
Boudu. Some of the spectators turn around to get a better look

at the cameraman, much as in the earliest newsreels when peo
ple had not yet grown accustomed to the camera. And, as if he
felt the falseness of the acting were not sufficiently apparent,
Renoir had somc rapid shots taken from behind the crowd,
which leave no doubt of its lack of emotion.
This incongruity is reinforced by the fact that Renoir is one
of the masters of photographic realism, the heir of the traditions
of the naturalistic novel and its contemporary, Impressionist
painting. A fraction of these "mistakes" would condemn any
other director. But they are an integral part of the style of Jean
Renoir, often the best part of it. For Renoir, what is important
is not the dramatic value of a scene. Drama, action-in the the
atrical or novelistic sense of the terms-are for him only pretexts
for the essential, and the essential is everywhere in what is
visible, everywhere in the very substance of the cinema. Of
coursc, drama is necessary-that is what we go to the movies to
see-but the story can get along easily by itself. It is sufficient
to sketch just enough of it so that the audience has the satisfac
tion of understanding. That done, the real film remains to be
made: characters, objects, light, all must be arranged in the
story like colors in a drawing, without being directly subordi
nated to it. At times the very interest of the finished product
may be in the fact that the colors do not fit neatly within the
contours of the drawing. The effects Renoir creates out of this
overlapping seem all the more subtle because he knows how to
stay within the lines beautifully when he wants to.
Let us return to Boudu Saved from Drowning. Boudu
throws himself into the water without knowing why. Because
he was hot? Because he has lost his dog? Because he didn't like
the looks of a cop? What difference does it make? Boudu throws
himself into the river. That is all you need to know. You would
perhaps like some shots to show you how Boudu tries to drown
himself. That would be sadistic. You don't want to try, so let
him handle it by himself, and be satisfied with being told about
it. You would do better to look at the Pont des Arts (which
33
seems to be made of match sticks and which sags under the

weight of the crowd) and the fishermen along the banks of the
Seine who are yelling because all the commotion is scaring the
fish.
Besides, isn't all the distraction which the camera imposes
on you the greatest possible measure of fidelity to the action,
because it makes you behave as Boudu himself would act if it
were you who had jumped into the water?
The discrepancy between dramatic content and its visual
presentation. then, is the principal medium of Renoir's irony.
MANUSCRIPT NOTES
i
I
1. Function of music in Boudu. Essentially an

erotic indicator: sometimes foreboding (for example, the
barrel organ in the street), sometimes suggestive (when
Anne-Marie hums, when Lestingois picks out "Les
Fleurs du Jardin . . ." Oil the piano), sometimes tri
umphant and symbolic (the military horn in the en
graving on the wall over Mme. Lestingois';.; bed). You
could say that whenever we hear music in Boudu we
know that someone is aroused. ("quelqu'un bande")
2. Boudu's charm lies in its glorification of vul
garity. It portrays the most blatant lubricity in a civi
lized and llonchalant manner. Boudu is a magnificently
obscene film.
3. Everything that an actor can be in n film.
Michel Simon is in Boudu. F.verything!
ChotaI'd et Cie.
(193))
Chotard is a wealthy grocer in a small town in the South of

France. In his home he rules with an iron hand. His daughter
has two suitors, a police constable and a poet. neither of whom
suits Chotard in the least. Tn the course of a masked ball at the
34 .
JEAN RENOIR
town hall, the poet, Julien, carries her off. Chotard resigns him
self to having an artist for a son-in-law.
The result is even more disastrous than he feared. The poet,
calmly and obliviously, makes a complete mess of his father-in
law's business. The exasperated Chotard throws him out.
Julien packs his bags and goes. However, while he is wait
ing for the train, the newspapers announce that he has won the
Prix Goncourt. Thunderstruck, Chotard retrieves his son-in-law
at the station. Reconciliation. Chotard is delighted by the situa
tion, but he sees it through the eyes of a merchant. Literature,
he thinks, can be more profitable than the grocery business. He
shuts up his son-in-law in a tower, commanding him to produce
twenty pages a day, ten novels a year. The young man gets sick
of confinement and revolts.
Chotard's business is going to ruin because everyone is read
ing novels and poetry.
Julien spells out the moral of the affair for his father-in
law: each man must fulfill his own destiny. Chotard will put
his business back in order, and the poet will write only when he
is inspired.
Chotard et Cie. has the appearance of a rough draft for

Boudu made after the fact. It is pleasant enough, but betrays its
theatrical origins more than Renoir's other films. The acting
style is not unified, and Georges Pomies (the poet) in particular
seems not to fit in with the rest of the cast.
The film is enjoyable all the same for its imaginative de
tails and for all that Renoir added of his own to Roger Ferdi
nand's play, although it must be said that the final result makes
the play itself appear even worse than it is.
The film seems to have been made very quickly. I did not
notice any scenes shot outside the studio, but I enjoyed some
amusing formal effects: a long and complex dolly shot at the
beginning presenting Chotard's store and his apartment, and
an analogous shot at the end. On the other hand, in many other
shots the actors play face to the camera, as in the theater, prob
ably a consequence of the very tight shooting schedule.
THE FIRST TALKING FILMS'
35
Madame Bovary (1934)

To our knowledge, Andre Bazin wrote nothing on Madame
Bovary besides a few references in the chapter "The French
Renoir." See the note by Eric Rohmer in the Filmography. F.T.
Valentine Tessier and Robert Le Vigan in Madame Bovary
CHAPTER
THREE
THE ERA OF THE POPULAR FRONT
Toni (1934)
Having presented Toni to film clubs two or three times
since the war, I thought I knew it rather well. However, I was
surprised by the film when I saw it again recently. Judgments
of movies evolve particularly rapidly, just as the cinema itself
develops at an accelerated pace. Five years in the history of the
cinema is easily the equivalent of a generation in literature.
This accounts for the need never to rely on memories and to
revise one's opinions periodically. This rule applies particularly
to Toni, one of the key films in Jean Renoir's work. I say "key,"
but the picture is more. It is a veritable chain of keys.
Toni is certainly not the best or the most perfectly con
structed of Renior's prewar films. Quite frankly, it is unusually
rich in defects. But it is perhaps, along with The Rules of the
Game, the most interesting, and in any case, the film in which
Renoir pushed his personal and cinematic quest the farthest.
I say "personal" because the moral thrust of The Rules of
the Game and of Renoir's later films is already fairly explicit in
Toni, at least insofar as "those famous relationships between
man and woman" (Dalia in The Rules of the Game) are con
cerned. Furthermore, if Toni prefigures The Rules of the Game,
The Rules of the Game is reminiscent of Toni. In both films
Pierre Renoir during the shooting of Toni.

Renoir has in mind the famous dialogue between Dalia and Tou
tain after their scrap at the chateau: "You read in the papers
from time to time that an Italian worker has run off with the
wife of a Polish laborer and that the affair has ended in knife
play. I didn't think such things were possible, but, my friend,
they are . . ."
But Toni seems even more impressive in view of the sub
,.
I.
,;.,
38 .
JEAN RENOIR
sequent development of cinematic realism. In a piece written

at the time of the revival of the film, Renoir pointed out the
similarities between the aesthetic implications of Toni and those
of the Italian neorealist films of the post-'Vorld War II era. He
emphasized the contrast between his own cinematic predilec
tions and the type of cinematography that was in vogue in 193;t
Contradicting the generally accepted tenets of the day, he was
laying the foundation for what was to become neorealism ten
years later. Renoir's role in the genesis of the Italian school of
film making can hardly be disputed, given the fact that the first
major neorealist work, Ossessione ( 1942), was made by a former
assistant and great admirer of Renoir, Luchino Visconti.
The fact that Toni foreshadowed the Italian movement is
little understood and for the most part forgotten, perhaps even
by Renoir himself, for French realism was to evolve entirely
apart from developments in Italy. The postwar realists found
their inspiration in the naturalist romanticism and the highly
stylized social mythology which had characterized the French
school from 1936 to 1939.
But before the advent of the "black realism" popularized
by Marcel Carne and his scenarist Jacques Prevert, Toni gave
witness to the contradictions which the cinema was going to
have to sort out. These contradictions account for the weaknesses
in the movie, but also for its interest and charm.
Reacting against the theatrical and literary conventions
which characterized the cinema of the day, Renoir took his sce
nario from a news item about a criminal case and the details
of the case he gleaned from the files of a police commissioner
in the South of France. We can recognize now what came to be
a typical neorealist approach. He situated his story in a real
region near Martigues and filmed it on location using local peo
ple, notably Italian workers, to fill out his cast. But at the same
time that he treated his social and natural setting with unusual
realism, it is clear that Renoir was preoccupied only with the
essence of the matter-which is to say the morality of the in
dividual relationships-and references to the facts of the case
serve more than anything as an excuse to dispense with psycho
39
logical realism. These days when one writes a scenario based on

an actual case, he feels it necessary to create psychological veri
similitude, reorganizing reality in accordance with a precon
ceived logic of the interaction of character and event. In 193't
the public was less demanding, and the film maker was more
free. Perhaps at the time Renoir had the impression that he was
being faithful to reality. but in fact he was using it as arbitrarily
as Corneille used Roman history to justify his tragedies. What
stands out when we see the movie today is an unintended dia
lectic between the raw documentary reality, presented without
regard for psychological verisimilitude, and the moral truth,
also achieved without reference to psychology. The film switches
continually from one to the other through characters who are
totally unrealistic in terms of personality, having only social
and ethical import. This disregard. or even scorn. for psychology
will appear to audiences brought up on the psychological films
of our day (d. Aurenche and Bost*) to be old-fashioned and
awkward. L on the other hand. find in Renoir's approach the
freshness of an inspiration which has not yet dominated or cam
ouflaged the fertile contradictions of its raw materials, notably.
the contradictions which can exist between realism and truth.
Later Renoir will bear witness to the reality prewar France
with greater dexterity and will succeed admirably in fusing
moral statement and social observation so that each sheds light on
the other. If the message is conveyed equally well by the Italian
coal workers in Toni, the typesetters in The Crime of iVI. Lan~e,
the soldiers in Grand Illusion, the petits bour~eois of A Day in
the Country, and the ~rands bour~eois or the aristocrats in The
Rules of the Game, it is precisely because through all his social
metamorphoses Renoir was interested only in the same sets of
morals and because social realism was for him only a means of
experiencing and demonstrating the permanence of man and
his questions. Renoir is a moralist.
Jean Aurell(:he and Pierrp Bast ,\Tote practically all of Claude Autant
Lara's scenarios dtrr 1943, notably Le Diable au Corps. They also wrote
Forbidden Games for Rene Clement. Trans.
40 .
JEAN RENOIR
The Crime of J1Il. Lange (1935)

Amedee Lange, an employee in a commercial publishing
house, is exploited, as is the rest of the personnel, by the ignoble
Batala, the devious president of the fly-by-night enterprise. But
Lange is blind to the evil-doing of his charming boss, first of all
because of his naIve idealism and also because his mind is else
where. He spends his nights writing "Arizona Jim," the silly
tale of a western hero whom Lange has dreamed up. He is so
preoccupied that he fails to notice the advances made to him by
Valentine, the kind owner of the laundry on the first floor of the
building where he lives.
One day Batala, on the verge of bankruptcy, takes flight,
having seduced Estelle, the innocent fiancee of the concierge's
son. But his train goes off the tracks, and Batala is thought to
have been killed in the wreck. In fact, however, he has taken
the vestments and assumed the identity of a priest who was trav
eling with him. With the president presumed dead, the debt
ridden publishing house reverts to the principal creditor, who,
having nothing to lose, accepts the suggestion of the employees
that the firm be launched as a cooperative. Soundly adminis
tered, the company enjoys a brilliant success with its new pub
lications, largely thanks to "Arizona Jim." Everyone is happy:
the financial backer; the workers; the son of the concierge, who
has pardoned Estelle; and Lange, who can give his imagination
free rein in further literary exploits and who has finally begun
to appreciate the charms of Valentine.
It is at this point that the despicable Batala returns to break
up the party and to claim his rights of ownership in the newly
revived publishing firm. Lange is destroyed: Batala is going to
ruin the little communal paradise won through the friendship
and solidarity of all. But since it was the false death of Batala
which permitted the utopia in the first place, the only solution
is to kill him for real. So, mechanically, naIvely, Lange shoots
his former boss.
This scenario is presented in the form of a flashback after
THE ERA OF THE POPULAR FRONT'
41
a brief prologue which shows us Lange and Valentine hiding

out in a country inn at the Belgian border after the crime. But
their descriptions have been broadcast, and Lange is recognized
by a guest at the inn. So while Lange is resting, Valentine takes
it upon herself to explain the case to those who would turn him
in. This improvised popular jury will decide their fate. Indica
tions are that they will decide in favor of acquittal and help
the couple to cross the border.
The Crime of M. Lange was made in a rather peculiar his
torical and political atmosphere, which explains in part the gen
eral spirit of the film. Shooting started in October 1935, on the
eve of the elections of the Popular Front, and the men present
at its execution, as at its conception, were to a certain degree
touched by the same social idealism which moved the statesmen
and politicians of the day. In this sense The Crime of M. Lange
can be seen as a film a these: against evil bosses and capitalist
exploiters, and for the workers, solidarity, and collectivism. Be
yond this social message, Renoir and Prevert would go so far as
to willingly excuse Lange's crime on the grounds that he had
freed the earth of an irredeemably pernicious man protected by
the ill-conceived laws of an imperfect society.
At the outset the film was based on an idea of Jean Castan
ier, the Spanish painter and set designer. It was originally to be
titled "Sur la Cour" ("Overlooking the Courtyard"), a title per
haps less commercial, but more expressive of the spirit of the
work than the one eventually chosen. Then, after Renoir had
completed the first script (which was rather different from the
final version), the producer suggested that Jacques Prevert,
whose name would guarantee the interest of the distributor, col
laborate on the film. So the story was rewritten with new dia
logue by the author of Diner de Tete. It is, of course, impossible
to evaluate how much influence Renoir retained in this collabo
ration, where the marks of both men are evident. *
The Crime of M. Lange was made rapidly (in a month),
with a small crew and at a relatively small cost (one million
The reader will find in Part II an early scenario for The Crime of
M. Lange, written before the arrival of Prevert. F.T.
42 JEAN RENOIR
francs). These conditions probably explain certain technical

shortcomings in the film, but they may also account for some of
its virtues.
The film was released at the end of January 1936 and was
fairly well received by the critics. Most of the writers recognized
(although perhaps without emphasizing it sufficiently) the nov
elty of the subject matter and above all the tone of work, whose
intelligence and aims were so different from most French pro
ductions of the day. Roger Leenhardt wrote in L'Esprit:
The interest of The Crime of M. Lange lies beyond technique
and cinema per se: it is in the profound meaning of the film and
the message of its authors. The film is all the more remarkable
because it owes its spiritual style to the harmonious collaboration
of its director (Renoir) and its adapter and dialogue-writer (J.
Prevert), two names frequently mentioned in these pages, two
uncompromising temperaments. . . . In short, Prevert has
brought his sprightly, mordant wit to Renoir, who lent, in turn,
the depth and resonance of his authentic romanticism to Pre
vert's imagination, which is more clever than creative. The re
sult is a stunning spectacle, uneven, moving, and terribly non
conformist. . .. The direction, while touched with genius, still
includes some of Renoir's usual awkwardness. Oh, those zig
zagging pan shots! Are they due to a mistake or simply a lack of
money? Or to Renoir's mania for improvisation, for inspiration
on the sets?
It is worth noting that in January 1936 Renoir was known

in the fledgling criticism of the era only as the director of a
single sound film of any consequence (Boudu had not been con
sidered "serious"), and Prevert had but L'Affaire Est dans Ie
Sac. But it was the age when the poet with anarchist-communist
tendencies reigned at the Deux-Magots (the Cafe de Flore would
not eclipse the Deux-Magots until much later). The Crime of
M. Lange was conceived in the little world of the film intelli
gentsia of the Left Bank, which during the prewar years seemed
more or less in opposition to its counterpart along the Champs
43
Elysees on the Right Bank. Perhaps more than any other of

Renoir's works, it was a film made by friends. for friends.
An "imperfect" film. The Crin;c of M. Lange is nonetheless
one of Renoir's most beautiful works and one of the most repre
sentative of his genius and talents. Personally. I would not rank
it far from The Rules of the Game, for which it is a rather de
tailed outline. In any case it is. along with the sublime A Day
in the Country, one of the most "charming" of Renoir's films.
As Roger Leenhardt pointed out. in assessing this "charm"
it is important to take into account the somewhat paradoxical
collaboration of Prevert. This collaboration produced one of the
best. if not the best. dialogue of French prewar cinema. All of
Prevert's qualities are there without any of his excesses, these
having been tempered by Renoir's unflagging efforts to ensure
that none of his actors would be asked to say anything out of
keeping with his character. One has the impression that the
original verbal creations of the writer have been adapted to fit
the actors. even. if necessary. during the shooting. To be sure,
the dialogue is considerably more obtrusive in M. Lange than
in Renoir's other films. It often asks you to listen to it for its own
sake. But this phenomenon is not necessarily a flaw. when the
dialogue is so delightful.
Without slighting Prevert, it is easier to see the undeniably
original contribution which Renoir made to the film.
It is curious to note that most of the critics at the time of
M. Lange's release (including Leenhardt himself) reproached
Renoir for his complicated and awkward camera work. failing
to see both the need for so much movement and the rigor inher
ent in it. Since the film's release. of course. much has been made
of the usc of depth of field. And this technique is indeed impor
tant here. just as it is important in all of Renoir's prewar sound
films. Two illustrations in particular from The Crime of M.
Lange come to mind: the taxi scene and the opening of the
window in the middle of a wall covered by a great painted ad
vertisement. But depth of field in M. Lange is subordinated to
a more general structural conception of the film. which must be
SECOND FLOOR
...:l
-<
CI
I';
.....
l~'/;;}f .:
CONCIERGE'S
,_._"
,.........,
FROM THE STREET
ENTRANCE
--::
~~!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!IIIIIIIIIIII~!!!!!!I!!I!!!II..
THE CAMERA
MOVEMENT OF
.-....----
WINDOWS)
THROUGH THE
FOLLOWS HIM
(THE CAMERA
LANGE'S ROUTE
""C
BATALA'S OFFICE
.= 1II11III
- .
-,."~'~~~
:',:<.~.*-:=:::z:;et::ikt::,::-:'~,::(t,;t::-'Q;;i'iiti
c..--.....-u.JiilIl<lOI_ . '
~
APARTMENT
-ik:STAIRWAY TO /
COMPOSING ROOM
~J!
DIAGRAM OF THE MAIN SET FOR THE CRIME OF M. LANGE
45
defined in order to better understand the movements of the

camera. For such a definition, we must begin with the set (see
diagram) .
Let us recall that the original scenario was called "On the
Courtyard." The general idea of the film is to bring together
around this courtyard a certain number of characters and activi
ties and to depict the little community, this chance product of
urban geography, in an almost unanimiste* vein. There arc
those who both live and work on the courtyard: the concierges,
the washerwoman, and Lange himself; and those who only enter
the courtyard when they come to work: the typographers, the
women who work for Valentine. etc. With the exception of a
few "exterior" scenes, we know this community only in rela
tion to the courtyard and the activities which center around it.
This dramatic concept was realized in a set. but not a set
built on a series of studio stages. The set was built in its entirety
in the courtyard of the Billancourt studio. In this vast complex
each important part of the set (the concierge's lodge, the laun
dry, the big stairway, the composing room, Batala's office) oc
cupied its actual position around the courtyard, whose center
became the geometric locus for all the action. A significant de
tail added to this geometric conception: the concentric pattern
of the paving stones in the courtyard.
Given this physical disposition of the set. it is clear that
while the deep-focus shot would be the appropriate technique for
action at the periphery. only the pan would be logical for action
observed from the courtyard. Renoir took this concept to its logi
cal conclusion in a stroke of genius which brilliantly synthesizes
the whole spatial structure of the film: the 360-degree pan
which follows Lange from Batala's office. through the workshop.
down the steps and onto the stoop, continuing counterclockwise
as he walks across to the right and out of the camera's line of
vision. and sweeping the entire courtyard before coming full
Unanisme was a French poetic movement of the early twentieth century
which emphasized the notion of universal brotherhood and sought to in
voke the greater soul of the human group, of which the particular souls
of individuals were only constituents, incomplete in themselves. Trans.
46
JEAN RENOIR
circle to pick up Lange again at the fountain where he has gone

to kill Batala. This stunning turn of the camera, apparently con
trary to all logic, has perhaps psychological or dramatic justifi
cation (it gives an impression of dizziness, of madness, of
suspense), but its real raison d' etre is more germane to the con
ception of the film: it is the pure spatial expression of the entire
mise en scene.
It is true that this sweeping shot, which is not immediately
justified, could seem arbitrary or pretentious. Let us not forget,
however, that Renoir has prepared us to accept it, with the scene
in which the drunken concierge drags the garbage cans all
around the courtyard. The circular movement has been in
scribed in our eye, and the fact that the idea persists helps us to
accept the abstraction of the 36o-degre pan which is to follow.
In only one other film did Renoir explore further the possi
bilities of a mise en scene at once concentric and in deep focus.
That is The Rules of the Game, in which he perfected the tech
nique and used it with more rigor and finesse.
It would be impossible to separate the acting in The Crime
of M. Lange from any consideration of its style. The actors con
tributed perhaps as much to the film's style as did the director.
There were three distinct types of players in the cast: Renoir's
nonprofessional friends (Duhamel, Grimault, Brunius); the
proven actors who could be assimilated into Renoir's design be
cause of the simplicity of their acting style or because of the
affinity they shared with Renoir for the ambiance of camaraderie
on the set (Florelle, Rene Lefevre, Nadia Sibirskala, Maurice
Baquet, Jean Daste); and finally the monstre sacre, the super
actor whose very incongruity with the rest of the group served
both Renoir's desires and the sense of the movie: Jules Berry.
Renoir adores this kind of genial ham actor, who is never better
than when working with him. He knows how to put them at
ease while at the same time giving them the necessary direction.
In The Crime of M. Lange Berry's is a sublime creation of vil
lainy, which for all its brilliance does not move us to hate him,
so removed is that violent emotion from Renoir's work.
II
(
,\
Florelle, Nadia Sibirska'ia (fainted), Marcel Duhamel, and Jules

Berry in The Crime of M. Lange
48 .
JEAN RENOIR
What is striking about the way the film is acted is the fact
that to a certain extent it was made for the pleasure of those who
were working on it as much as for the appreciation of the public.
It is like a finely decorated cloth so nearly as beautiful on the
back as on the front that one hesitates to wear it exclusively on
one side. The Crime of M. Lange was made for the pleasure of
all, from the director to the stagehands, and particularly for the
actors. This approach holds more or less true for all of Renoir's
works, but seldom has it been as apparent as in this film.
La Vie Est a Nous (1936)

MANUSCRIPT NOTES
The film opens in a classroom, during a lesson on

the riches of France, illustrated by sumptuous pictures.
When school is dismissed, comments by the children on
the poverty and misery of their parents belie the rosy
picture painted in the classroom, or at least its optimistic
point of view.
A second montage sequence presents the nationalist
uprisings of 1934, the wealthy "two hundred families"
of France, the menace of Hitler.
Next, we find ourselves in the office of Marcel
Cachin, editor of L'Humanite. He is opening his mail, in
particular three letters, the contents of which are de
picted by three sketches illustrating the role of the Com
munist party in the defense of workers.
First sketch: the factory. A collective action is or
ganized to fight against the tyranny of the clock, which
imposes an excessiVf~ly rapid pace of work, and to pro
test the arbitrary firing of an old worker. The adminis
tration accedes to the demands of the workers after a
warning strike. The old man is rehired, the pace of work
is slowed down, salaries remain constant.
Second sketch: in the country. An auction which
49
would have deprived a peasant of his only source of

revenue is sabotaged by his Communist friends. The
comrades stifle any would-be bidders and manage to buy
back the peasant's stock and equipment at a ridiculously
low price. The man will be able to continue working.
Third sketch: a student couple (Nadia Sibirskaia
and Julien Bertheau) is practically dying of hunger.
The young man, a graduate of the Ecole Superieure
d'Electricite, looks for work, gets hired by a garage
owner who exploits him, falls back into poverty, and is
taken ill by a militant who takes him to a meeting where
he is fed and comforted. A kind of celebration is or
ganized. The young man will handle the lighting for the
affair.
Add to this a series of speeches from Marcel Cachin,
Jacques Duclos, and Maurice Thorez and. an apotheosis
tic finale inspired by classic Russian montages.
The whole indicates a tremendous didactic naivete.
The scenario is terribly moralizing, but the film itself is
remarkable for the sincerity of the players and the qual
ity of their acting. Renoir achieves some curious effects
by using real militants in addition to his sympathizing
friends.
Two scenes to note: the auction with Leo Larive
(who played Louis Jouvet's servant in The Lower
Depths and the cook in The Rules of the Game) examin
ing the horse put on the block. This scene, more cut up
than the rest of the film, perhaps owes more to Jacques
Becker (who collaborated on the scenario) than to
Renoir. And second, the marvelous pan which starts
with Nadia Sibirskaia 011 her balcony, continues along
the rooftops, descends to the courtyard, and comes back
up to a general shot of Paris.
La Vie Est if Nous will continue to be discussed.
With time it will become a more and more precious doc
ument on the spirit of 1936. For that reason it makes a
worthy companion piece for The Crime of M. Lange.
50
JEAN RENOIR
A Day in the Country (1936)

MANUSCRIPT NOTES
"M. Dufour, a Paris hardware dealer, in the com

pany of his mother-in-law, his wife, his daughter, and
his clerk Anatole. who is also M. Dufour's future son-in
law and successor, has decided, having borrowed a car
riage from his neighbor the dairy man this Sunday in
the summer of 1860, to go out and commune with na
ture." They choose Perl' Poulain's inn as a propitious
spot for a picnic on the grass. Two sporty fellows all va
cation see the family arrive and, moved by their own
high spirits, decide to make discreet advances to the
ladies of the party. After the picnic, while M. Dufour
and Anatole go fishing with lines lent to them by the
helpful duo, the ladies accept all invitation to go for a
boatride with tl1(' two oarsmen. The mother, still attrac
tive in spite of her years, lets herself be tempted into the
bushes by her enterprising companion, while the daugh
ter knows the pleasure of a brief but passionate embrace
in the arms of her partner, a more sensitive and shy
young man. Rain puts an end to the idyll.
"Years pass with Sundays as melancholy as l\10n
days. Anatole has married Henriette . . ." The young
couple returns to spend a Sunday at the inn in TIezons.
Henriette, already marked by the monotony of her new
existence, encounters her erstwhile lover on the same
spot where they had embraced. They scarcely have the
time to tell each other of the indelible memories that
each one has kept of that brief interlude, when the hus
band awakens from his nap. The lovers will not sec
each other again.
The adaptation of A Day in the Country is faithful
in letter and spirit to the Maupassant story from which
it is taken. The short story is in fact, with the exception
of a few scenes that arc more or less developed than in
* Renoir himself played the role of Poulain. F.T.
Jacques Brunius and Jeanne Marken in A Day in the Country

the movie, much like a synopsis of Renoir's film.
The characters of the boatmen, Henri and Ro
dolphe, are psychologically and dramatically a little
more clear-cut in the film than in the story. The one
who accompanies the mother (Jacques Brunius) is ren
dered a bit more comic, and the other (Georges Dar
noux) is made to develop the sentimental and dramatic
elements of the adventure. All that has been added is
materially and psychologically justifiable, and one could
even say that Renoir has improved on the story.
The love scene on the island is one of the most ago
nizing and most beautiful in all of cinema. It owes its
stunning effectiveness to a couple of gestures and a look
52 JEAN RENOIR
from Sylvia Bataille which havc a wrenching emotional

realism. In thc space of a few frames she expresses all
the disenchantment, the pathetic sadness, that follows
the act of love.
Furthermore, Renoir manages to transcribc this
feeling visually by use of the superb storm sequcnce.
The part of the story which was never filmed,
which would have taken place in M. Dufour's shop, is
insignificant. Thus one can say that A Day in the
Country is a perfectly finished work.
rt
I,
CHAPTER
FOUR
THE WAR APPROACHES
The Louler Depths (1936)

Louis Jouvet plays a baron ruined by gambling and women.
One night he surprises Pepel, a professional thief, in his apart
ment. He is immediately drawn to the burglar, played by Jean
Gabin. They gamble throughout the night and in the morning
when the soldiers come to arrest the baron, he decides to take
refuge with Pepel in an asylum for derelicts near the river.
The asylum is run by an old miser (Vladimir Sokolov),
whose young wife (Suzy Prim) is Pepel's mistress. She has a
younger sister whom she and her husband hope to marry to the
chief of police (Gabriello) to ensure their safety.
The young girl rejects the marriage. The old man and his
wife beat her. Pepel, who is in love with the girl, comes upon
them and kills the miser. When the police arrive to investigate,
all the tenants in the asylum side with Pepel, saying, "It is not
he who killed, it is the lower depths."
Meanwhile an old man dies of an unnamed illness, a mysti
cal, alcoholic actor hangs himself, and the baron flirts with a
romantic prostitute (Jany Holt).
At the end of the story, Pepel and the girl take to the road,
detouring a bit when they encounter some gendarmes. They will
try to escape.
53
THE WAR APPROACHES
55
T he Lower Depths is certainly not the greatest film of the

man who made The River. It never achieves the balance of
Grand Illusion, the sincerity of The Crime of M. Lange, the
poetry of A Day in the Country, or the combination of all these
qualities which marks The Rules of the Game. Nevertheless,
with the exception of the latter film, The Lower Depths is
perhaps the most interestingly directed of all Renoir's French
films. It embodies the director's most delightful and revealing
qualities.
Taken from Gorki's play, it is a curious mixture of tones
and genres. From a very somber and realistic story, Renoir has
come close to making a comic film. He even refuses to allow Jean
Gabin to die at the end. *
The protagonists of the four or five personal adventures
which cross and intermingle in the sordid dormitory are the
kind of derelicts so often found in Russian novels. But in Renoir's
treatment they appear curiously Franco-Russian. How can we
possibly accept Jouvet as a high tsarist functionary or believe
that Gabin's Parisian banter is an expression of "the restlessness
of the Russian soul"?-to say nothing of taking the banks of the
Marne for those of the Volga. Yet, Renoir has the gall to ask us
to do precisely that!
A cardinal merit of this film is to bring together under
marvelous direction Jouvet, Jany HolL Le Vigan, Suzy Prim.
Junie Astor, and Vladimir Sokolov.
This improbable game of hide-and-seek between vaudeville
and tragedy, realism and parody, Gorki and Renoir, produces a
work which is at the very least fascinating. Only the author of
The Rules of the Game could so casually compel our emotion
while skirting the ridiculous so closely.
"Consider that nearly all Gabin's films, at least from The Human Beast
to Au-delil des Grilles, pnd unhappily; usually with the violent dpath of
the hero, which can be considered, moreover, as a more or less conscious
suicide. Is it not peculiar that the commercial requirement of the 'happy
ending,' which drives so many producers to weaken their 'sad' films with
false resolutions, like those of Moliere's comedies, does not apply to one
of the most popular and sympathetic actors, one who we always hope will
be happy, marry, and have many children?" Andre Bazin, "Jean Gabin
et son destin," Radio-Cinema-Tel{svision, October 1, 1950.
56 .
JEAN RENOIR
Grand Illusion (1937)
The action, which takes place in a German prison camp for

officers during World ''\Tar I, divides into three more or less dis
tinct parts. It begins with a prologue in a bar near the French
front, where Lieutenant Marechal (Jean Ga bin), a former me
chanic who has worked his way up through the ranks, is asked
to conduct the haughty, suave, and monocled Captain de BOIel
dieu (Pierre Fresnay) on a mission behind enemy lines. But
their plane is shot down by Commandant von Rauffenstein
(Erich von Stroheim). Von Rauffenstein, an aristocrat and
career officer like BOIeldieu, graciously invites the two French
men to lunch before his far less courteous subordinate comes to
take them to the prison.
At the camp, after the initial vexations of internment
Marechal and BOIeldieu have little to complain about. They are
quickly taken in by their roommates: an actor, full of puns, a
rather naIve schoolteacher, a surveyor, and the benefactor of
them all, the garment maker Rosenthal (Dalio), whose sump
tuous parcels from home, generously shared, provide the little
company with far more agreeable nourishment than the ordi
nary prison fare. In spite of the differences in taste and charac
ter, largely due to differences in social position, the men develop
a strong feeling of fraternity. Even the aristocrat de BOIeldieu
adapts suavely to conditions in this unstratified little society.
Like the others, he devotes every night to the tunnel, which the
original prisoners have been digging for months and which will
soon ena ble the little band to escape.
Meanwhile the camp has been feverishly preparing a talent
show under the tolerant and amused eyes of the camp authori
ties. Rosenthal has had trunks full of costumes sent in for the
occasion. When the trunks arc opened and the first man tries on
a dress, there ensues the justly famous scene in which the other
prisoners suddenly stop joking, overwhelmed in spite of them
selves by this pathetic simulation of femininity. Later, the show
is proceeding full tilt when Marechal silences the orchestra and
58 .
JEAN RENOIR
strides on stage to announce that Douaumont has been recap

tured. The prisoners rise and sing the "Marseillaise," while the
Germans, livid with anger, withdraw. His audacity will cost
Manchal a long stay in solitary confinement.
On his release his comrades console him with the news that
the tunnel is finished. The escape is set for the next day. But an
order arrives: the officers are to be moved to a new camp. The
tunnel and all the labor spent to dig it will be wasted. Not even
the English officers who take their place will be able to take ad
vantage of it. J\1anchal tries to pass on the word, but he cannot
find an English officer who speaks French.
After a rapid sequence of dissolves which shows us that in
the course of one or two years our heroes have been marched
from camp to camp across Germany, we find Marechal and
de Boieldieu in a disciplinary camp reserved for men who have
repeatedly tried to escape. This new camp is a medieval fortress
from which escape seems impossible.
The two Frenchmen are surprised to find themselves greeted
by von Rauffenstein. who has suffered from a serious spinal in
jury and is strapped to the chin in a corset of iron and leather.
The former aviator has accepted the thankless task of running
the prison fortress because it permits him to continue serving his
country, but he goes about it with the same aristocratic flair, the
same ritual of pointless and implacable elegance, that is the rule
of his class. Delighted to see de Boieldieu again, he immediately
treats him as an alter ego, a man like himself, both a noble and
a career officer. Marechal, on the other hand, appears to him as
merely an unfortunate product of the French Revolution. On
this point, de Boieldieu does not agree. If he is no less committed
than von Rauffenstein to the style of his class, his commitment
is tempered by greater understanding because he realizes that
that class is doomed. He appreciates the popular virtues of a
Marechal, and he views without bitterness the social advance
ment of the cosmopolitan, industrious Rosenthal, whose re
cently naturalized relatives today possess the historic chateaux
that the de Boieldieus could not hold on to.
Our two heroes have the pleasant surprise of finding their
THE WAR APPROACHES
59
generous old friend Rosenthal assigned to the same prison. The

three, in spite of the difficulties posed by the fortress, start plan
ning a new escape. A long rope of braided cloth will enable
them to climb down the walls, but the guards on the ramparts
are too numerous for them to hope to pass unnoticed. An inci
dent provoked by the Russian prisoners gives de Boieldieu an
idea. With a boxful of musical pipes and the cooperation of the
other prisoners, he will organize a kind of musical mutiny,
which will keep the entire guard busy for at least a few minutes,
during which Marechal and Rosenthal will be able to get away
unnoticed. Everything goes as planned, with de Boieldieu, in
full uniform and white gloves, insolently tootling a popular
French folksong from the ramparts, to the complete stupefaction
of von Rauffenstein, who is finally forced to shoot him. Mortally
wounded in the stomach, de Boieldieu dies in the arms of the
German commandant.
We rejoin Marechal and Rosenthal, haggard and exhausted,
on their way to Switzerland. Rosenthal has sprained his ankle
and has difficulty keeping up with MarechaL Tired and irrita
ble, the two begin to quarreL They find refuge in a stable on a
quiet farm, just in time to permit them to rest and restore their
spirits. But the farm turns out to be inhabited by a young war
widow (Dita Parlo) and her daughter. She could turn them in,
but she does not. She houses them until Rosenthal's ankle heals
and he regains his strength. Little by little, a romance develops
between Marechal and the blond Elsa, a love transcending the
absurdity of the war. But they must leave, tearing themselves
away from this peace. It too is illusory.
They continue to walk. We see Marechal and Rosenthal
somewhere in the mountains, nearly covered with snow. A Ger
man patrol spots them. A soldier raises his rifle to fire. A com
rade stops him: "Forget it. They're in Switzerland."
The print of Grand Illusion shown in 1958 is a complete
version, reconstructed by Renoir and Charles Spaak (his co
scenarist) using a negative seized by the Germans and recovered
in Munich by the Americans. In the course of commercial dis
60 .
JEAN RENOIR
tribution nearly all of the prints originally in circulation had

been mutilated.
The principal cuts were made in 1946 for a reissue, which
provoked some controversy. The film was criticized, notably by
Georges Altman, for being too kind to the Germans and for sug
gesting at least a trace of anti-Semitism. Only the mentality
which prevailed in the days following the Liberation can ex
plain these judgments, so contrary to the spirit of the film, espe
cially considering that a few references to Rosenthal's race and
part of the love scenes between Marechal and Elsa had already
been cut. In any case, in 1946 the message of Grand Illusion
could not yet be thoroughly understood (or reunderstood). The
triumph of the film when it was next reissued, in 1958, was thus
all the more significant.
In 1937, on the other hand, the critics had been generally
enthusiastic a bout Grand Illusion, making it almost unique
among Renoir's films, which have often received bad press, or
mixed notices at best.
The film was an immediate success not only in France but
also abroad. It would certainly have won the grand prize at the
Venice Film Festival of 1937 (instead of Camet de Bal) if the
award of the "Mussolini Cup" to a democratic and pacifist film
had not seemed impossible. A prize for the "best artistic ensem
ble" was created especially for it, to ease the consciences of the
jurors. Despite this official recognition, the film was banned in
Italy and, naturally, in Germany. In America, on the other
hand, it had a triumphant success (fifteen weeks at a major
first-run house in New York and distribution throughout the
country). President Roosevelt said, "Everyone who believes in
democracy should see this film."
In the introductory sound track made for the 1958 reissue
Renoir himself explained how the film was born:
The story of Grand Illusion is strictly true. It was told to me by
my friends in the war . .. notably by Pinsard. Pinsard flew
fighter planes; I was in a reconnaissance squadron. One day I
had to go to take photos of the German lines. He saved my life
THE WAR APPROACHES
61
on several occasions when the Gprman fighter planes became too

persistent. He himself was shot down seven times. His escapes
are the basis for Grand Illusion . . .
But . . . an escape story, however gripping, is not enough
for a film. You must make a scenario of it. For that, Charles
Spaak lent me his talents. Our collaboration was smooth and
without incident. The ties of our friendship were reinforced by
our common faith in the equality and fraternity of men.
In fact, the scenario of Grand Illusion went through several

transformations after Spaak's initial treatment. * First, because
as is the case with all Renoir's films, the director made allow
ances for improvjsatjon, but also because an unforeseen sjtuatjon
that developed at the begjnnjng of the shootjng in Alsace com
pletely altered the film: the producers had succeeded at the
last mjnute jn engagjng Erjch von Stroheim (banished from
Hollywood) for the role of Commandant von Rauffenstein.
Renojr had always proclaimed hjs admiratjon for thjs contro
versial djrector who had considerably influenced hjs own work,
and he could not resign hjmself to confjnjng von Stroheim's
prodjgjous talents to the modest role whjch the original scrjpt
provjded. Between von Strohejm and Renoir there developed
a produc6ve collabora6on from whjch emerged not only the ex
traordjnary fjnal portrajt of von Rauffenstein but also one of the
most beautHul aspects of the film: the additional elaboratjon on
the theme of arjstocracy made possjble through the jnterplay
between the French captain and the German commandant. Thjs
relationshjp allowed Renojr to develop the djalogue and the por
trayal of nobiEty far more subtly than the simple antithesis of
Marechal and de BOlcldjeu alone would have permjtted.
It would nevertheless be unjust to dismiss Charles Spaak's
contribution to Grand Illusion. He certajnly played a sjgnjficant
role jn its success, bejng responsjble above all for the dramatic
structure and the deEneatjon of character, quaEtjes which Re
nojr has not always been able to reconcne jn his other mms with
the ajms he regarded as more jmportant.
An early treatment of Grand Illusion, which preceded the casting of
Erich von Stroheim and Dita Parla, appears in Part II. FT.
62 .
.JEAN RENOIR
How has Grand Illusion held up over the years? It is not

enough to say that it has retained its power. Not only has the
stature of the film remained undiminished by the passage of
time (except in a few minor details), but the innovation. the
audacity. and, for vvant of a better word, the modernity of the
direction have acquired an even greater impact.
I am not sure that Grand Illusion is the most realistic of
Renoir's films, but certainly if the film's effectiveness has sur
vived undiluted. it is largely due to its realism. The most ob
vious of the many instances of Renoir's realistic treatment of his
material is the use of languages. In the aftermath of the Libera
tion, films like La Derniere Chance and Paisan happily swept
aside the old dramatic conventions which allowed protagonists
of almost any background to speak in the language of Shake
speare, Dante, or Moliere. But only for a while, alas' Now we see
films from supposedly realistic British film makers which por
tray the Resistance in a Paris where the concierges speak Eng
lish. Long before neorealism, Renoir based his film on the
authenticity of spoken language. (Pabst, it is true, had done this
in Kameradschaft [19311, but in a far less subtle manner.)
Here, the touch of genius which produces a delightful human
insight is the use of a third language. English. between von
Rauffenstein and de Boleldieu. No longer a national language.
it becomes a class language. that sets the two aristocrats apart
from plebeian society.
Another addition which greatly benefited both the scenario
and the mise en scene was the invention of RosenthaL who did
not exist in the original script. His character. which adds the
dimension of race to the theme of class. deepens the meaning of
the film in an important way and at the same time adds nuance
to what could have been an overly schematic treatment of the
Fresnay-Ga bin antithesis.
There is also a realism of human relations. or better stilL an
authenticity-although less perhaps in the relationships of the
principal protagonists, who, though vividly characterized and
never reduced to mere symbols, are inevitably determined by
the dramatic requirements of the scenario. than in the relation
THE WAR APPROACHES'
63
ships of the characters that Renoir was able to create between

the level of the protagonists and the level of the extras. The
German guards, simple soldiers, noncommissioned officers, and
officers are drawn with stunning verisimilitude. This realism is
not the result of simple copying from life; rather, it is the prod
uct of a careful re-creation of character through the use of detail
which is not only accurate but meaningful as welL and this is
accomplished without recourse to dramatic conventions. The
invention of a character like Monsieur Arthur, the guard, and of
his subtle complicity with the prisoners is a creation which ap
proaches the sublime. The bit in which Carette, in the midst
of his talent-show number, calls over the heads of the superior
officers in the crowd, "Get it, Arthur?'" is a brilliant moment of
pure cinema. And so are the brief scenes in which we see the
English officers; an entire civilization is evoked in a few seconds.
and yet the suggestive details are neither "typical" nor the
standard traits so often caricatured.
What we are considering here is a faculty for invention, not
simple documentary reproduction. The accuracy of detail in
Renoir's work is as much the result of imagination as of obser
vation. He does not indiscriminately record reality. Rather, he
singles out the telling-but not conventional-detail. The se
quence which best illustrates Renoir's use of detail is probably
the scene of the talent show. when the recapture of Douaumont
is announced. Given this brilliant idea. a clever director could
not fail to produce an exciting scene. But Renoir adds the little
touches to it which make the scene far more than just a standard
treatment; for example, the idea of having the "Marseillaise"
led, not by a Frenchman, but by an English officer dressed up
as a woman.
It is the multiplicity of "realistic inventions" which ac
counts for the substance of Grand Illusion and which explains
its undiminished impact years after it was made.
The realism is also enhanced by the photography, or more
precisely, by the way scenes have been broken down into shots.
Certainly the verisimilitude of Grand Illusion owes much to
Renoir's decision to shoot all the exteriors (and even some of the
64 .
JEAN RENOIR
interiors) on location. UnahIe to shoot in Germany, he chose

Alsace, as close as possihle to the horder. Ahove all-even
though Renoir has pushed this technique even further in other
films-one notices the constant concern not to allow the photog
raphy or the editing to hreak up the dramatic focus of a scene.
This concern is implemented in several ways. Depth of field
is one. of course, but even more important is Renoir's use of
camera movement to avoid excessive cutting. By moving the
camera to "reframe" the scene instead of cutting. Renoir is able
to treat the sequence not as a series of fragments hut as a dra
matic whole. For example: For certain interior scenes which
could have heen shot in the studio, Renoir had movable partial
sets constructed in the courtyard of the actual harracks used on
location. This permitted him to have his actors "inside" and at
the same time show the bustle of the camp through the window
(e.g., the scene of the young recruits exercising). It is through
such techniques that Renoir attempts to portray realistically the
relations hetween men and the world in which they find them
selves.
'Without attaching undue importance to it, we might in
quire into the film's title. Grand Illusion. The phrase was ex
plained in the ending of the original version of the scenario. The
two fugitives had set a rendezvous at l\1axim's for the first
Christmas Eve after the end of the war, but on Decemher 24,
1918, their tahle, reserved so long in advance, remains empty.
For this pessimistic comment on the grand illusion of friendship,
Renoir substituted a far more optimistic message. Of course, the
theme of illusion is also scattered throughout the film (the illu
sion of sexuality fostered by the soldiers in women's costumes,
the illusion of love in Marechal's improhable and prohably
ill-fated romance with the farm woman, the illusion of liberty
hehind every attempt to escape. the illusion of approaching
peace). But the illusions are more heneficial than harmful: they
help the men to overcome their trials and give them the courage
to persevere.
But it is necessary to carry the idea even further and give
to the word "illusion" a resolutely positive, even militant. sig
THE WAR APPROACHES'
65
nificance. Grand illusions are doubtless the dreams which help

men to live, such as a simple obsession with pyrography or
translating Pindar, but more than this, the grand illusions are
the illusion of hatred, which arbitrarily divides men who in
reality are not separated by anything; the illusion of boundaries,
with the wars which result from them; the illusion of races, of
social classes. The message of the film is thus a demonstration
a contrario of the fraternity and equality of men. The war, the
product of hatred and division, paradoxically reveals the false
ness of all the barriers of prejudice separating man from man.
If, however, these boundaries can be attacked, it is be
cause they do indeed exist. Here another theme dear to Renoir
emerges, one he has often mentioned in his interviews. It is that
men are less separated by the vertical barriers of nationalism
than by the horizontal cleavages of culture, race, class, profes
sion, etc.
Grand Illusion does pay homage to one such division, the
one between the nobility and the common people. In all his
work Renoir constantly expresses his respect for the nobility.
but for the true nobility, titled or not; for the aristocracy of the
heart, or of sensibility, and above all of art or simply mdtier,
which makes equals of de BOleldieu and Marechal. Unlike von
Rauffenstein, de BOleldieu recognizes and admits this. He also
understands that the outward signs of his aristocracy are now
anachronistic and doomed. Thus his supreme affirmation of his
nobility is to sacrifice himself for Marechal.
For this episode and others, Grand Illusion can be consid
ered a political film (in 1937 Renoir did not hide his sympa
thies for the Popular Front; he was soon to make La Marseillaise
for the Confederation Generale de Travail"). But one must ad
mire how little this "political" film appears to be partisan. The
genius of Renoir lies in the way he gets his point across without
ever seeming biased. Even when defending a particular moral
or social truth, he always does justice to the men who oppose
this truth and to their ideals as well. He gives every chance to
ideas, and every chance to individuals. This artistically fruitful
* Thl' principal French labor organization. Trans.
66 .
JEAN RENOIR
approach is particularly apparent in La Marseillaise in the man

ner 'in which he presents the emigres and the court of Versailles.
I,a illarseillaise (1937)

MANUSCRIPT NOTES
First of all, note the contrast of tone and acting be

tween the court and the people. The common people
speak loudly and with spontaneity. On the other hand, at
the court, voices are never raised; the most serious and
the most trivial statements are offered in measured, al
most whispered tones.
The film starts at Marseille, where we see the for
mation of a battalion of 500 volunteers. They leave on
July 2, 1792, and march to Paris, where they arrive on
the 30th, the day before the publication of the Bruns
wick Manifesto. The film ends a little after August 10,
just before the battle of Valmy.
The aristocrats are marvelously individualized.
Under their aristocratic comportment. Renoir gives each
a character, a precise and subtle style, which immedi
ately attracts us to them. The most developed from this
point of view is, of course, Louis XVI (Pierre Renoir).
The primary goal of the film, the one which determines
its entire style, is to go beyond the historical images to
uncover the mundane, human reality.
Historical reality first (the profusion of concrete
details, the accurate reconstruction of daily life, particu
larly the culinary aspects), but above all, reality of
characterizatiol1.
Renoir puts the heroic acts in concrete perspective,
in psychological relief. He demythologizes history by re
storing it to man. Not to bring history down to the level
of trivia, but simply to bring it to the level of indi
viduals. This effort had already been foreshadowed by
Le Tournai.
THE WAR APPROACHES'
67
In this light, take note of the long march of the

troops to Paris, punctuated by excellent dialogues on the
subject of feet, the different ways of protecting and
taking care of them. The first time he hears the "1\1ar
seillaise," one of the representatives of the common
people does not hold back his criticisms: "There is some
thing wild alld bombastic about this song which I do not
like at all."
All admirable touch: as he reviews the troops in the
Tuileries, Louis XVI is hindered by the fact that his
wig is askew.
The Human Beast
(193t))
MANUSCRIPT NOTES
Zola's 1I0vel is not without faults. * For one thing,

the writing is grossly uneven. Beside some marvelously
crafted scenes-the opening, for example-one finds
pages of sloppy or conventional writing. The construction
of the plot seems arbitrary, since it is rarely determined
by the psychology of the characters (or by anything
else). The events seem to be ordered by some a priori pos
tulates of the author, or merely by whimsy. We sense that
he set out to describe a single situation in a particular
milieu. Ironically, it is the novel rather than the film
which seems to rely on "stock scenes" as in the Ameri
can spectaculars. Here the novelistic rhetoric serves the
same function as cinematographic effects: for example,
the derailing of the train, described hastily and without
can viction and with tremendous improbabilities (the
survival of Lantier and Pecqueux). The ending (the
train speeding out of control) is also a piece of rhetoric.
The reader may have noticed that several of the manuscript notes con
cern the adaptation of the film from the original literary sources. They
were written after a systematic reading of all the novels on which Renoir
drew for his films. F.T.
Simone Simon and Fernalld Ledoux: in The Human Beast
Jean Gabin and Blanchette Brunoy in The Human Beast
THE WAR APPROACHES'
69
It is an example of Zola's "cinematic" vision which

Renoir did not film.
As for the writing, the best examples of laxity occur
in the metaphors and the images relating to the locomo
tive, La Lison and to Flore (the virgin warrior, the
Amazon, etc.).
Another improbability of the story: it includes no
less than six murderers, potential or actual, nearly
everyone in the book. Lantier, Roubaud, Severine (when
she wants to do away with her husband), Misard, Flore,
and even, at the end, Pecqueux. This accumulation of
criminals would seem improbable even in a detective
story.
Again note the weakness or the cursory nature of
the psychology, with the possible exception of Severine.
The only consistent characters are social stereotypes
(PhilomEme, the lleighbors) . .J acques Lantier is certainly
not the strongest character. He is rather crudely dis
cussed by the mall from the cavprns, but besides that, is
given almost no psychology at all (notice his indiffer
ence after the murder of Severine) .
On the whole, we can say that Renoir has in almost
every way improved on the book. The sense of milieu
in the film is not inferior to that of the book, and the ex
planation of thp characters is much bptter. Renoir founds
this explanation not on psychology but on a metaphysics
of actors. What we see on the screen is not the mur
derous anger of Lantier, but that of Jean Gabin. Even
when the actor docs not correspond physically or mor
ally to the character ill the book, the "error" of casting
offers more advantages than disadvantages, because the
presence of the actor, his powers of suggestion, arp
clearly superior to what is in the book (Roubaud, played
by Fernand Ledoux; Pecqueux, played by Carette; and
even Flore, played by Blanchette Brunoy).
Note the intelligence of the changes. The scene of
the railroad workers' hall, which Renoir added, is a
piece of social observation completely in the spirit of
Zola and certainly not inferior to what the novelist
would have done with it.
70
JEAN RENOIR
On the whole, Renoir judiciously simplified and

dramatized the story to suit the demands of the cinema,
and the result is better than the novel. You could almost
say that the only lapses in the scenario are the remnants
of the novel: the role of Flore, the role of Severine's
lover, that of Cabuche, which Renoir plays himself, as if
he gave himself the part as a trial run for his role as
Octave in The Rules of the Game.
Finally, note the use in several scenes of dialogue
taken directly from the book. The effect is one of a
slightly literary affectation, which is not at all un
enjoyable.
T he Rules of the Game
(t 939)
I am convinced that the importance of Jean Renoir will

continue to grow. His films of the prewar years alone are of such
importance that when looking at them it is difficult to realize
that they are the work of a creator who is still in his prime and
who continues to produce films of stupefying beauty, original
ity, and youth.
From Nana to French CanCan, from La Chienne to The
Golden Coach, from The Crime of M. Lange to The River, from
This text is a transcription of an introduction to a showing of part of
The Rules of the Game, probably to the members of a film society. We
have not been able to discover either the date or the place of this talk, but
we publish the text because we are certain that Bazin revised it in 1957
after the release of Paris Does Strange Things. Curiously, it is to our
knowledge the only text Bazin wrote on The Rules of the Game, which
was his favorite among Renoir's films. I think that Bazin was waiting to
see the definitive version of the film which Jean Gaborit and Jacques
Marechal had started to put together. Here is an extract from a letter
Bazin wrote me in July 1958: "What you tell me about the work on The
Rules of the Game is extraordinary; I am very anxious. Could I see it in
August?" Bazin died on November 11, 1958, without having seen the defin
itive version, which was finished the following year and presented at
the 1959 Venice Film Festival. The reader will notice that Bazin rarely
speaks of a Renoir film without comparing it to The Rules of the Game,
which is thus indirectly discussed throughout the book. F.T.
Marcel Dalia and Jean Renoir in The Rules of the Game
Grand Illusion to The Southerner, from Diary of a Chamber

maid to Paris Does Strange Things, Jean Renoir has not ceased
to struggle and to renew himself.
Some great directors have failed because they did not know
how to transcend their own success. They become prisoners of the
conventions of their first successful films, not realizing that they
owe this success not just to a certain cinematic form but to an
elusive affinity of subject, style, and the particular expectations
of an era. Once this mysterious harmony disappears, the artist
whose inspiration does not renew itself finds himself groping
desperately. This misfortune could never befall Jean Renoir,
whose sensitivity to human nature has enabled him to adapt to
72 JEAN RENOIR
the changing concerns of our history, as well as to the differences

of various cultures. Some were willing to write off Renoir in
1940 when he abandoned the gloomy skies of the Ile de France
for the bright sun of California, red wine and Camembert for
American cuisine. But this was to misunderstand the man and
the nature of his talent. In fact, for a man like Renoir, such an
emigration could only be an opportunity to broaden his human
perspectives, to adapt his sensibility to the upheavals of the
contemporary world. On the subject of The River, which takes
place entirely in India, Renoir has written:
"I felt a growing desire to reach out and touch my fellow
creatures throughout the world. Perhaps evil forces dominate
the course of events, but I sense in the hearts of men, if not a
sense of fraternity, then at least one of inquiry. This curiosity is
still on the surface, but it is better than nothing."
He says further: "There are creators who sense things in
advance and those who understand things only retrospectively.
Those who seem to march at the same pace as the great mass of
men are obviously the most successful. But the really great ones
think ahead, which is not to say that they are always right com
mercially."
Renoir is too ingenuous to mean to praise himself by this
observation, but he is aware of being one of those who, with skill
and felicity, have sought to show their contemporaries what the
cinema can teach them about themselves, their era, and their
problems.
Comparing his feelings during the war, when he was far
from France in a time of violence, to the confidence and inspira
tion which had informed his work when making The Rules of
the Game in 1938, Renoir said:
"When I made The Rules of the Game I knew where I was
going. I knew the evil that gnawed at my contemporaries. My
instinct guided me, my awareness of the imminent danger led
me to the situations and the dialogue. And my friends were like
me. How worried we were' I think the film is a good one. But it
is not so difficult to work well when the compass of anxiety
points in the true direction."
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THE WAR APPROACHES'
73
Alas, we know which direction this was. The Munich Pact

had just been signed. Georges Sadoul has said quite rightly that
The Rules of the Game is for the prewar era what The Marriage
of Figaro vvas for the Revolution of 1789: the portrayal of a re
fined, oblivious. and decadent civilization. Renoir was in fact
inspired by Beaumarchais. taking as the epigraph of the film a
couplet from Cherubin. as well as by de Musset's Les Caprices
de Marianne, from which he took the basic dramatic situation
of Thr Rules of the Game.
Neither the public nor the majority of the critics in 1939
could recognize in The Rules of the Game the fullest. most lucid
expression of a moribund age. But this was certainly not the prin
cipal cause for the commercial failure of the film. As a conven
tional love story. the film could have been a success if the sce
nario had respected the rules of the movie game. But Renoir
wanted to make his own style of drame gai. and the mixture of
genres proved disconcerting to the public. Perhaps audiences
were also put off by the stunningly mobile mise en scene and the
subtle irony of the compositions and the camera movements.
The photographic style which prefigured the famous depth of
field. now returned from America via Citizen Kane and The Best
Years of Gur Lives. appeared at the time a droll but dubious
curiosity.
Today The Rules of the Game is a classic of the film socie
ties. It is admired not only as the most advanced expression of
prewar French realism but also for its prefiguration of the most
original clements of the cinematographic evolution of the next
fifteen years. This legacy has yet to be exhausted.
CHAPTER
FIVE
THE FRENCH RENOIR
The most immediately noticeable paradox in Renoir's style, and

the one which almost always trips up the public, is his apparent
casualness toward the very elements of the cinema which the
public takes most seriously: the scenario and the action. Slip-ups
in detail and even casting "errors" abound in the films of the
renowned "realist."
It will be argued that, on the contrary, Sylvia Bataille and
Jeanne Marken in A Day in the Country, Pierre Fresnay and
Erich von Stroheim in Grand Illusion, and Jean Gabin and
Simone Simon in The Human Beast are perfect examples of
actors made for their roles. This is true enough. It is certainly
not the case, howevec for Jacques Brunius and Renoir himself
in A Day in the Country. None of the major actors in The Rules
of the Game is in his element (with the exception of Gaston
Modot and Paulette Dubost). And who would claim that the
cast of The Lower Depths stepped from the Gorki play? Gabin
as a hero in a Russian novel is a long shot at best; and it would
be difficult to conceive of a more spectacular bit of miscasting
than Valentine Tessier in IHadame Bovary. She is appropriate as
the Emma at the end of the film, but her obvious maturity
makes it difficult to believe in her virginity earlier and certainly
impossible to accept her as the extremely young Emma at the
THE FRENCH RENOIR
I
"
75
beginning of the story. In the film she is not made to age physi
cally in the slightest.
One could go on forever citing similar examples, for Renoir
seems to take pleasure in making unlikely choices in about
three-quarters of his casting. Rather than give up an actor who
appeals to him in spite of what the script calls for, Renoir seems
to be able to modify the scenario in order to justify his choice.
Even more than the casting "errors," Renoir's direction of
his actors gives the impression of an almost annoying noncha
lance. The casting is tangential to the roles, but more than that,
the style of acting seems to be irrelevant to the dialogue and the
dramatic situation. Given a certain scene to film, Renoir fre
quently seems to treat it as nothing more than a pretext for a
completely new and original creation. The party in The Rules
of the Game is a perfect example. In Tire au Flanc (a very re
vealing little sketch), Renoir's indifference toward the scenario
is apparent throughout. Each scene uses the Mouzy-Eon story
merely as a take-off point, rapidly developing into a sort of com
media dell' arte, a phenomenon reminiscent of the way Chaplin
passes imperceptibly from the simple repetition of a gesture to
its pure choreography.
Renoir showed a similar disregard for the script in shooting
Boudu's first suicide attempt from the Pont des Arts. Rather than
hire extras he simply filmed the group of curious observers at
tracted by the moviemakers. To understand why this approach
is so appropriate for the scene, one must realize that the over
riding purpose of the scene is to make fun of the world. With
that aim in mind, there would be no other way to film it. As a
final example of Renoir's cavalier approach to filming, remem
ber that The Lower Depths was shot along the banks of the
Marne, with the false beards and wigs of the Parisian muzhiks
not even properly attached, at least figuratively speaking.
In short, Renoir directs his actors as if he liked them more
than the scenes they are acting and preferred the scenes which
they interpret to the scenario from which they come. This ap
proach accounts for the disparity between his dramatic goals
THE FRENCH RENOIR
77
and the style of acting, which tends to turn our attention from
these aims. This style is added to the script like rich paint liber
ally applied to a line drawing: often the colors obscure and spill
over the lines. This approach also explains the effort required
to truly enjoy half the scenes Renoir directs. Whereas most di
rectors try to convince the viewer immediately of the objective
and psychological reality of the action and subordinate both act
ing and directing to this end, Renoir seems to lose sight of the
audience from time to time. His players do not face the camera
but each other, as if acting for their personal pleasure. One
senses that they become their own private audience, enjoying
little inside jokes among themselves. This impression is strong
in A Day in the Country (Brunius's dance) as well as in The
Rules of the Game, and in The Crime of M. Lange, where Mar
cel Duhamel and Paul Grimault act like a couple of conniving
friends slipped into the real cast.
A glance at the credits of Renoir's films is sufficient to indi
cate how little regard he had for union codes or specialized labor.
Pierre Lestringuez, a scenarist for Nana and Marquitta, is an
actor in two other films. Andre Cerf was both assistant and actor
in Le Petit Chaperon Rouge, along with Pierre Prevert. And
Renoir himself was not hesitant about appearing in his own
films.
The party at the chateau in The Rules of the Game, an elab
orate game organized for the pleasure of the people making the
film, is symbolic of all of Renoir's French work. What is more,
this aspect of Renoir's films is almost certainly one of the major
reasons for their commercial failure. To appreciate a Renoir film,
one has to be "in," one has to catch the winks exchanged be
tween actors and the knowing glances tossed over the camera.
And the spectator who does not pick up the invitation to play
the game necessarily feels a bit left out. It is not surprising to
note that Renoir's most commercially successful films are the
ones where this sort of internal play is the least marked, the
films which direct themselves most openly to the public: The
Human Beast and Grand Illusion. The presence of major stars
in these films was a further guarantee against incongruities in
Catherine Hessling and Pierre Lestringuez in Nana
78
JEAN RENOIR
the casting, ruling out any possibility of the kind of inside jokes
so dear to the less-known actors. At the other end of the scale lies
the classic example of a film which demands considerable par
ticipation from its viewers: The Rules of the Game. The title
itself is indicative of the nature of the film.
These remarks could be taken as reservations in my assess
ment of Renoir. Movies, after all, are not made for the people
who produce them. But we should not push this line of reasoning
too far, for it might lead us to consider Renoir's work as nothing
more than a sort of modern-day theatre de salon, a minor form
dedicated to a limited audience. And to accept this judgment is
to deny both Renoir's "realism" and the most striking elements
in his work: the power, the fullness, the variety, and the creativ
ity, to say nothing of the international influence of his long
career. These are qualities hard to reconcile with a desire sim
ply to entertain one's friends.
My point is that Renoir's tendency to hesitate between the
scene in the script and the one he ends up making is only a dia
lectical moment of his realism. The party at the chateau is a
game, but it is nevertheless a game whose absurd rule is to die
of love. Roland Toutain, struck full force by a shotgun blast,
rolls to the ground much like the rabbit we have just seen writh
ing in agony in front of the society folk, who like to kill in com
fort from their hunting blinds. If Renoir is enjoying himself, if
he entertains us by pushing his actors to the limits of parody,
if he seems to linger over apparently incidental attractions, it is
only the better to impress us with a sudden revelation of truth
when we are no longer expecting it.
One of the most beautiful sequences in all of cinema is the
moment in A Day in the Country when Sylvia Bataille is about
to accept the advances of Georges Darnoux. The scene opens in
a light, comic vein which one would logically expect to turn
bawdy. We are ready to laugh, when suddenly the laugh catches
in our throat. With Sylvia Bataille's incredible glance, the world
begins to spin and love bursts forth like a long-stifled cry. No
sooner is the smile wiped from our faces than tears appear in
our eyes. I can think of no other director, except perhaps Chap
Georges Darnoux and Sylvia Bataille in A Day in the Country

lin, who is capable of evoking such a wrenching bit of truth
from a face, from an expression. Think of the look on Nadia
Sibirskala's face when Rene Lefevre makes awkward advances
to her on the bench in The Crime of M. Lange or the ridiculous
grin that spreads across Dalio's face when he shows off his cal
liope to the guests in The Rules of the Game.
Renoir's sense and taste for comedy is deeply rooted in his
awareness of human tragedy. The temptation to parody, the
tendency to enter into a sort of game with his actors, is only a
preliminary modesty or hesitation necessary to the dialectic of
game and rules, of pleasure and love, and love and death. I men
tioned earlier that the acting in Renoir's films is frequently in
80 .
II
1
JEAN RENOIR
appropriate for a certain scene, much like a color not quite right
for a given drawing. But this apparent incongruity only serves
to set off the dazzling moment which will reveal how right
Renoir has been all along. We say to ourselves that the actor is
definitely not the character up until the instant when all falls
into place and he becomes the perfect incarnation of that char
acter. In this way Renoir moves from an original discordance to
an incomparable human harmony. The need which brings the
actor and the character together lies deeper than superficial
appearances. The truth which illuminates the faces of Renoir's
actors, is testament to a veritable revelation.
The cinema as a whole still suffers from the mentality of
the kind of people who like slick color prints. It confuses the
beauty of the model with that of the painting, whereas the
painter's aim is not to depict a particular woman but to reveal
a universal beauty. Renoir does not choose his actors, as in the
theater, because they fit into a predetermined role, but like the
painter, because of what he can force us to see in them. That is
why the most spectacular bits of acting in his films are almost
indecently beautiful. They leave us with only the memory of
their brilliance, of a flash of revelation so dazzling that it almost
forces us to turn our eyes away. At moments like these the actor
is pushed beyond himself, caught totally open and naked in a
situation which no longer has anything to do with dramatic
expression, in that most revealing light which the cinema can
cast on the human figure more brilliantly than any other art
except painting.
Parenthetically. one can see by what I have just said how
much Renoir owes to the crucial influence of von Stroheim. But
if Stroheim came eventually to a sort of obscenity in acting. it
was by a different route. While Renoir pretends to play with his
actors so as to catch them unawares, Stroheim proceeds with an
unrelenting insistence and obsessive patience which pushes act
ing to its limits. * Stroheim's influence is nonetheless curiously
Bazin wrote elsewhere that "It is certainly von Stroheim who is the
most firmly opposed to both pictorial expressionism and the artifices of
montage. In his work [pality yields its meaning like <l suspect under the
THE FRENCH RENOIR
81
apparent in Renoir's last silent films and as late as La Chienne

( 1931). It is perhaps most striking, because unexpected, in Tire
au Flane (1929), which includes a fabulous bit of pure Stro
heim: the scene of the lieutenant picking a rose for the prisoner's
wife, while the prisoner tries to observe the painful scene
through his small barred window.
It is of course only a critical ploy which allows us to dis

tinguish the direction of the actor from the interpretation of the
scenario. The elements of eommedia dell'arte which creep into
the acting or the discrepancy between a given role and the way
it is acted are examples of the liberties Renoir takes with a story.
They are probably also reasons for the misunderstanding be
tween Renoir and his public. The spectator wants to believe in
the story that the actor brings to life. Psychological or physical
verisimilitude is less important for him than respect for a cer
tain dramatic logic, for a formal verisimilitude based on the
conventions of storytelling. But it is precisely this sort of formal
logic of which Renoir is incapable. What counts for him is not
verisimilitude but accuracy of detail, and to achieve this he fre
quently takes dramatic shortcuts. Thus at the beginning of The
Human Beast the pretext of the fat industrialist's little dog is
rather unbelievable, all the more so since it is presented in a
comic interlude. What Renoir needed was a justification for
Ledoux's approach to his wife's godfather, and he seized upon
the first excuse that came along. Even at that he could have
made an effort to make us believe in the incident. but the little
track-side episode amused him and he did not care that it re
vealed in his hero a courage and sympathy that would be belied
by the following sequence.
Furthermore. we know how Renoir works, how important
improvisation is to his technique. We know how he rewrites and
relentless grilling of a police inspector. The principle of his mise en scene
is simple: Look at the world close enough and insistently enough until it
eventually reveals its cruelty and ugliness. Theoretically one could
imagiw' a von Strolll'im film composed of a singl(' shot as long and as close
as you like." Andre Bazin, Qu'est-ce que Ie cinhna?, Vol. I, p. qt). Trans.
82
JEAN RENOIR
polishes scenarios in advance only to modify them a final time

on the set. These are hardly methods conducive to the develop
ment of dramatic logic and verisimilitude. But they are fertile
indeed in the hands of a Renoir, who can infuse them with pure
cinematic inspiration.
Renoir brings to the screen not a story but themes, for
which the scenario is ultimately nothing more than a physical
support, like props for a set. His themes are visual and plastic:
the theme of water, for example, which we find throughout his
work, from La FiUe de l'Eau to The River, the Marne of Boudu
and A Day in the Country, the swamp of Sologne in The Rules
of the Game, the Louisiana bayous of Swamp TVater, the flood in
The Southerner. Or they are dramatic and moral themes, such
as the theme of the hunt in The Rules of the Game, or the meta
phor of man and machine, which is the organizing principle in
The Human Beast. This latter is by no means an abstract meta
phor. It is earthy and physical, as in the scene where Jean
Gabin, attentive and friendly but sensual as well, caresses his
locomotive, La Lison. If we interpret the film as nothing more
than a love story played against the realistic backdrop of the
railroad, and poorly played and put together at that, we have
not understood it at all.
By the same token, to grasp the subtle organization of The
Rules of the Game we have to go from the general to the specific,
from the action to the plot and from the plot to the scene. To
grasp the scheme of the film, we must see the music boxes, the
bearskin which gives Octave so much trouble, the agony of the
little rabbit, and the game of hide-and-seek in the corridors of
the chateau as the essential realities of the film from which un
roll the dramatic spirals of each particular scene. This accounts
for the integrity and independence of each scene relative to the
scenario as a whole. But it also explains the unique quality and
orientation of these scenes, which develop cinematically in con
centric layers, much like the grain of sand within an oyster
gradually growing into a pearl.
It is precisely this treatment that makes The Rules of the
Game Renoir's masterpiece, for in it he has succeeded in dis
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THE FRENCH RENOIR
83
pensing entirely with dramatic structures. The film is nothing

more than a tangle of reminders, allusions, and correspondences,
a carrousel of themes where reality and the moral plane re
flect one another without disrupting the movie's meaning and
rhythm, its tonality and melody. At the same time, it is a bril
liantly constructed film in which no scene is unnecessary, no
shot out of place. The Rules of the Game is a work which should
be seen again and again. As it is necessary to hear a symphony
more than once to understand it or to meditate before a great
painting in order to appreciate its inner harmonies, so it is with
Renoir's great film.
The fact that The Rules of the Game was so long misunder
stood is not simply the result of its originality and the public's
psychological inertia, but also because it is a work that reveals
itself only gradually to the spectator, even if he is attentive.
Citizen Kane is a similar film in this regard. In retrospect it is
surprising how obscure the Orson Welles film seemed when it
first appeared, and hard to believe that nine out of ten critics
found it impossible to recount the plot correctly. If there is any
film which seems to us today to be simple (though ambiguous,
it is certainly not obscure) and perfectly constructed, it is Citizen
Kane.
From a dramatic point of view, the death of Toutain, run
ning toward the greenhouse in The Rules of the Game, is a co
incidence difficult to accept. The mistaken identity is too easy.
If we accept this kind of turn of events anything could happen
to anyone. But Renoir makes the whole sequence indispensable
to his movie, and marvelously apt, through the metaphor of the
hunt, which implicitly alludes to the case of mistaken identity
in The Marriage of Figaro and reminds one of the tragic ending
of Alfred de Musset's Les Caprices de Marianne. It is the
glimpse of a rabbit rolling over dead and the memory of Beau
marchais and de Musset which elevate the hero's death and
make an apparent coincidence into an aesthetic necessity.
In other words, Renoir does not construct his films around
situations and dramatic developments, but around beings, things.
and fact. This assertion, which explains his method of handling
84
JEAN RENOIR
actors and adapting the scenario, also gives us the key to under
standing his method of filming. Just as the actor does not "play"
a scene which itself will be just another episode in the scenario
as a whole, so the camera does not simply record the dramatic
relationships and underline the main lines of the plot; on the
contrary, it focuses on whatever is original and irreplaceable in
the scene.
In this way Renoir reminds us that he is his father's son.
It would be a mistake to look for the heritage of Auguste Renoir
in the formal, plastic elements of his son's movies. For it is pre
cisely here that painting had its worst influence on the cinematic
image. And the stunning pictorial quality of Jean Renoir's work
is by no means the result of his photographic composition, but
of the originality of his vision and the ideas behind his images.
What is more, if A Day in the Country plays at evoking the sub
ject matter and the lighting of the Impressionists, it is out of an
exceptional coquetry which only proves the rule. Renoir is play
ing at being his father, just as he plays at being Beaumarchais
and de Musset in The Rules of the Game. It is a discreet and
playful homage, which is significant not simply as a conscious
imitation but as witness to the sensitivity and love which the
films of Jean and the paintings of Auguste have in common.
Jean made the ideal movies which Auguste himself would have
made if he had abandoned his brushes for the camera.
Jean Renoir's pictorial sense is expressed above all in the
attention he pays to the importance of individual things in rela
tion to one another. He does not sacrifice the tree to the forest.
Herein lies his true cinematic realism, rather than in his pen
chant for naturalistic subjects.
To define a film style, it is always necessary to come back
to the dialectic between reality and abstraction, between the
concrete and the ideal. In the final analysis, the principle of a
director's style lies in his way of giving reality meaning. It
should be kept in mind that the art of the film. so often consid
ered the most concrete of all, is also the most easily abstracted.
Look carefully at bad films and you will see that they are com
posed of nothing but symbolism and signs, of conventions, of
THE FRENCH RENOIR
85
dramatic. moral. and emotional hieroglyphs. It is this fact which

lends a certain validity to the common sense critical standard
which considers "realism" as a criterion of quality. The word
"realism" as it is commonlv used does not have an a bsolute and
clear meaning. so much as it indicates a certain tendency toward
the faithful rendering of reality on film. Given the fact that this
movement toward the real can take a thousand different routes.
the apologia for "realism" per se, strictly speaking. means noth
ing at all. The movement is valuable only insofar as it brings
increased meaning (itself an abstraction) to what is created.
Good cinema is necessarily. in one way or another. more realistic
than bad cinema. But simply being realistic is not enough to
make a film good. There is no point in rendering something
realistically unless it is to make it more meaningful in an a b
stract sense. In this paradox lies the progress of the movies. In
this paradox too lies the genius of Renoir. without doubt the
greatest of all French directors.
Renoir the moralist is also the most "realistic" of film
makers. sacrificing reality as little as possible to the thrust of his
message. The last scenes from Boudu could serve as the epigraph
to all of Renoir's French work. Boudu. newly wed. throws him
self into the water. Dramatic or psychological logic would de
mand that such an act have a precise meaning. Is it despair.
suicide? Probably not. but it is at least an attempt at escape.
Boudu is fleeing the chains of a bourgeois marriage. This in
terpretation. although more ambiguous. would still lend a cer
tain meaning to the shot. Boudu's fall would remain an act. But
Renoir. like his character. quickly forgets the act in favor of the
fact, and the true object of the scene ceases gradually to be
Boudu's intentions and becomes rather the spectacle of his pleas
ure and, by extension. the enjoyment that Renoir derives from
the antics of his hero. The water is no longer "water" but more
specifically the water of the Marne in August. yellow and glau
cous. Michel Simon floats on it, turns over. sprays like a seal;
and as he plays we begin to perceive the depth. the quality. even
the tepid warmth of that water. When he comes up on the bank.
an extraordinary slow 36o-degree pan shows us the countryside
86 .
JEAN RENOIR
he sees before him. But this effect, by nature banally descriptive,

which could indicate space and liberty regained, is of unequaled
poetry precisely because what moves us is not the fact that this
countryside is once again Boudll's domain, but that the banks of
the Marne, in all the richness of their detail. are intrinsically
beautiful. At the end of the pan, the camera picks up a bit of
grass where, in close-up, one can see distinctly the white dust
that the heat and the wind have lifted from the path. One can
almost feel it between one's fingers. Boudu is going to stir it up
with his foot. If I were deprived of the pleasure of seeing Boudu
again for the rest of my days, I would never forget that grass,
that dust, and their relationship to the liberty of a tramp.
This has been a rather long and lyrical treatment of a scene
in which nothing happens. I could choose many others, each of
which would bring out Renoir's feeling for the appearances of
things, or at least the important role that these appearances play
in his art.
A particular predilection for water is easily discernihle in
his work. I have just cited one example. Water evokes a theme
of mise en sc(;ne which has become a screen classic: the boat
scene which poses all sorts of complicated technical problems,
such as the changing of camera angle, the dolly out and the
other movements of the camera, and the sound recording. Often
directors content themselves with a series of general exterior
shots intercut with close-ups shot in the studio against back
grounds simulated by the transparencies. This technique would
be unthinkable for Renoir, for it necessarily dissociates the ac
tors from their surroundings and implies that their acting and
their dialogue are more important than the reflection of the
water on their faces, the wind in their hair, or the movement of
a distant branch. All of Renoir's boating scenes are shot entirely
on location, even if he has to sacrifice the shooting script to do
so, and their quality is a direct result of this technique. A thou
sand examples could illustrate this marvelous sensitivity to the
physical, tactile reality of an object and its milieu; Renoir's
films arc made from the surfaces of the objects photographed,
and his direction is frequently but a caress, a loving glance at
THE FRENCH RENOIR
87
these surfaces. His editing docs not proceed from the usual dis
section of the space and duration of the scene according to a
preestablished dramatic formula. Rather, it follows the dictates
of his roving eye, discerning, even if occasionally distracted or
willfully lazy.
Throughout the entire last part of The Rules of the Game
the camera acts like an invisible guest wandering about the
salon and the corridors with a certain curiosity, but without any
more advantage than its invisibility. The camera is not notice
ably any more mobile than a man would be (if one grants that
people run about quite a bit in this chateau). And the camera
even gets trapped in a corner, where it is forced to watch the
action from a fixed position, unable to move without revealing
its presence and inhibiting the protagonists. This sort of personi
fication of the camera accounts for the extraordinary quality of
this long sequence. It is not striking because of the script or the
acting, but as a result of Renoir's half amused, half anxious way
of observing the action.
No one has grasped the true nature of the screen better than
Renoir; no one has more successfully rid it of the equivocal
analogies with painting and the theater. Plastically the screen
is most often made to conform to the limits of a canvas, and dra
matically it is modeled after the stage. With these two tradi
tional references in mind, directors tend to conceive their images
as boxed within a rectangle as do the painter and the stage
director. Renoir. on the other hand, understands that the screen
is not a simple rectangle but rather the homothetic surface of
the viewfinder of his camera. It is the very opposite of a frame.
The screen is a mask whose function is no less to hide reality
than it is to reveal it. The significance of what the camera dis
closes is relative to what it leaves hidden. But this invisible wit
ness is inevitably made to wear blinders; its ideal ubiquity is
restrained by framing. just as tyranny is often restrained by
assassination.
Another scene which I would like to use as an epigraph is
the shot from The Rules of the Game after the chase by the pond.
where Nora Gregor, fooling about with a little spyglass. happens
88 .
JEAN RENOIR
to spot her husband kissing his mistress. Just as it was chance

that brought the husband into her field of vision, so it is chance
that determines to a certain degree what part of a scene the lens
will uncover. And, paradoxically, it is this chance which makes
the perspicacity and the vigilance of the eye so important. The
point of view of the camera is not that of the novelist's omnis
cient third-person narrator; nor is it a stupid, unthinking sub
jectivity. Rather it is a way of seeing which, while free of all
contingency, is at the same time limited by the concrete quali
ties of vision: its continuity in time and its vanishing point in
space. It is like the eye of God, in the proper sense of the word,
if God could be satisfied with a single eye. Thus when M. Lange
decides to kill, the camera stays in the courtyard with Jules
Berry, watching through the windows of the stairway as Rene
Lefevre descends from one floor to the next, faster and faster, as
if pulled along by his resolution. He emerges suddenly onto the
stoop. At this point the camera is between the two protagonists.
with its back to Berry. Instead of panning to the right to follow
Lange, it swings deliberately 180 degrees to the left, sweeping
the empty set to center once again on Berry, placing us at the
side of the victim just as Lefevre comes back into our field of
vision from the left. * The intelligence of this bit of camera work
is all the more admirable for the fact that it is doubly audacious,
doubly effective. On the one hand, the whole scene rests on a
continuity of point of view expressed by a camera precisely lo
cated in the center of the action. On the other hand, the personi
fied camera takes it upon itself to turn its back on the action
in order to take a little shortcut. Only in the work of F. W.
Murnau can one find similar examples of a camera movement
* A look at what would have been the traditional handling of this scene
will make clear exactly what I mean. Two approaches seem likely: (1) A
continuous shot, a pan or dolly shot following Rene Lefevre across the
courtyard to the right, from the stoop to the fountain where Berry is
standing. (2) Better, a discontinuous, edited sequence. Rene Lefevre
emerges from the stairway and heads toward the camera. Cut to Jules
Berry behind the camera. Lefevre re-enters the camera's field of vision.
"In both cases the approach would be purely descriptive, directly de
termined by the action and the position of the actors.
THE FRENCH RENOIR
89
so liberated from the characters and from traditional dramatic

geometry.
Technically this conception of the screen assumes what I
shall call lateral depth of field and the almost total disappear
ance of montage. Since what we are shown is only significant in
terms of what is hidden from us and since therefore the value
of what we see is continually threatened, the mise en scene can
not limit itself to what is presented on the screen. The rest of
the scene, while effectively hidden, should not cease to exist. The
action is not bounded by the screen, but merely passes through
it. And a person who enters the camera's field of vision is coming
from other areas of the action, and not from some limbo, some
imaginary "backstage." Likewise, the camera should be able to
spin suddenly without picking up any holes or dead spots in the
action.
What all of this means is that the scene should be played
independent of the camera in all its real dramatic expanse and
that it is up to the cameraman to let his viewfinder play over the
action. Reframing, then, is substituted as much as possible for a
switching of points of view, which not only introduces spatial
discontinuity, a phenomenon foreign to the nature of the human
eye, but also sanctions the concept of the reality of a shot on a
single plane, the idea of each shot as nothing more than a unit
of place and action, an atom which joins with other atoms to
make the scene and then the sequence. When a film is made in
this way, with each shot lit and played separately, the screen
hides nothing, because there is nothing to hide outside the action
being filmed. And as cleverly as these separate bits are stitched
together, they cannot fool the attentive spectator. The little mo
ment of hesitation at the beginning of a first line, the little
something in the fixed nature of the camera and above all in the
framing, where nothing is left to chance-everything betrays
the existence of a preconceived "shot."
Never do we have this feeling in The Rules of the Game,
where the action plays hide-and-seek with the camera and the
set, passing from the pantry to the second floor, from the great
salon to the smoking room, from the pantry to the corridors. In
go
JEAN RENOIR
all this ceaseless action the slightest detail in this great complex
of reality never ceases to be a living part of the rhythm, whether
it is before our eyes or far away.
I should mention here how and why this deliberate use of
realism which goes beyond the image itself to include the very
structures of the mise en scene brought Renoir to the use of
depth of field ten years before Orson Welles. Renoir himself ex
plained it in the famous Le Point article:
"The farther I advance in my profession, the more I am in
clined to shoot in deep focus. The more I work, the more I aban
don confrontations between two actors neatly set up before the
camera, as in a photographer's studio. I prefer to place my
characters more freely, at different distances from the camera,
and to make them move. For that I need great depth of
field . . ."
This modestly technical explanation is obviously only the
immediate and practical consequence of the search for style
which we have struggled to define. Simple depth of field is only
the other dimension of the "lateral" liberty which Renoir re
quires. It is just that our commentary proceeds from the screen,
whereas Renoir's explanation starts at the other end of his crea
tion, with the actors.
But the function of depth of field is not only to allow more
liberty to the director and the actors. It confirms the unity of
actor and decor, the total interdependence of everything real,
from the human to the mineral. In the representation of space,
it is a necessary modality of this realism which postulates a con
stant sensitivity to the world but which opens to a universe of
analogies, of metaphors, or, to use Baudelaire's word in another,
no less poetic sense, of correspondences.
The most visual and most sensual of film makers is also the
one who introduces us to the most intimate of his characters
because he is faithfully enamored of their appearance, and
through their appearance. of their soul. In Renoir's films ac
quaintances are made through love. and love passes through
the epidermis of the world. The suppleness, the mobility, the
THE FRENCH RENOIR
91
vital richness of form in his direction, result from the care and
the joy he takes in draping his films in the simple cloak of
reality.
CHAPTER
SIX
RENOIR IN HOLLYWOOD
The Southerner (1945) *

MANUSCRIPT NOTES
After the death of his uncle, Sam Tucker (Zachary

Scott), a cotton farmer, decides to try to work a patch
of land which has been abandoned for several years.
With his wife, Nona (Betty Field), their two children,
and an aging grandmother (Beulah Bondi), Sam takes
to the road in a battered car and heads for the new tract.
The abandoned farm, the untilled earth, winter,
and the sickness which one of the children develops from
malnutrition pose seemingly insurmountable problems.
A torrential rain causes a flood, which wipes out several
months of work. Only the courage of the women keeps
Sam from giving up and looking for a job in town. He
will stay on the inhospitable land and start again to try
to cultivate it.
I was quite bothered by certain things which pre
vented me from getting into the story.
For Renoir's first two Hollywood films, Swamp vVatcr (j 941) and This
Land Is Minc (1943), see the notes by Jean-Luc Godard and Fran<;ois
Truffaut in the Filmography. F.T.
92
RENOIR IN HOLLYWOOD
93
I found the conditions of life of the characters hard

to accept without further explanation (for example:
Where does the little girl go to school? Are they really
unable to buy even half a quart of milk a day? Where
are the other buildings on the farm? the stable? the
barn?). But perhaps this impression is a consequence of
ignorance. If we were Americans, we would see no more
problems in The Southerner than in Toni, where the im
proba bilities do not bother us French at all.
The same goes for the actors: Zachary Scott is good,
but Betty Field is hardly credible. One cannot lead a life
like hers and still maintain such grace. On the other
hand, the grandmother seems to be overdone in the op
posite direction.
Note that casting in the French films is often no
more convincing, but since the actors are French the
line between realism and fantasy is easily perceptible
to us. Here we have a mixture in which the two are
difficult to distinguish. Add to this the theatricality of
the actors, which clashes with the realistic set. (The
sound track-in both music and sounds-is much more
professional than that of Swamp lVater.) The South
erner suggests a pastoral drama transplanted to the uni
verse of Erskine Caldwell.
But probably this reaction is very unjust. First, be
cause the Americanism excludes us from the participa
tion possible in the French films; and with Renoir, when
you are not a participant . . . (We regain this partici
pation with The Diary of a Chambermaid.) We must
break through the crust of realism which blinds us and
reach beyond to the tender, cruel, ironic, playful, almost
dreamlike universe of Renoir. The fact is that the images
which The Southerner leaves with us are more surreal
than drama tic.
Diary of a Chambermaid (1946)

I have written that Renoir's American films are admirable.
Nonetheless, in my heart of hearts I have always suspected that
91 .
JEAN RENOIR
they were inferior to the French films, and if I did not take more
advantage of opportunities to see them again, it was more for
fear that my disappointment would be confirmed than that I
might find cause to revise my original unfavorable opinions. At
least that way I could still tell myself that I might have been too
severe. I did have the slightly morbid curiosity to look back at
what I had written on Diary of a Chambermaid in L'Ecran
franr;:ais of June 15, 1948. Here are some extracts:
I
I
I
II
What mental aberration, what failure of self-analysis, or

what dangerous taste for irony led Renoir to make a film in
America on the subject closest to him, on the very subject which
he would least be able to treat outside of France? . . . This
drama of ambition and domestic service strikes no chord in
America, where th~~ problem of domestics does not exist (except
as an asp~~ct of the racial problem) . . . . Renoir has gone to
ridiculous lengths to re-create around his heroes the French
milieu in which tlwy live and die. But we sense the glare of the
studio lights on Burgess Meredith's rosebushes. The entire film
is bathed in this aquarium light so typical of Hollywood. Every
thing, even the actors, seem like Japanese flowers under glass.
Still there is a melancholy pleasure in re-encountering Renoir,
even in such an unsuccessful effort. We sense him constantly
squirming under the limitations of his situation, hampered by
the scenario, unable to give the right tone to his actors. His
American works are still "Renoir films," as characteristic as his
French films, but this time characteristic in their failures.
Today I can see clearly what critical preconception blinded

me; it was that of Renoir's "realism." I projected this notion on
Diary of a Chambermaid, whose naturalistic aspects seemed to
doubly justify the application of such a standard. Does not Re
noir seem to be preoccupied with the design of the costumes
(copied from Berthe Morisot), the sets, and the furniture (by
Lourie) ?
Of course, this realism of detail was obliterated by the ef
fects not only of shooting the exteriors in the studio but above
RENOIR IN HOLLYWOOD'
95
all of having the characters played by Americans. However

slightly less inaccurate than the usual American film portraying
France, Diary of a Chambermaid leaves us with the same im
pression of falseness. Hence my original judgment.
The Crime of M. Lange, which I saw again recently just
before Diary, and which seemed more admirable the tenth time
than it did the first, could only confirm my prejudice, and after
being overwhelmed with admiration for Lange I expected only
the "melancholy pleasure" of finding again the same Renoir in
Diary, but this time wrestling with the wrong subject and the
wrong style.
Then the film started, and this was indeed the unfortunate
feeling I had during the first few minutes. But that was all the
time it took me to realize my error, to see how absurd it was to
persist in seeing failed realism in the most surreal and deliber
ately imaginary of all Renoir's films. The point of the meticu
lous design was not to reconstruct an impossible, synthetic
France, but rather to give the images the precision of a night
mare. As for the "aquarium light" which had so upset me, it
was still there all right, but this time it appeared like the illu
mination of some interior hell, a sort of telluric phosphorescence
such as Jules Verne imagined to illuminate the journey of his
voyagers to the center of the earth. Everything, including the
meticulous details of the costumes, is organized into a vision of
cruel fantasy completely removed from the real world. Here
perhaps was the source of the obsession with the theater that was
more and more to characterize Renoir's development. Before
Diary the theater had offered little more to the director of Boudu
than a few pretexts for scenarios. But here for the first time we
see in Renoir's work not theater, but the purest theatricality.
Once I had abandoned the futile criterion of realism and
allowed myself to dream the film with Renoir, I could see the
precision of the film, in its construction as well as in its style,
and above all in the direction of the actors, which is accom
plished with a freedom and an audacity equaled only by Paris
Does Strange Things. Certainly Renoir has never gone further
96 .
JEAN RENOIR
than in Diary toward the marriage of the dramatic and the

cornie. It is not realism which puts Diary on a level with The
Rules of the Game, but the fact that the French film was a
"comic tragedy," the American film a "tragic farce." Renoir
succeeds in harmonizing the two most extreme colors of his
palette, that of La Chienne and that of Boudu or Tire au Flanc
(although in Tire au Flanc the grotesque has already begun to
mingle with the burlesque). In Diary the marriage of the two
extremes is the basis for the film. The "happy ending" flows
from both cruelty and joy, despair and happiness.
The old image of the director exiled to Hollywood, of the
colossus bound up by the Lilliputians, is at least in this case
absurd. None of Renoir's films reflects more freedom of invention
and style.
MANUSCRIPT NOTES
(011
the adaptation of Diary of a Chambermaid)
Renoir's work in adapting the novel consisted in

shifting around the chronology of some of the episodes
in the diary. For example, the story of the tubercular
boy with whom Celestine falls in love is a combination
of two independent stories which take place in two of
the different places where Celestine is employed.
In the book the priory is more the place where Ce
lestine records her adventures than the place where they
happen. In Celestine's biography the priory has hardly
any importance except for the conclusion, the marriage
with the valet, Joseph. From the dramatic point of view
the adaptation is judicious and astute, because the dif
fuse, episodic quality of the novel is not appropriate to
the unified construction of a film. This is particularly so
considering that a major strong point of the film is the
successful effort to achieve a unity of action and at
mosphere, to create a consistent universe around the
characters.
RENOIR IN HOLLYWOOD
'.
97
Diary is cruel and grotesque, but not evil. In every

instance, evil is punished in the end. The film is dom
inated by a fantasy and a humor completely foreign to
Mirbeau's novel.
The captain and "Monsieur" are without grace ill
Mirbeau; the one is a heartless maniac, and the other is
a cowardly old bastard. On the other ham!. the valet,
Joseph, amhiguous in Mirheau, is a monster ill Renoir's
film. Or, more precisely, we see that Celestine spurns
him because of his monstrousness, while in Mirbeau it is
this monstrousness which attracts her.
This brings us to Celestine. Either from taste or
from necessity (this point should be checked), Renoir
has sweetened Celestine's character. She does not really
contradict the Celestine of the hook, and many of her
characteristics are the same, but they are almost all fa
vorahle characteristics. We do not find ill the film the
vulgarity alld the unrestrained sexuality of Mirbeau's
Celestine. In the book Celestine is sympathetic not be
cause her own feelings and actions are better than thosp
she attrihutes to the others, hut simply because the
others are hypocrites while she is sincere. This quality
would not b(' enough to make her sympathetic on the
screen if the scenario attributed to her a tenth of what
she does in the hook, and particularly if she fell in loY('
with Joseph.
Note, in additiOll, the influence of the book on all
of Renoir's work. First, of course, the theme, so impor
tant with him, of subordination (the innumerable serv
ant scenes in Diary). But also the way details from thp
past reveal character. Gruet is full of memories of Diary,
and so probably are Jl,larquitta and Nana.
Always you realize to what extent naturalism is
only a point of departure for Renoir; how he uses it with
freedom awl intelligence, on the one hand, to create
a moral Ulliverse (Diary), and, on the other hand, to
portray contemporary subjects realistically (The Hu
man Beast, The Rules of the Game).
98 ..JEAN
RENOIR
The Woman on the Beach (1946)

MANUSCRIPT NOTES
A Coast Guard officer, Burnett (Robert Ryan), is

engaged to Eve Geddes (Nan Leslie), the daughter of a
shipbuilder in the area in which he is stationed. He is
awaiting his discharge so they can marry. Meanwhile,
on the beach he meets Peggy Butler (.Joan Bennett) , the
wife of the painter Tod Butler (Charles Bickford). But
ler is blind and lives in an isolated house with oIllv his
wife for company.
Burnett is charmed by Peggy's beauty and thinks
she is unhappy. She leads him to think that her husband
confines her and beats her. Burnett suspects Butler of
feigning his handicap to ensure the devotion of his wifc.
To see if Butler is really blind, Burnett leads him on a
walk on a cliff and abandons him at the edge of the
abyss. Butler falls and escapes death only by miraculous
good fortune.
Burnett is now convinced that Butler is really blind,
but he is not cured of his passion for Peggy, and he
neglects his fiancee. A confrontation finally comes about
between the two men, and Burnett realizes that despite
their constant quarrels Peggy and her husband are
strongly attached to each other. He decides to break with
her and go back to his fiancee.
But that night, a hysterical telephone call from
Peggy summons him back. During a violent scene with
his wife, Butler has decided to destroy his remaining
paintings, worth a considerable fortune, and to burn
down his house. Burnett arrives as Peggy is struggling
to keep Butler from throwing the paintings into the
flames. The paintings will burn with the house, but
Peggy saves her husband and, finally, leaves with him
to help him start a new life.
It is a strange film, stubborn, sincere, elusive, ob
scure. Renoir says that he wanted to portray pure sexual
RENOIR IN HOLLYWOOD
99
attraction, but between which characters? The sensual

ity is there certainly, but it goes from one character to
another like a mysterious ball of fire. We don't know
exactly where it is.
The nightmare is curiously done. It is difficult to
tell how much of it is just a typical Hollywood night
mare and how much consists of images really conceived
by Renoir. The question is important because the night
mare sets the tone for the film. The hero lives the ad
venture like a real nightmare. The ending is curious
for its rapid brutality.
It seems to me that the final editing, after Renoir's
troubles with the studio, must have massacred and ob
scured the film, but even so, it remains at once one of
the most sincere and one of the most hampered of Re
noir's works.
Was 110t The Woman on the Beach conceived and
executed in the manner of the mystery film, pressed in
its mold but with another material, not at all conven
tional, rather very personal? The strangeness of this
film results, at least in part, from the contrast between
the material and the mold.
I,. :.,
CHAPTEH
SEVEN
RENOIR RETURNS
As he was passing through Paris in 1951 following the opening of

The River, Jean Renoir granted a rare interview to Andre Bazin.
What follows is the text of an article which Bazin wrote about this
conversation. as it appeared in the June 3, 1951, edition of Radio
Cinema-Television. More significant than a simple interview, the
article recounts the first meeting of Renoir and Bazin at the Invalides
Adrogare and later at the Hotel Royal Manceau. It is an account of
the ber:;innings of a friendship. F.T.
Anyone who ever doubted. not being acquainted with his work,
that Jean Renoir was a great man, would have only to spend a
little time with him to be convinced that he is.
"Great" first of all physically. Tall and fat. all smiles. with
his slight limp, he reminds you of a cross between a playful bear
and an elephant with a sprained ankle. We have already seen
him as the great bear and the prankster in The Rules of the
Game. Perhaps he developed an affinity for elephants while
shooting The River in India. But let us leave aside the hestiary,
to which we would be obliged to add the little rabbits shot from
blinds in Sologne and the ones who beat the drums on calliopes.
Renoir's resemblance to these animals only makes him more
charming to us humans.
Renoir's charm is part strength, part kindness. And I have
100
RENOIR RETURNS' 101
not found a kindness like his in any other director in the world,
with the possible exception of Orson Welles (and I think his is
superficial), certainly not in any of the run-of-the-mill directors.
A single example: During our conversation at the hotel the
telephone rang constantly. After the third or fourth call my
wife, who was sitting next to the phone, offered to ask who was
calling before passing the phone to Renoir. Surprised, Renoir
said, "What for? I always answer."
"In France," Renoir told me, "after shaving, one carefully
wipes the blade with a little gadget. But in America razor blades
are so cheap that men throw them out after each shave. I could
never get used to that. Throwing out a blade which is still
sharp? Why, it's inhuman."
Let those who have known and loved Renoir be reassured.
America has not devoured him. At the very most, and this is
hardly a misfortune, it has distilled his French virtues, eliminat
ing the impurities and leaving only the essentials.
A kind of Franciscan serenity and tenderness tempers his
Rabelaisian paganism now. A sense of the universaL of the
relativity of history and geography, situates and confirms his
Frenchness: "I think we are entering a new Middle Ages," he
says. "\Ve should not complain. The Middle Ages was a great
era. "
Renoir is now hoping that he will be able to work in
France. Aside from the private difficulties, which have now been
resolved, and the fact that his son is living in America, Renoir
did not want to return to film in France before he was assured
of success in the States.
"1 had ups and downs in Hollywood," he says, "lm'_ to leave
after a partial commercial failure* would have been a bit low.
So 1 am pleased by the good reception that the New York dis
tributors have given The River. Now 1 am morally more free to
consider the offers 1 receive to work in France. Nothing specific
yet. These things cannot be handled at a distance. I'll think
about them a little more seriously after Le CarTOsse du Saint
Sacrement, which 1 am about to start in Rome."
The Woman on the Beach. Trans.
102 JEAN RENOIR
Another phone call: "Oh! Hello, Pierre, so happy to hear

from you . . ." "It's amazing how many friends I run into who
remember me as if it were yesterday . . ." "The River, which I
shot on location in Technicolor with my nephew, Claude, as
cameraman, is basically the story of Toni, a Toni moved to
India. I consider it as a follow-up to my efforts in The Rules of
the Game." Clearly, Renoir has not renounced his French work.
How will he take it up again?
The man who made La Chienne, Nana, The Crime of M.
Lange, Aladame Bovary, Grand Illusion, The Human Beast, A
Day in the Country, The Lower Depths, and The Rules of the
Game is without question the greatest French director, or at the
very least, the greatest sound director. The son of the painter
Auguste Renoir, he has in his blood what he has called "a cer
tain feel for French gesture," the gesture of Degas's ironing
woman or of the locomotive engineer touching the overheated
axle. More generally, he has inherited from the literary and
pictorial sensibility of his father's era a profound, sensual, and
loving sense of reality. His genius is not just to translate, but to
reinterpret in the cinema all that made the writers and the
painters of his childhood great. He is certainly one of the two
or three directors who have made films worthy of the literary
masterpieces which inspired them. And maybe history will con
sider Renoir's A Day in the Country superior to de Maupassant's
original.
With The Rules of the Game, his last French film, Renoir
freed himself from the literary and pictorial sources which dom
inated a great part of his work up to that time. True, Grand
Illusion and The Crime of M. Lange were made from original
screenplays, but The Rules of the Game brings together and sur
passes, transcends all of Renoir's earlier works. One can and
should consider this film the most highly developed and the
most instnlctive in terms of scenario and direction of all French
sound films.
The films Renoir made in Hollywood probably disap
pointed his French admirers. Still people will probably recon
sider their first opinions of Swamp Water and The Woman on
RENOIR RETURNS 103
the Beach. But Renoir only flourishes when he is free, when he

does not have to conform to anyone's rules, when he can let him
self be inspired on the spur of the moment by people and things.
It is for this reason that The Southerner, based on the impor
tance of the earth, the water, the countryside, is the most human
and most beautiful of Renoir's American films.
If Renoir returns to making films in France, I don't think
we should expect him to he just as he left us. His art will be
perhaps more spare, more serene and tragic. A renewed classi
cism could well he the result of the American experience and
of the past ten years of world history. One thing we can be sure
of: his style will not have become academic.
CHAPTER
EIGHT
A PURE MASTERPIECE: THE RIVER
Jean Renoir is the greatest living French director. This judg

ment implies a choice of Renoir over Rene Clair, the only other
French director of comparable stature. I choose without hesita
tion, not from personal preference, but on the basis of a criterion
I think is objective. Clair is a man of the silent film. That he
adapted himself to sound to produce his masterpiece, Le Million,
is proof enough of the intelligence and suppleness of his talent.
but in the final analysis, he did no more than adapt himself to
it. His use of sound implies an a priori commitment to the pre
eminence of silence. With Renoir, on the other hand, sounds and
words are an expressive addition which is assimilated naturally
and immediately. Now The River has shown that color did not
present him with any more problems than had sound. For Re
noir, the cinema means the maximum in the realism of the
image, both plastic and aural.
Except for Malraux's Man's Hope, The Rules of the Game
was the only film which did not seem to age in the immediate
postwar period; on the contrary, it seemed to incarnate the fu
ture. Marcel Carne's Le .lour se Leve (also made in 1939) was
the culmination of poetic realism. but the very perfection of the
achievement left him no place to go. Carne has yet to go beyond
this impasse. The Rules of the Game too was the culmination of
all its director's previous efforts, but at the same time it opened
1
1,
A PURE MASTERPIECE: THE RIVER'
105
up a new path. One could almost say that with it the silent film
finally died completely. The revolution of realism, begun by
von Stroheim five years before the appearance of sound, was
now finally fulfilled with the appearance of a cinematography
which clung firmly to reality while repudiating all plastic sym
bolism and the artifices of montage. "Cinema" no longer im
posed itself between the spectator and the object, like a set of
prisms and filters designed to stamp their own meaning on
reality. With Renoir, expressionism had had its day. By expres
sionism I mean not just the German school and its influence. but
everything which manifests an explicit imposition of technique
on the meaning of the film. I know that this seems obscure; I
shall attempt to elucidate it.
Imagine a love scene on the screen. The impression which
the director communicates to us has two essentially different
elements:
1. The object of the scene itself, which is to say the charac
ters. their behavior, and their dialogue; in other words. reality
in its objective time and space;
2. The sum of the artifices which the film maker uses to
emphasize the meaning of the event. to color it. to describe its
nuances. and to make it harmonize with what precedes and fol
lows it in the story.
We can easily see that if it is to be a romantic scene. the
set, the lighting, and the framing would not be the same as for
a scene of violent sensuallty. Then comes montage. The shots
will be more numerous and closer for the depiction of sensuality.
The romantic scene will demand two-shots at first. and the close
ups at the end will be long ones. We can also see all the imagin
able variations.
I call expressionist any aesthetic which in this situation
places more confidence in the artifices of cinematography
which is to say. in what is generally meant by "cinema"-than
in the reality to which they are applied.
When I speak of a cinema without "cinema" (where, then.
would be the difference between art and reality?). I mean
another conception of cinematographic style which does not
106 .JEAN RENOIR
permit the distinction I have just made between subject and ex

pression. I would rather crudely call this tendency "realistic."
But this realism does not at all mean a renunciation of style. It
only postulates that cinematic expression must be dialectically
fused with reality and not with artifice. This is the case with
the most abstract, the most intellectual, of our directors: Robert
Bresson, whose Diary of a Country Priest is in this sense an
eminently realistic work.
Renoir is one of those directors who create their own sce
narios almost singlehandedly. While the subjects and the adap
tation are only rarely Renoir's, he reshapes them so much before
and even during the shooting that it is impossible to think of the
result as someone else's. The nature of this reshaping is almost
always the same: to make the story more closely dependent on
several visual themes. A dramatist constructs his play on a the
atrical structure. The action is a sort of pure movement toward
certain events, which are the heart of the plot. Contrary to this
approach, Renoir begins with two or more tangible realities and
creates relationships among them. The action proceeds from
them like the concentric circles which radiate from a stone
thrown into the water. Thus in The Human Beast the moral
credibility of Gabin's character resides not in his hereditary
alcoholism-this is just Zola's pretext, which Renoir has kept
but rather in the thematic relationship created by the mise en
scene between the man and the machine. Renoir's film is a trag
edy, but the metaphor for the fate which destroys the hero is not
the rotten blood of the Rougon-Macquart family as it was in
Zola's novel; it is the locomotive. This and this alone makes his
death credible and necessary. Not that Renoir makes the ma
chine a "symbol" of a blind and omnipotent force which traps
and crushes. Nothing is more foreign than symbolism to Renoir's
familiar, loving, sensual style, to his intimacy with things. On
the contrary, Renoir identifies the object with the man to char
acterize the object.
The Rules of the Game is basically constructed on two sets
of themes which crisscross each other like two sets of ripples on
the surface of the water: the hunting party and the party at the
A PURE MASTERPIECE: THE RIVER' 107
chateau. The hunting party is really nothing more than a dress

rehearsal for the party at the chateau. In spite of the ironic and
the comic elements in them, the race through the hallways, the
exchanges of identity between the masters and the valets, the
shots from Schumacher's revolver, constitute the real hunt,
which is ended by an "accident": the death of Andre, shot by
the gamekeeper after a double misunderstanding.
The characters do not act according to psychological proba
bility in terms of their "personalities." They move according to
a mechanism of the heart, like Dalio's musical dolls, in the
concentric circles of analogies. Andre (Roland Toutain) receives
a blast of buckshot in the stomach and rolls dead like the little
rabbit we have just seen in its delicate and terrifying spasm of
agony. I am simplifying some out of necessity. This analogy is
not the only one, although it is probably the most significant.
The entire film is an extraordinary web of allusions, references,
parodies, of scenes which refer to one another like motifs recur
ring in different tones and styles. But have I made myself
understood? The freedom of this construction, the contempt for
dramatic and psychological verisimilitude, are the height of
realism in the sense that Renoir-instead of taking the usual
path from the idea to a simulated reality-imposes the idea by
departing from reality. It is through Renoir's love, his sensibil
ity, his intimacy with objects, animals, and people, that his
moral vision confronts us so strikingly. With Renoir a swallow
is enough to suggest spring.
The mise en scene flows directly from Renoir's reversed
approach to the scenario. He understands the true nature of the
screen, which is not so much that it frames the image but that it
masks out what lies outside it. From this principle flows an
entirely new idea of composition ("une revolution du decou
page"). This is precisely the revolution brought about by The
Rules of the Game. For the structure of images in the anecdotal
or theatrical film inherited both from painting and the theater,
for the plastic and dramatic unity of the "shot," Renoir substi
tutes the stare of his camera, which is at once idealized and con
cretized. Henceforth the screen will not try to offer us a sense of
108 JEAN RENOIR
reality, but will deliver it to us in the manner of a cipher grid

moving across a coded document.
This revolution is not without analogies to Impressionist
painting. Until Impressionism the "composition" of a painting
was also theatrical or decorative: it depended on the structure of
the frame (d. Raphael's "Madonna of the Chair"). After Manet,
and above all Degas and Renoir, the frame was no longer a
stage. If it still sometimes played a role in the composition, it
was negatively, through its discordance with reality. By inter
rupting the continuum of reality, the frame suggested what lay
beyond it (d. Bonnard). vVe can see how this transition served
the Impressionists' desire for realism.
Throughout his French films Renoir has put this principle
of mise en scene in the service of a set of themes which I would
also characterize as generally realistic. The influences which de
termine his choice of subjects and his treatment of them clearly
belong to the era of naturalism. We have already noted the ones
which originate in painting. Even more apparent and more ex
plicit is Renoir's predilection for the literature of the time (Zola.
Nana and The Human Beast; Maupassant, A Day in the Coun
try) and for "realism" in the general literary sense of the word
(La Chienne, by La Fouchardicre; The Crime of 1I1. Lange; and
Toni, which was inspired by a newspaper story).
But this undeniable affinity is only the point of departure
for a rather profound transformation. The themes and the moral
and philosophical context of naturalism are only the soil which
nourishes the roots of a temperament, a sensibility, a personal
vision. Is it really necessary to define it? A Renoir film identifies
itself instantly: the sensuality, the sense of happiness with its
sharp counterpoint of skepticism and irony-but a smiling skep
ticism and an irony without bitterness. Cruel sometimes. but
only out of tenderness. Its cruelty is objective; it is nothing more
than the acknowledgment of destinies at odds with happiness,
the measure of a love without constraint and without illusion.
Its sympathy always goes out to the victim. Renoir has a sense
of the tragic, but he does not dwell on it; not because he does not
respect it, but because the only way to overcome destiny is to
A PURE MASTERPIECE: THE RIVER
109
believe in happiness in spite of it. His most characteristic film

from this point of view is The Lower Depths, a tragic story with
a scenario as grirn as could be, which Renoir leads into the
comic. It is the subtle play of this constant moral counterpoint
against the themes of his scenarios which gives Renoir's French
work this verve at once tender and satiric, this air of goodwill
and maliciousness, this slightly cynical ingenuity, this casual
way of believing in both joy and despair. this tone worthy of the
great tradition of French moralistic novels.
The Rules of the Game is a wild imhroglio, a farandolc
danced to a frenetic rhythm in the corridors of a chateau and
ending with an absurd cadaver. The River. on the other hand, is
a more refined work, devoid of this sort of frantic comic-macabre
activity and strictly limited within the confines of time. What
happens to its hero in the course of the film is an almost imper
ceptible modulation of a pervasive eternity. The swamps of
Sologne reflected the picaresque silhouettes of the weekend
guests; the waters of the sacred river reflect nothing. Serene and
majestic, they flow without change, cleansing man of his blem
ishes, mixing his ashes with their silt.
But a closer look reveals the affinity of the two films. Be
neath the contrasts in subject matter and tone, we see the same
indifference to dramatic scaffolding, the same delicate sculpting
of characters barely sketched out in the scenario. No theatrical
convention interferes with the pure interest which we take in
their existence. The film is merely an intimate and indiscreet
way for us to live with them. As in The Rules of the Game, noth
ing happens to the heroes but the fortuitous. On the one hand
there are the ironic absurdities of the amorous mistaken identi
ties-the vain and pleasant activities of a decaying society
which at least knows how to die; on the other. there arc the
slight events, accidental in the profoundest sense, accidents con
trolled by a stable force, the perceptible signs of a fundamental
cycle of the world and its souls. Andre's accidental death at the
hands of a stupid gamekeeper, is balanced by the cry of a new
born baby. Renoir is faithful to Renoir, hut the pagan has be
come a mystic. His sensual pantheism has become religious.
110 JEAN RENOIR
Why, then, instead of blaming the unevenness of Renoir's

American period on the fluctuations of economic and social con
ditions, do we not see it as part of a profound moral evolution of
the artist? Why not suppose that for Renoir it was less a question
of adapting himself to Hollywood than of developing himself,
of at once mastering a new way of thinking and feeling and
creating an adequate means of expressing it. In our belief that
The Rules of the Game incarnates the avant-garde of the cinema
of 1939, that its legacy is far from being exhausted, that this
master stroke on which Renoir left France perfects and con
denses the meaning of all his French work, and in our implicit
hope that he would limit himself to repeating this success, we
have made Renoir a prisoner of our admiration. In so doing,
we condemned ourselves to a negative criticism-through mis
guided loyalty to the past of a man who was always in the
avant-garde-and let him pass us by without our noticing it.
Thus were we unprepared for The River, which startled us with
a perfection this time too obvious to be mistaken and compelled
us to recognize how far its author had advanced. The River is
the Rules of the Game of Renoir's second period.
Renoir recently wrote: "I spent ten years outside of France.
The first time I came back to Paris, I sat down with some old
friends and we took up our conversation not where it had
stopped when I left, but where it would have been if we had
continued to see each other all those years." I suspect that this
statement is more of a wish than an objective fact. But whatever
it is, consider the idea of evolution which it implies. And again:
To make a path in the jungle it is a good idea to strike out in
front of you with a stick to push aside the invisible dangers.
Sometimes the stick hits a solid branch and breaks in your hand;
sometimes it holds firm, but your arm is stunned. It is a little
like what I did during those ten years. I didn't want to stay still,
but the needle of the compass I consulted was spinning, and I
had difficulty finding my way. Yet I am quite proud of it; it
proves that I have not lost contact with our unstable world. . . .
I recovered a similar certainty with The River. I felt growing
\
\
I
\
A PURE MASTERPIECE: THE RIVER 111
within me a desire to reach out and touch my fellow creatures

throughout the world.
,.
These notes (with their tone of exemplary honesty and

modesty which in no way hides the assurance and authority of
the true artist) impress me particularly with their indication of
Renoir's profound concern for his era and, inevitably, its expres
sion in the cinema. This is the language of a man reaching out
toward the future, intent on placing himself at the front of the
attack, at the cutting edge of his art, on that extreme point
where the artist carves out a new trail, where the artist's under
standing of his time leads to the invention of a new form.
Now perhaps we can see why and in what ways The River
is dynamically faithful to The Rules of the Game. We shall not,
however, forget to make important distinctions. What has be
come of the tender, mocking skepticism, the social satire of The
Rules of the Game? The River describes the life of two English
families someplace in Bengal. They are wealthy and without
material worries. Renoir never subjects this colonial bourgeoisie
to antipathy, to the slightest critical irony. Of course, the char
acters of The Rules of the Game had his sympathy too, but the
tenderness they inspired in him did not in any way mitigate his
mercilessly lucid appraisal of them. After all, his heroes were
equally conscious of their fate. Their destiny had been ordained.
The love and attention which Renoir gave them was a tribute to
a world which knew how to die with a slightly ridiculous grace,
which achieved a sort of grandeur in its amused consciousness
of its own anachronism and vanity.
There is nothing anti-aristocratic in the novel by Rumer
Godden on which The River is based. Furthermore, in the fi.lm
Renoir explicitly takes the point of view of Harriet. The events
are thus filtered through the memories and sensibilities of an
English adolescent with a lively but still naive mind, scarcely
aware of social problems. She sees India, like her garden, her
friends, and her parents, from the viewpoint of a stable family
life which takes for granted the social and economic stabilities
The River
on which it is based. Thus Renoir's point of view as It IS ex
pressed by her is exclusively moral. To reproach him for not
using this fleeting love story as a vehicle to describe the misery
of India or to attack colonialism is to reproach him for not treat
ing an entirely different subject. I have it from Renoir himself
that before he found a producer with resources in India he had
considered for some time making the film in Hollywood. If this
had happened we would have lost much, but nothing of the
essential theme of the film, which is the discovery of love by
three adolescents.
However, I am not being altogether sincere in pleading
Renoir's case this way. I think that his fidelity to his central
A PURE MASTERPIECE: THE RIVER'
113
theme made for a VISIOn of English society in India which,

though not at all false, may be a little superficial, overly op
timistic, and implicitly imperial.
But then Renoir never hesitated to take liberties with his
torical facts in his French films either. As a matter of fact, the
choice of point of view would seem to argue for a certain parti
sanship, not (as only an absurdly narrow-minded critic of The
River would contend) on behalf of colonialism, but rather on
behalf of morals over sociology. The latter were not separable
in The Rules of the Game. They are in The River. Made in
Hollywood with a simulated Indian decor, the film would have
had a completely different tonality. What the geographic and
human realism adds, however, is not a social dimension, but a
religious and mystical meaning. The problem of the confronta
tion of the Occident and the Orient is not posed in terms of eco
nomics or politics, or even history, but exclusively in terms of
religious spirituality. India figures only as a setting, but more
as a moral than as a geographical setting. Its silent presence, to
which the protagonists pay only half-conscious attention, acts
on their minds as a magnetic field influences the needle of a
compass.
VVith this in mind, just as it was ridiculous to complain that
Renoir did not make a documentary on famine in India, so it is
equally absurd to reproach him for not having made an exhaus
tive study of religious problems there. During the shooting of
The River Renoir witnessed bloody battles between the Moslems
and the Hindus. There is nothing of this in the film. however,
because what interests Renoir is not the Indian religious mental
ity in itself, but rather its insidious attraction for Westerners. *
There was no more reason for Renoir to understand India
after three months than for his heroes after ten years, but some
* Since writing this we have seen an Indian (or more precisely, Bengali)
film, Pather Panchali, the young director of which (Satyajit Rey) had
worked with Renoir on The River. This work, typically Indian, made in
India by Indians, based on a famous Bengal novel, has the same spiritual
tone as The River. Appearing in 1955, it confirmed that Renoir's vision of
India was neither naIve nor superficial, but rather that it went straight
to the essential.
114 .
JEAN RENOIR
how, even while standing so close to the false perspective of the

Protestant, imperialist bourgeoisie, he was able to render the
mute, diffuse, and inexhaustible light of The River.
There is at least one character who incarnates the mystical
temptation of the Orient, and this is Bogey. Remember his
games with his little native friend, as mysterious and taciturn
as a bronze statue? He is the only witness to Bogey's death, and
he is the only one at the burial who does not grieve, because he
alone understands the vanity of the tears and the ignorance
which the Westerners' love conceals: ignorance of the profound
secret to which "the Unknown" has initiated Bogey for eternity.
Renoir took great liberties with Rumer Godden's noveL as
he always does with the sources which inspire him. But sig
nificantly, the changes he made were of an entirely different
sort from those he made with his material in the 1930S. They
suggest a conversion to spiritual values, to something like, if
not a faith in God, then at least a faith in man and in the trans
cendence of man.
I feel sure that Pierre Laroche and others will be quick to
attack this turn in Renoir's work, sneering at what will seem to
them a "reactionary" development and even insinuating that
it suggests senility. And certainly this type of spiritual adven
ture will not appeal to Henri Jeanson. * The River can flow over
them without even getting them wet. I will not do the film the
indignity of defending it against this type of critic. We love
the irony of Renoir; we delight in his humor. But there are
other criteria of beauty, and it is to them that The River-with
its majestic dimensions, its sense of grandeur, its universal
spirituality-pays brilliant homage.
Rather than undertake a pointless and vain defense of The
River against The Rules of the Game, it might be interesting
to discuss the significance of Renoir's transition from one to
* Laroche and Jeanson are highly caustic and witty film critics with con
siderable experience as screenwriters. Laroche wrote Lumih-e d'Ete
(1943), Les Visiteurs du Soil' (with Jacques Prevert, 1942), Gigi (1949),
and Huis Clos (1954), among others. Jpanson's writing credits include La
Dame de Chez Maxim's (1933), Camet de Bal (1937), Carmen (1942),
Nana (1955), L'Afjaire d'une NUlt (1960). Trans.
The River
116 JEAN RENOIR
the other. Almost everything of any importance in the cinema

of the past five years* reveals in some way a spiritualistic in
spiration, an optimistic humanism, a re-embracing of the ethi
cal as opposed to social criticism or moral pessimism. It is worth
noting that this movement does not at all coincide with devel
opments in literature. The great era of the film nair (193-5
1939). such as it was, had been over for several years before
the current success of the serie noire began.t Delannoy failed
with Les Jeux Sont Faits, but he was successful with Dieu A Be
soin des Hommes.
The greatest development in the recent history of the cin
ema is the appearance of good treatments of religious subjects.
Diary of a Country Priest is the most significant product of this
paradoxical avant-garde. Miracle in Milan, done in a much
different style with a much different story, is also part of it. In
addition, it is only from this perspective that we can find any
unity in inspiration between the recent Soviet cinema and the
best work of the West.
No doubt about it; the future. at least for the next few
years. will belong to films favoring virtuous and elevated senti
ments. The convergence of works of such diverse origins and
styles cannot be attributed to fashion. The films must spring
from deeper sources. Perhaps they are the groping response to
an appeal from the people of this era. Those whom Renoir calls
"the truly great" have no need to conspire with each other to
bring to their contemporaries the message of love and confi
dence which the world awaits so anxiously and which surely
only the cinema can deliver.
Some are surprised by the slightness of the content of The
River. Others make fun of the sappy adolescent loves and ac
cuse them of bearing traces of Hollywood psychologizing and
rosewater moralism. I think they are blinded by their literary
frame of reference. They judge the film on the basis of the novel
it could be turned into. I am quite willing to admit that this
novel would be inferior even to Rumer Godden's, which itself
* Bazin wrote this in the early 1950S. Trans.
t Serie noire, film nair: violent mystery novels and films.
Trans.
A PURE MASTERPIECE: THE RIVEH 117
is difficult to see as anything but an interesting but minor work.

But I marvel that a story so "slight," with such conventional
elements, and which I would have no desire to read. has yielded
one of the purest. richest. most touching works in the history of
the cinema. one which moved me to tears. Many of the admir
ers of The River detest rosewater literature, conventional mor
alism. and facile optimism as much as the film's detractors. Is
it possible that they would love here what they detest else
where? It seems much more likely that some reflex of literary
culture has prevented the detractors from appreciating the
film's cinematic pleasures. Such people are happy to acknowl
edge the transmutation of content by style in literature. but
they are blind to Renoir's promotion of themes through style.
which is to say. to art itself. It takes a man of letters like Andre
Saures to speak of the "ignoble heart" of Chaplin. It's because
when he looks at a film he imagines himself reading it.
Everyone recognizes that writers have different styles. but
not so with directors. Thus we have Kleber Haedens describing
The River (in France Dimanche) as a "long. slow. and rather
dull documentary" and proclaiming that there are no traces
of Renoir's personality in the film and that it is most interesting
as evidence of the difficult progress of Technicolor. The truth
is that there is probably no other film which is so completely
and precisely controlled by its author. Most of the hest films
depend to some degree on God. on a lucky or unlucky chance
which belongs not to the film maker but to the film, an uncertain
and involuntary poetry of the machine. Not a frame of The
River gives us this feeling: its images always suggest exactly
and only what their creator intended. From this point of view.
the two high points are the burial and the amorous hide-and
seek of the girls chasing the young man. This latter scene beau
tifully conveys the feeling of excitement checked by sexual
modesty. It is no exaggeration to compare such moments to the
great achievements of the older. more refined arts. I cannot
imagine what a brilliant painter. novelist, or poet could have
added to the kiss Valerie gives to Captain John.
Renoir's mastery of his material in this film. his povver to
118 JEAN RENOIR
mold it in the shape of his vision, may surpass even that of The
Rules of the Game. Certainly it is not inferior to it. Yet this
time Renoir's achievement rests on techniques considerably dif
ferent from those he used until 1939. For the fluid camera, the
lateral reframings of the deep-focus shots, Renoir here substi
tutes a pictorial stability in which the scenes are framed only
once. There is not a single pan or dolly shot in the entire film.
Renoir used his lens like a telescope, moving in and out on
reality, revealing and concealing things according to the in
stincts of his shrewd, mischievous sensibility. Here he seems
interested only in showing things precisely as they are. Even
when he falls back on traditional montage, using many shots,
as in the scene of the siesta, there is no hint of expressionist
symbolism. He uses it only as a narrative convention, and it
does not for a second destroy the concrete reality of the moment.
Furthermore, the classicism of the editing in The River is
perhaps more apparent than reaL It is in no way a return to the
traditional forms which The Rules of the Game destroyed and
supplanted, but rather an extension of the same revolution be
gun in the earlier film. For the decorative or expressionist
frame of the traditional shot, for the artificiality of discontinu
ous montage, Renoir has substituted the mask and the living
continuity of reframing. By this he brought to the cinema at
once more realism and more expression. He allowed it to mean
more by showing more.
But in this negation of cinematographic canons, in this
destruction of the shot as the basic unit of screen narrative and
of the screen itself as the unit of space, there remained an im
plicit acknowledgment of the "cinema" as a means of expres
sion. Even as a mask, the screen remained a screen. Even in
reversing its function Renoir had not destroyed it. This final
step remained to be taken. In The River the screen no longer
exists; there is nothing but reality. Not pictorial, not theatrical,
not anti-expressionist, the screen simply disappears in favor of
what it reveals.
This classicism goes beyond The Rules of the Game; it is
the culmination of its realism. The River sits at the avant-garde
A PURE MASTERPIECE: THE RIVER 119
of the cinema, along with The Bicycle Thief, Diary of a Country

Priest, and everything which really counts in the contemporary
cinema; that is, with those works which contribute to the
transparency of the medium. Whether it veers toward the thea
ter or the novel, or whether it relies on original scenarios,
the cinema must restrain itself from using its techniques to
amplify objects which express themselves through it. The cin
ema will be fulfilled when, no longer claiming to be an art of
reality, it becomes merely reality made art.
CHAPTER
NINE
RENOIR AND THE THEATER
Julius Caesar (1954)

It was love for the cinema as much as for the theater
which drew me to the arena at Arles to see Renoir's theatrical
debut in 1954.* My presence at the opening is little to brag
about, since I was in southern France at the time anyway.
Many of my young friends from the cinematheque had come
from much farther than 1. One in particular had hitchhiked
from his military post in Baden-Baden. Since most of them
could not afford even the cheapest reserved seat and since the
dozen places set aside for the critics had already been taken by
the local bullfight fans . the young followers of Renoir managed
as a last resort to get jobs as extras in his production. In the
South of France, anything is possible!
I recall these unimportant details because they shed some
light on the rather peculiar circumstances of Renoir's first
theatrical production. And what a production it was, a real test
in radically different conditions for the author of The Rules of
the Game and The River. Of Renoir the film maker it has al
ways been said that he is a director and an improviser capa hIe
Bazin left nothing that he liked very much on The Golden Coach. For
this film see Fran(ois Trllffaut's <Jnd Eric Rohm('r's notes in th(' Filmogra
phy. F.T.
120
RENOIR AND THE THEATER' 121
of getting not only the best but the most unexpected responses
from his actors. The Arles adventure was going to show whether
at sixty years of age this great pink man with the white hair
was going to be able to do the same thing in the theater. We
awaited this turn in his great career affectionately" hopefully.
a little anxiously.
For the 10"000 bullfight and light-upera fans packed into
the stone seats still warm from the afternoon sun. Shakespeare's
Julius Caesar represented something entirely different from
their usual fare. Between the two different expectations" theirs
and ours, a horrible misunderstanding could have arisen. In a
sense, of course, Julius Caesar is the business of the people of
Arles. After all. his name is everyplace in the town. But the
people are nonetheless still a bit vague about his historical and
theatrical significance. This fact was brought home to me by
a woman I overheard explaining to her husband before the
opening curtain: "Caesar is in this play, but not Borgia." An
other lady. satisfied with the performance, commented on the
way out: "They would have done better, though, to choose
Pagnol's version." Between that first marvelous comment and
the comments of the lady impatient with English literature or
ancient history. the miracle of the theater had been revived
in this arena. The miracle was doubly impressive for those who
knew the conditions under which it was produced.
When Renoir and his troupe arrived in Arles only ten days
before the performance, they had only rehearsed in Paris. For
various reasons (among others a bullfight) the set was not en
tirely ready until the day before the performance. Renoir had
been able to work with the local extras for only a couple of
hours on the last two days. There was no complete rehearsal
of the play. Everything had to be straightened out as it became
technically possible, and there was never any continuity. Up
until the very last minute Renoir was experimenting with vari
ous scenic effects. In fact" the first and only performance of
Julius Caesar before the 10"000 citizens of Arles. who were
drawn by the prestige of the title and their fondness for the
arena, was scarcely even a dress rehearsal. Renoir saw his light
Jean Renoir at the ArIes arena during a rehearsal of Julius Caesar

ing and various special effects for the first time along with the
members of the audience.
The first minute was awful. Various odd noises were heard
as the first spotlight cut through the darkness to frame Flavius
and Messala. And when Caesar made his entrance the stands
broke into laughter and amused applause as the spectators rec
ognized their friends in the emperor's cortege.
Then came Casca's speech! In a second the theater's magic
finally took hold of the vast arena and the audience listened,
awed and enraptured. Paredes, resolutely comic, had won over
the audience by the fourth time he dropped his cape. The tone
of the laughter changed to reflect the collective joy of 10,000
RENOIR AND THE THEATER'
123
individuals. Ruse, ambition, and courage were going to develop

their tragic spiral around the memory of Caesar as if around
the axis of destiny itself.
But perhaps a couple of dozen spectators were impressed
by more than what was happening on stage. The tragedy of
Caesar's ghost was the triumph of Jean Renoir. We had imag
ined him dying in the shadows of some ancient vomitorium,
but he was, in fact, very much present in that arena.
We had seen once again the miracle of the theater, not
only the miracle which made Elizabethans out of 10,000 south
ern Frenchmen, but also the miracle of the concrete existence
of a spectacle which would have been inconceivable without
the improvisational genius and the human presence of Jean
Renoir.
We were no less delighted to see Renoir respond to the
crowd's ovation by appearing and bowing with the same ursine
demeanor as Octave in his bearskin at the party in The Rules of
the Game. And in the tearful voice in which he thanked the
public I recognized the emotions of La Chesnaye showing off
his calliope. The distance between that ironic, cutting mas
querade and this Julius Caesar played in the open air before an
entire town is an indication both of the artistic integrity and of
the spiritual odyssey of our greatest film artist.
Gruet (1955)*
Since his first return from America, I have had the honor
and pleasure to talk with Jean Renoir about his work on several
occasions and at considerable length. I followed the last three
days of rehearsals for Julius Caesar at Arles, I have seen him
work at the studio, but I don't think I have ever heard him
formulate a systematic statement on his art or attempt to de
* Gruet is a three-act play which Renoir wrote and produced in Paris. It
opened at the Theater of the Renaissance on March 12, 1955. Gallimard
has published the text. F.T.
124 JEAN RENOIR
fine his conception of directing. Not that he is put off by gen

eral concepts, quite the contrary; but as a rule his general state
ments of principle can be practically interpreted in numerous
ways. They delimit a morality rather than an aesthetic. The
following statement, written in 1952 after he had finished The
River, is illustrative:
Few people today can pretend to know where they are going.
Whether it is individuals, groups or nations, chance is their
guide. Those who advance toward a specific goal owe it to their
instinct more than to their intelligence . . . Men are tired of
wars, of sacrifices, of fear and of doubt. We have not arrived at
the age of great inspiration, but we are entering into an age of
goodwill. My comrades and I sensed this when we were in India,
even during the awful days when the Hindus and the Moslems
were killing one another. The smoke from the burning houses
did not stifle our confidence. We thought simply that these men
were behind the times.
All this is a bit vague. They are feelings which are difficult
to formulate. It is dangerous to write down that I think I sensed
these benevolent tendencies. If I am wrong, I will be laughed at;
but it is a risk I take confidently.
The text is indicative of what is both general and specific
in Renoir's creation. The work of art, be it a painting, a film,
or a play, should bring to man the spiritual nourishment which
he needs, albeit unconsciously. Awareness of this need and the
fertile anxiousness which results from it are Renoir's only in
terior directives. The specific aesthetic solutions are born un
foreseeably from the tension which exists between the funda
mental moral aims of the artist and the technical and human
resources which he has at his disposal. (Renoir likes to say that
in making a Bayeux tapestry Queen Matilda had no better rea
son for placing a knight in a given spot than the chance pres
ence of a certain clump of blue or green wool.)
One thing that Renoir reaffirms clearly every time he is
questioned about his work, and one thing that is obvious
through all his work from La Chienne to Grvel, is the prime
RENOIR AND THE THEATER' 125
importance of his actors. Not the actor per se, the super-mari
onette animated from the exterior to move with the precise
rhythm of the action, but the individual performer whose phys
ical and psychological qualities color the direction and can go
so far as to modify the meaning of the work itself.
Renoir wrote Gruet for Leslie Caron, whom he had met at
Charles Boyer's house in Hollywood. It was at a time when Re
noir probably more or less consciously wanted to try the thea
ter. The play is without question the product of this desire,
coupled with a childhood memory (an eleven-year-old girl he
had met in the Fontainebleau Forest) and the encounter with
Leslie. It is also a result of Renoir's desire to consider certain
moral verities with his audience. But in the final analysis, it is
Leslie Caron who made Gruet what it is. Renoir was perfectly
straightforward in telling me that for another actress the play
would have been considerably different. Specifically, what he
found so seductive in her was her voice and her way of pro
nouncing les bois with her mouth full of big round o's. He went
on to explain:
The little actresses from the dramatic art courses these days
have an impossible pronunciation. Perhaps it is the way they
are taught to pose their voices. Or maybe it is the result of the
lycee, but girls today almost all have the same sharp, affected
voice. And, strangely enough, it is above all the girls of common
background. It is frequently in the solid bourgeoisie that you
find from time to time a pleasant, natural voice. When I was
starting in Hollywood and had to make Swamp Water, the pro
duction director insisted that I hire Linda Darnell, on the pre
text that she came from peasant stock and was used to the coun
try. She is a good actress but her voice has nothing peasant
about it. I held out for Anne Baxter. She was unknown at the
time, and came from a perfectly bourgeois and urban back
ground, but she could talk like a farm girl.
So it is scarcely exaggerating to say that Renoir wrote
Gruet because of the way a young French dancer he met in
Hollywood had said les bwooah. She seemed to me indeed per
126 JEAN RENOIR
fect and sometimes sublime, without ever giving that composed

effect which the Conservatory seems to teach. Renoir knew just
how to direct her expressive body and her delicious voice. This
direction, along with her own dancing technique and sense of
spectacle, assured the perfect interpretation of a stylized, chore
ographed, half-real character. Only a dancer could pass as nat
urally as Leslie Caron from acting to the little ballet of the first
slippers.
The critics seemed to be expecting one of the greatest film
directors in the world to enter the theater and turn it upside
down in the name of the cinema. But Renoir certainly did not
come to the theater to make more movies. If he came with any
intention at all, it was to create a spectacle and to carryon a
dialogue with his public which would be perhaps a bit more
personal than was possible in the cinema.
In response to my insistent questions about why he turned
to the theater, Renoir offered only answers which would seem
laughable if their offhandedness did not hide a magnificent hu
mility which is more instructive than most manifestoes. Be
yond his desire to renew the dialogue with his audience, Re
noir perceived in his interest in the theater the need to face
new technical challenges. From the time when he abandoned
ceramics and turned to the cinema, up to perhaps the 1940s,
the language of the film was being created, its technique was
evolving. Inventing a style, the director ran into technical dif
ficulties. Surmounting them, he created his art. It now seems
to Renoir that the cinema offers no more obstacles to expres
sion. Even changing screens will not pose much of a problem.
The cinema has become a perfected medium in which only the
subject matter will count from now on.
In turning to the theater, which he scorned before the
war, Renoir has the impression that he is returning to an art
where material difficulties, the precariousness and uncertainty
of the medium itself, can still be sources of inspiration.
As for his way of conceiving a play, it can be deduced
from his cinematic past:
RENOIR AND THE THEATER 127
I realized [he wrote] that theater professionals expect that a play

be first of all a well-constructed dramatic machine, and they are
probably right to the extent that great works illustrate this prin
ciple, but personally I conceive my plays as I conceive my films,
not as the result of a plan, but the result of situations which
charm me and the creation of the actors who find themselves in
these situations. From another point of view, the theater is for
me a dialogue with the public, a way of telling the public things
which I hold dear and things which could move them, without
at the same time boring them. It seems to me that this was the
aim of Giraudoux as well, a man whom I knew and admired.
But Giraudoux worried little about theatrical production
as he wrote his plays. With Renoir, one always has the impres
sion that his creation is aimed at scenic rather than dramatic
effectiveness. Another thing that Renoir learned in the rehears
als for Orvet was that traditional theatrical direction is much
more worried about the placement and the movements of the
actors than it is about their expressions. Renoir believes, on the
contrary, that the actors' movements should be subordinated to
their expressions and flow directly from them. He did not direct
Orvet from the orchestra as is usually done, but from the stage
itself, as he would have done in a film studio.
If the theater is first of all a dialogue between the author
and the spectator with the actor as go-between, and if directing
is the art of making this dialogue effective-and I mean emo
tionally effective, the art of transforming the dialogue into an
act of friendship, of intimate persuasion-then Renoir seems to
me to have succeeded perfectly.
Orvet received a generally lukewarm reception. I saw the
play the night before the premiere with a full, paying house
and there was no mistaking its enthusiasm. The applause
stopped the action on several occasions, and there were six cur
tain calls. That particular public in any case responded to the
dialogue. They did not seem to think it necessary at all to ask
whether a dancer had the right to act without having studied
dramatic arts for three years. Leslie Caron seemed to them per
128 JEAN RENOIR
feet in the role and touching to the point of making them want
to cry. Nor did they wonder whether Gruel would have made a
good film, whether the play was written according to the rules
of the avant-garde, or whether a film maker had the right to be
familiar with Giraudoux and Pirandello. They did not reproach
him for having failed to choose between the real and dream
worlds but listened, charmed, to his music of words and beings
and marveled at the interweaving of themes and the harmony
of breaks in tone within the carefully preserved unity of style.
In short, they seemed to think that it was theater and good
theater at that.
CHAPTER
TEN
RENOIR'S THIRD PERIOD
French CanCan (1954)

Because of its subject matter and because Renoir seems to
have tried to make it a light and pleasant film without any
pretensions, French CanCan came to us with the reputation of a
tasteful divertissement. It was an entertainment which could
have been a failure, and at best promised only the rewards of a
minor and rather superficial subject. The film is based on sev
eral episodes from the life of Zidler (Danglard), the man who
created the Moulin Rouge on the site of the old Cabaret de la
Reine Blanche. From such a script we expect recreation of the
atmosphere on Montmartre during the belle epoque by a man
whose background is a double guarantee of good taste. And
French CanCan may indeed be considered as exactly that. But
by the same token, can it be said that Auguste Renoir's "Bal du
Moulin de la Galette" is nothing more than a diverting paint
ing inspired by a social pastime? If I invoke Renoir's father it
is not because the obvious plastic similarities between the film
and the painting demand a comparison, but because Renoir's is
the only film I have ever seen which is as successful as the
painting which inspired it in evoking the internal density of
the visual universe and the necessity of appearances that are
the foundation of any pictorial masterpiece.
130 JEAN RENOIR
Let there be no mistake. I mean that if Jean Renoir man

aged to create on the screen a visually satisfactory rendition
of a certain style of painting, it was never simply by a super
ficial copying of its formal elements but rather by placing him
self in an inspirational situation in which his course would
spontaneously conform to the Impressionist style. We have al
ready seen examples of this phenomenon in films such as A
Day in the Country and in certain sequences in The Crime of
M. Lange. But those earlier films, made in black and white, had
a built-in guarantee of originality. Color, on the other hand,
carries the awful risk of a literal copying from paintings. John
Huston's Moulin Rouge is a good example of a film which fell
into this trap. It is little more than a decorative and dramatic
rehash of the paintings which provided its sources.
It is no surprise that Renoir did not succumb to these
temptations. We expect nothing less of him. Only technical
considerations could have betrayed him-and in a way they
did. I saw an early copy of French CanCan which had not been
perfectly graded and several of the reels had a greenish hue to
them. But the internal balance of the shots was such that this
imperfection did not at all destroy their harmony. The same
phenomenon holds true for certain Impressionist paintings
which retain their beauty in spite of the fact that their colors
have turned with time. The pink tones of "Bal du Moulin de la
Galette," for example, have turned bluish with age, but the
painting's grace and harmony remain intact. The reason is that
any great painting is first of all a creation of the spirit which is
sustained by the spirit. It has an existence beyond its material
elements, which are only mediators. The disappearance or al
teration of a single one of these elements simply engenders a
spontaneous compensation, much as the human body tends to
compensate for loss or injury of an organ in an attempt to main
tain its vital equilibrium.
French CanCan seems to me to be more, however, than just
the successful integration of a static pictorial style with film,
for in film there is a new dimension: the dimension of time.
And I daresay that this movie is not only as successful as Re
RENOIR'S THIRD PERIOD 131
noir's painting; it is like a painting which exists in time and

has an interior development. This proposition suggests some
contradictions which should be taken care of immediately. If
true painting is not anecdotal (and Auguste Renoir's, above all,
certainly is not), then any temporal development of that paint
ing cannot be dramatic. The inestimable importance of French
CanCan lies in its implicit understanding of this logic and in its
original treatment of pictorial inspiration which at once fulfills
and casts new light on the evolution begun in Coach. In the
past we have probably praised films which freed themselves of
dramatic categories, but that was by way of affirming their lit
erary inspiration. In this case it is a question of an entirely dif
ferent aesthetic approach. The painting is only temporally
static in an objective sense. In fact, for the person who looks at
it, it represents a universe to discover and explore. This sort of
study takes time; so, practically speaking, the dimension of
time is indeed inherent in the painting. But if this painting
came to life, began to last, and to undergo changes affecting its
plastic equilibrium as well as its subject, it is clear that this
sort of objective time would not take the place of the subjective
time experienced by the viewer, but would on the contrary re
inforce it. And this is precisely the impression one has after
seeing French CanCan: that the movie exists in two modes of
duration at once, the objective mode of events and the subjective
mode of contemplating these events.
Gianni Esposito and Fnm<;oise Arnoul in French CanCan
132 JEAN RENOIR
A couple of examples will clarify what I mean. The first is

elementary. A certain shot in the film, taken from the outside
through a gable window, shows a young woman going about
her housework. The decor, the colors, the subject, the actress,
everything suggests a rather free evocation of Auguste Renoir,
or perhaps even more of Degas. The woman bustles about in
the half shadow of the room, then turning around, leans out of
the window to shake out her dustcloth. The cloth is bright yel
low. It flutters an instant and disappears. Clearly this shot,
which is essentially pictorial, was conceived and composed
around the brief appearance of this splash of yellow. It is
equally clear that the event is of neither dramatic nor anecdotal
significance. The flash of yellow remains purely pictorial, like
Corot's spot of red, but in eclipse.
It should be pointed out that to endow a painting with a
temporal dimension means more than creating an animated
picture. The animated films of MacLaren, Fishinger, and Len
Lye have given us an idea of what that can be. It is probable
that animated painting can only be abstract or very close to it:
essentially a system of forms in motion. Nor is Renoir trying to
achieve what Monet did with his grindstones or his series of
cathedrals. Impressionism led Monet almost to abstraction by
dissolving the subject in light.
Renoir's work is something quite different. It re-creates a
specific social universe, but the re-creation is mediated by the
greatest of the earlier historical portrayals of that universe,
those of Renoir, Lautrec, Degas. Renoir began with the vision
they had created of reality and then restored the dimension of
change and time. In other words, the painters took certain as
pects of their era and gave them pictorial immortality. Renoir
took this second, artistic reality and gave it life. Not the ob
jective, realistic life of the historian, but the potential, artistic
life, held prisoner in the painter's static medium.
This sort of aesthetic re-creation demands much more than
a simple faithfulness to forms. The film maker must follow not
the techniques of the painter, but his vision. The shooting
script from French CanCan is full of examples of how Renoir
French CanCan
succeeded in doing this. The second example I have chosen is

considerably more complex than the episode of the yellow dust
cloth. VVhat follows are the definitive stage directions describ
ing Mother Guibole's dance studio, where Danglard has just
presented his latest discovery, Nini, whom he hopes to make
into the star of the French cancan.
General Shot: What was once the living room of a bourgeois
home. Two windows overlooking the courtyard. One of them is
open. The piano. Two folding beds on which are seated two stu
dents looking over the lesson of the Conception. The lighting
comes from a lamp on the piano. A bedroom and a bathroom are
visible through an open door. A girl, perfectly indifferent to what
is going on, is taking a bath.
134
JEAN RENOIR
One of the girls on the folding bed, who is making hair curl
ers, turns as Danglard and Nini come in. The other keeps read
ing her novel. As she finishes each page, she tears it out and
hands it to her companion, who rolls it up as a curl paper.
Nini, a bit suspicious, like an Indian visiting a hostile tribe,
stands apart from the others. Danglard: "Good evening, Guibole
. . . In the middle of a bullfight?"
Are not these stage directions, the lighting notes, and
movements of the characters the description of a great compo
sition which could be titled "The Dancing Class" or perhaps
"Mother Guibole's Studio"? The composition includes a detail
which deserves comment: the girl in the tub. She appears in the
background through a half-open door, which she finally closes
with a rather nonchalant modesty. This could well have been a
subject dear to Auguste Renoir or to Degas. But the real affinity
with the painters does not lie in this specific reference. It is in
a much more startling phenomenon: the fact that for the first
time in the cinema the nude is not erotic but aesthetic. I mean
that the nude is presented to us here precisely as all the other
objects in the scene. As in painting, it is just another genre
alongside the still life and the portrait. The splendid objectiv
ity of Manet's "Picnic on the Grass" had implicitly denounced
the senile salaciousness of the academic painters who camou
flaged their concupiscence with mythological trappings, and
Renoir carried this revolution to the screen. Nudity did not re
gain the innocence of paradise, where temptation was not yet
sinfuL but was now touched by the serenity of art before which
all subjects are equal.
I saw French CanCan only once and frankly cannot recall
if the scene of the dancing school is handled in a single shot. It
is hardly important. Such scenes are often cut up into little
fragments which destroy, or rather ignore, the plastic balance
of the whole. Here, however, is further evidence that Renoir's
pictorial style is never formal and reconstituted from the ex
terior. but is a completely natural and integral element of his
When Baziu wrote this, in 1955, he did not know that Renoir himself
would makp a film entitlprl Picnic on the Grass four ypars later. F.T.
I
.
\i
RENOIR'S THIRD PERIOD'
135
direction. The camera does not film a re-created painting for us

(as in Moulin Rouge); it operates easily and naturally from
inside the painter's conception. Even if the scene were broken
down into a series of separate shots, none of them would neces
sarily recall the painting which inspired it, and yet the se
quence would derive no less directly from its pictorial source.
The sum of its parts would be the cinematic equivalent of the
painted original.
I have written that what forces us to admire the Japanese
cinema, even in its worst productions, is that it is always faith
ful to a refined and powerful culture. Western films, produced
in a culture where art and society have been divorced since the
nineteenth century, do not benefit from this resource of cultural
unity. Renoir, however, is an exception to this rule. He repre
sents a brilliant marriage of culture and art. He brings together
both individual cinematic genius and the infallibility of a cul
ture, or at least of one of the highest aspects of Western cul
ture, its painting. Renoir is Impressionism multiplied by the
CInema.
Jacques Rivette pointed out to me that, unlike those who
think that to be inspired by painting means to compose a shot
imitating a painting and then bring it to life, Renoir starts from
a nonpictorial arrangement and cuts when the framing of a
scene has evoked a painting. Take. for example, the admirable
shot where Fran<;oise Arnou} crosses the entire set to sit at the
foot of the column right in front of the camera. Suddenly it is a
Degas, but the scene shifts immediately. Renoir never starts
from a painting, he ends there.
French CanCan is based on the birth of the Moulin Rouge

under the guiding hand of an energetic cabaret director. By
studying the romantic intrigues of the diverse people who gravi
tated to the new night spot, Renoir manages to evoke the various
aspects of Parisian society, or at least that part of Parisian society
immortalized in the Impressionist paintings of the turn of the
century. It is clear what this art has in common with Renoir's
ethic: it affirms precisely that extremes come together and that
136
JEAN RENOIR
vulgarity exists only in form and is not a question of subject

matter. The Count de Toulouse-Lautrec was the perfect incar
nation of an aristocracy whose extreme self-consciousness had
thrown it into the lower depths, not to deny itself or to flee from
itself, but on the contrary to find at the bottom of the scale the
essential dignity which the nobility at the top was lacking.
Painting became the symbol and the guarantee of that nobility:
La Goulue was worthy of the Mona Lisa or the Venus de Milo.
In the same way Renoir professes that there is no hierarchy in
the performing arts and that only love of one's art and profes
sional skill make the difference between a street singer and an
opera tenor. The only hierarchy is determined by talent and
heart.
We have seen that Impressionist painting-even more
than its contemporary, the naturalistic novel-was the best
expression of this popular dignity in the eyes of the artist. It is
important once again to recall that Jean Renoir is the son of
Auguste Renoir, whose favorite model was his maid. The moral
and social lesson joins the artistic education. French CanCan is
the film of a man who knows Impressionist painting better
than anyone. He is not simply an admirer of the works, he
knew the movement from the inside and was an intimate friend
of its creators. Even as a child he must have been influenced by
the artistic climate of the time. And now Jean Renoir has
reached the age when a mature sensibility likes to return to its
sources. French CanCan represents such a return. I cannot im
agine a more perfect homage to Auguste Renoir.
:.I
,
f..
~
Paris Does Strange Things (1956)

Jean Renoir is rare among the world's great directors in
that each new film he makes is startling in its originality and
yet also profoundly faithful to the same inspiration which ani
mated its predecessors. Only Chaplin intrigues and surprises us
as much in this way. Renoir's mastery, confirmed once again in
lJ
r.,
137
Paris Does Strange Things, in no way hampers his youthful au

dacity and willingness to take risks.
While the normal instinct of a successful film maker is, if
not to imitate himself, then to try to perfect and deepen the
themes and forms which made his original success, Renoir
seems concerned only with questioning his most secure accom
plishments. Not from any primordial instinct for formal renewal,
nor from any desire simply to astonish people. And certainly
not from any obstinate singlemindedness. On the contrary, all
the reports on his work indicate that his weakness (if it is one)
is rather to be more open than most to suggestions-even from
producers. If necessary Renoir has adapted and will adapt to
the most varied working conditions. The fact is that Renoir
sees novelty as an essential part of artistic creation, that his
passion for novelty is at the very source of his inspiration,
and that this passion is strong enough to accommodate a wide
range of practical contingencies. However, the result can be
disconcerting for his audience, especially when it thinks it rec
ognizes familiar landmarks in a completely unknown terrain.
Also like any great artist Renoir is obsessed by a thematic strain,
which is expressed in both form and content. Thus we find in
Paris the theme of the "party at the chateau," obviously revived
from The Rules of the Game but transposed into a new climate
with a different significance. The result is that this recognition
perplexes more than it comforts.
And it is undoubtedly for this reason that Paris Does
Strange Things has excited as much controversy as admiration.
Few films could provoke the critics to a greater variety of posi
tions. Worse, or perhaps even better, no two admirers of the
film like it for the same reasons, and I am not even sure that I
myself will not like and dislike different things in it the third
time I see it than I did the first two times.
This indicates, among other things, that Renoir is more
of an artist than any other film maker. I mean that with him
the forms are less determined by intellectual principles or aes
thetic systems. Not that Renoir hesitates to formulate ideas on
art and morality, and not that one cannot in a sense consider
138 .
JEAN RENOIR
his works as the expression of a continuing ethical meditation

pursued throughout his life-but clearly his ideas are the con
sequence of a strictly artistic inspiration. At the level of crea
tion where this film belongs, invention could only proceed, in
the last analysis, from an implicit morality; but this morality
can only be embodied in aesthetic forms. The ideas which the
film formulates are little more than precarious and provisional
buttresses, intended merely to prop up the artistic construction.
Renoir has never been known to shrink from contradicting
himself, and there is more than one inconsistency in Paris
Does Strange Things. But it does not take a great deal of famil
iarity with Renoir's work to see beyond the relatively opportu
nistic use of ideas to the distant point of convergence where
order is established and incongruity vanishes. This is why Re
noir should be credited only with the profound and revealing
ideas and the others should be dismissed. For example, there
is a speech in Paris Does Strange Things which I continue to
find extremely weak even after a second viewing: the one in
which Henri tells the princess that in a country where love is
so important (France) the dangers of politics, and particularly
of personal power, could never be very serious. As if the Italians.
for instance, had no interest in love' It would have been much
better to eliminate these clumsy lines and let the admirable
mise en schze of this sequence speak for itself. Happily. the
true significance of Renoir's sensual lyricism goes well beyond
this sort of naIvely demagogic pronouncement.
In Paris Does Strange Things Renoir took the risk of treat
ing a serious subject lightly. The irony of this approach was
compounded by the internal contradictions of the subject itself.
Boulangisme* could have turned into a tragedy rather than an
operetta, but the decisive fact was that in the end the saber
rattling general was more interested in his mistress than he was
in power. Nevertheless. if Paris Does Strange Things had been
a historicaL political, or social film, Renoir's position would be
* Boulangismc: a right-wing political movement of the 1880s led rather
ambivalently by General Georges Boulanger, the prototype of the pro
tagonist in Renoir's film. Trans.
Pierre Bertin and Ingrid Bergman in Paris Does Strange Things

untenable, even distasteful, in the same way as the unfortunate
bit of dialogue mentioned above. But the film is an advance in
the same tradition as The Rules of the Game. It is concerned
only with morality; that is, morality in the broadest sense: the
concern with illustrating through a story, with its rhythms
and characters, a certain attitude toward the problems of life.
Renoir has said that the subject of Paris is Venus, and in
this light the film can be seen as an illustration of both the
sovereignty and the fallibility of the goddess. Throughout his
life General Rollan is torn between glory and love. His friends
who know him well understand that the only solution is to
bring the two forces together, and so they persuade a beautiful
140 JEAN RENOIR
Polish princess to become his political adviser. Elena. who really

loves a charming friend of Rollan's whom she has met at a
military parade, is so excited by her mission that she compro
mises her true love. The denouement-which takes place. not
coincidentally. in a bordello-restores everyone to his proper
partner. Rollan allows his mistress to take him away. and Henri
recovers Venus after she loses her prey.
It is not that Renoir has shrunk from political commen
tary. but his satire of manners inevitably focuses exclusively
on the moral element in the historical tableau. The human
fauna surrounding General Rollan illustrate in dazzling color
the entire gamut of political arrivisme, and the Caran d'Ache
style* caricature is pushed to an even greater extreme here than
in French CanCan. But far more than the political regime. it is
the idiosyncrasies of character which interest Renoir. The sec
ondary characters are all puppets carefully manipulated within
the limits of their stereotypes. Renoir is no more interested in
psychological realism than he is in historical accuracy. and it
would be a great mistake to look for verisimilitude or psycho
logical consistency in his protagonists. Each one acts. not ac
cording to a specific character endowed him by Renoir. hut
rather within the framework of the artistic conventions he in
vokes. and it is these conventions which once again suggest a
particular approach to life.
Certainly this is completely traditional. at least in the
perspective of literature and particularly dramatic literature.
Neither Moliere nor Racine was a psychologist in the nine
teenth-century sense. Yet these days the cinema feels compelled
to bedeck itself with the trappings of psychology. From this
point of view Renoir's freedom of action in regard to his charac
ters might well seem incongruous. Nevertheless. Renoir finds
his own references and meanings. Like Rene Clair. although
with a completely different temperament, he is fascinated by
the audacious style of the early slapstick comedies. Rejecting
Caran d' Ache was the pseudonym of the artist Emmanuel Poin" whos('
caricatures of major political figur0s ilppear0d in tl\(' French pr0ss in the
late nin0t0enth century. Trans.
Lj.1
the varied and subtle perspectives of psychology, he is not

afraid to push his players to an extravagant acting style which
is at once tragic and comic. It is in this single, flat dimension
that the truth asserts itself so forcefully. It was because I didn't
understand this that I originally thought Diary of a Chamber
maid a failure. Its sociological and psychological improbabili
ties, emphasized by the Hollywood technical realism, seemed
inexcusable. I recently took another look at this admirable film,
and found it one of Renoir's most beautifuL one of those which
most precisely incarnate his aesthetic aims. Everything which
had originally shocked me now appeared to be the very essence
of a film whose extraordinary audacity is to venture so far at
the same time into the tragic burlesque and the comic bur
lesque: Tire au Flanc and La Chiemze simultaneously.
Paris Does Strange Things is probably, along with Diary.
Renoir's most daring film in terms of the direction of the actors.
The entire tune of the work, its intimate rhythms, depend on it.
Here the paradox lies in the synthesis of the quasi-burlesque
style, which is much closer to farce than to music-hall comedy.
with a highly refined, delicate, and subtle observation of detail.
There is no film with a more complex structure than this "mu
sical fantasy" in which each shot is an extraordinary lesson in
mise en scene. The abundance of group shots and the rarity of
close-ups arc only the most superficial characteristics of this
amazing style. I would call attention, in particular, to the re
markable ingenuity of the sound track.
Finally, however, I must admit that Paris Does Strm/{!;c
Things leaves me with, if not disappointment, a certain regret
in the fact that Renoir seems here for the first time to have
abandoned that dialectic between the comic and the bitter, the
gay and the serious, which is one of the surest signs of his ge
nius. This becomes apparent when it is compared to almost any
scene from The Crime of M. Lange, such as the dialogue on the
bench between Rene Lefevre and Nadia Sihirskaia, from The
Lower Depths, or from the violently contrasted Diary of a
Chambermaid. In this respect French CanCan, though less per
fect in other ways, seems to me more faithful to the body of Re
142 JEAN RENOIR
noir's work in its passages of tenderness that turns suddenly ex

cruciating. But then perhaps I am wrong and the director of
Paris did well to maintain the tone of optimism and fantasy
throughout the film, precisely because the subject offered him
innumerable opportunities to turn toward bitterness.
It can he argued that Paris is less than perfect. One might
find that the third part drags a little and that it lacks the com
pelling verve of the first two, although after a second viewing
I no longer think so. There are two or three mistakes in casting.
The sad Greco could never make a gay gypsy. Mel Ferrer.
hadly duhbed, is not very convincing in the major supporting
role. But the rest of the large, varied, and talented cast more
than makes up for these relative weaknesses. The leads are ad
mirable. Jean Marais marvelously incarnates his character. and
Ingrid Bergman, by no means an ohvious choice for Elena,
never permits us, once the film begins, to imagine her other
WIse.
The Wisdom of .lean Renoir

Jean Renoir is still the greatest living French film direc
tor. His superiority cannot he disputed. It is confirmed not only
hy the quality of his work but by its variety, from La Chiemze
to The Golden Coach, from The Crime of M. Lange to The
River, from Grand Illusion to The Southerner, from Diary of
a Chambermaid to Paris Does Strange Things, to say nothing of
The Lower Depths, A Day in the Country, or The Woman on
the Beach. Jean Renoir has never ceased, in the course of a long
but completely uncompromising career, to search and to renew
himself.
Renoir is one of the few talented directors who have not
heen trapped by their own success and been doomed to spend
their later lives trying merely to repeat their initial triumphs.
He has known how to adjust to the evolution of the cinema and
the tastes of his contemporaries hecause the impulse for self
renewal is an integral part of his genius. At the time of a recent
Anna Magnani and Jean Renoir during the filming of The Golden
Coach
revival in Paris of Toni, Renoir wrote: "Today I am going
through a period in my life in which I am trying to get away
from surface realism and to find a more controlled style, closer
to what we call 'classic.' This is not to say that I repudiate
Toni, but rather that I am the victim of my spirit of contradic
tion. "
Renoir's entire career has been marked by this sort of self
contradiction. In 1938, for example, he wrote:
"Man, even more than by his race, is shaped by the soil
that nourishes him, by the living conditions that fashion his
body and his mind, and by the countryside that parades before
his eyes day in and day out. . . . A Frenchman, living in
144
JEAN RENOIR
France, drinking red wine and eating Brie cheese against gray
Parisian vistas, can only create a work of merit if he draws on
the traditions of people who have lived as he has."
But in 1940 Renoir left the Ile de France for sunny Cali
fornia, where he made five films which owe nothing to the gray
Parisian vistas. One of his most incontestable masterpieces, The
River, was made in India with a sympathy for a civilization
which was not even Occidental. After returning to Europe, he
made The Golden Coach in Rome. And while French CanCan
and Paris Does Strange Things were made in Paris, these films,
inspired by Impressionist painting and made in studios, have
only an indirect relation to the grayness of the French skies
which lit the images of A Day in the Country. This sort of
anomaly gives some idea of how difficult it is to analyze his
talent. Yet for all its apparent contradictions, few bodies of
cinematic work demonstrate such unity. Let us try then, despite
the obstacles, to propose a few guidelines.
First of all, unlike a Rene Clair, whose methodical intelli
gence always dominates his working conditions, Renoir is the
most easily influenced of directors. His inspiration, though essen
tially faithful to a central core of feeling, needs to nourish itself
on the human milieu which surrounds it before it can take form.
The climate of friendliness in which his French films were
made is well known, and has left unforgettable memories with
those who worked with him. It was not uncommon, for ex
ample, for writer or technician friends to take small roles here
and there in the films of this period. For Renoir, making a film
was always a pleasant occasion, a game in which everyone was
supposed to have a good time. The climate of fraternity which
reigned within his company eventually established itself be
tween the film and the spectators, for it was always Renoir's
desire to elicit from the public not admiration but a sense of
complicity, a friendly connivance quite foreign to the mechani
cal impersonality of the medium. In this way Renoir's films
have something in common with the theater: they demand that
we enter into the game.
In addition, the creator of The Rules of the Game is by na
1.iS
ture an improviser incapable of following a work plan (al

though he carefully prepares one). The final appearance of the
set, and particularly the actors as they assume their roles, always
spurs his imagination at the last minute. Like his father the
painter, Renoir the director works more or less on impulse, and
this is what accounts for the communicative fervor, the direct
and personal character of all his films.
Renoir's sensitivity to his surroundings extends beyond his
immediate environment to include the entire society in which
he lives. His French films, particularly the ones of the immedi
ate prewar period, provide a profound and lively commentary
on the France of the day. The Crime of M. Lange, for example,
came out of the atmosphere of the Popular Front. whose hopes,
and perhaps also its naivete. it brilliantly portrays. But cer
tainly Renoir made his first social commentary in 1938 with
The Rules of the Game. In this film, so extraordinarily auda
cious in subject. story. and technique, Renoir gave to French art
on the threshold of the war something comparable to what The
/Vlarriage of Figaro had been to the French Revolution. Not that
this story of love in a chateau at Sologne. inspired by Beau
marchais. MusseL and perhaps Marivaux, has anything to say
about politics; rather, it implicitly translates the entire crisis of
consciousness of a civilization on the verge of destruction.
The great success of The Rules of the Game has tended to
compound a critical misunderstanding, however. It has often
been said that the essence of Renoir's French work lies in its
social realism. Renoir himself. in the examples cited above.
seemed to confirm this notion. It is this idea which accounts
for the unfavorable prejudice with which Renoir's American
work has been received in France. Indeed. we are unable to find
intimate social truth in the work of the exiled. transplanted
Renoir. But this is because Renoir has passed beyond this con
tingent reality to pursue another goal, or perhaps the same goal
but now stripped of the dimension of social circumstance. Renoir
has become a moralist.
Renoir's emigration did not cause him. as some critics have
too hastily concluded. to lose his taste for social realism. It
146
JEAN RENOIR
simply enlar~ed his human perspectives and deepened his moral

preoccupations. Transcending the varied categories of race and
nation, Renoir has come a little closer to mankind.
Similarly, Renoir's later French films, despite their super
ficial differences in style and subject (many owing to the ex i
~encies of color and costume drama), are permeated by the ~reat
themes which characterize all his work.
If the social and historical commentary of The Rules of the
Game retains its force today, it is hecause it emhodies a moral
messa~e. a vision of man, love. and happiness. Essentially The
Rules of the Game is a dazzlin~ variation on the theme of true
and f<llse nobility, which is not <l m<ltter of hlood hut of the
heart. I find the same message, which was already apparent in
Grand Illusion, refined <lnd polished with age in French Can
Can. where we learn also that all vulgarity comes from the
soul. A ra~picker who knows what she is talkin~ <lbout assures
us that Dan~lard. the proprietor of the "Caf-Conc'" (caharet)
is "a prince." Furthermore, is not the French caJ1(~<ln itself a
denia1 of the hierarchy of ~enres. an example of vulgarity tr<lllS
figured hy <lrt? The lesson of Impressionism which Renoir so
beautifully paraphrased here is not only plastic. Toulouse
Lautrec in immortalizin~La Goulue or Auguste Renoir offerin~
the fi~ure of his maid for the admiration of posterity proved
th<lt there is <lS much nohility and ~race in such humble models
as in the Venus de Milo.
The other ~reat lesson which Jean Renoir may owe to his
father is <In infallihle <lppreciation of the quality of the im<l~e.
the worship of vision and <lll else which comes to us through the
senses. The entire work of Jean Renoir is <In ethic of sensualitv;
not the affirmation of an anarchic rule of the senses or of an
unrestrained hedonism, but the assurance that all he<luty. all
wisdom. <lnd even all intelli~ence live only through the testi
mony of the senses. To understand the world is ahove all to
know how to look at it and to make it abandon itself to vour love
under the caress of your eye.
.

PART TWO
((Memories" by Jean Renoir

I reprinted from Le Point, XVIII, December 1938]
I have loved the cinema since the year 1902. I was eight years
old and boarding in a sort of elegant prison which passed for a
school. One Sunday morning an individual who looked like a
photographer came into the parlor dragging behind him a lot of
queer-looking equipment. It was the cinematographer. He was
wearing a floppy bow tic and artist's pants. and had a pointed
goatee. For more than an hour we watched him set up his pro
jector, tryout his acetylene lamp, and place his screen. all with
the help of two assistants. Then the show began. The camera
man showed us a few shots which he had taken around Paris. I
remember that these pictures seemed confused to me at first.
probably not because of the quality of the photography but be
cause of the fact that I was not used to them. But children. like
savages, accustom themselves to films quite rapidly. and after a
few minutes I understoocl what was happening. My schoolmates
understood also, and we started naming out loud the areas of
the city which we recognized.
Next we were shown a comic film, Les Aventures d'Auto
Maboul ("The Adventures of Auto-Nut"). Auto-Maboul was
dressed in a goatskin driving cape, the hair of which had been
starched in such a way that they poked out cantankerously in
every direction. An enormous cap and gigantic pair of goggles
rounded out the accouterments of this grotesque hedgehog. He
149
150 JEAN RENOIR
was trying to get his car started in front of a garage. His efforts
were fruitless, producing nothing but great clouds of smoke, ex
plositions, and backfirings. Suddenly the car started up in reverse
all by itself. It stopped just in front of a terrified passer-by, then
took off again at top speed in forward. As the car passed by, Auto
Maboul managed to scramble behind the wheel, getting all
tangled up in his goatskin in the process. The film faded out as
the car and its driver were disappearing into a pool of water.
I would give almost anything to see that program again.
That was real cinema, much more than the adaptation of a
novel by Georges Ohnet or a play by Victorien Sardou can ever
be.
My second step on the way to the movies was a showing of
lVJysteries of New York during the war. I think it was at the
American Cinema, Place Pigalle. I was a flyer, and when I re
turned to my squadron I excitedly recounted the entire story to
my comrades. My enthusiasm earned me the nickname "Elaine
Dodge."
My friends were soon bitten by the bug themselves, and
they too became avid fans of the film's heroine. Later I met the
actress herself, a solid American woman who could not have
been nicer, not at all up in the clouds.
My third story is more important. It too dates from the war.
Let's call it "the revelation of Charlie." lowe it to the farsight
edness of one of my friends in the squadron. He had been greatly
affected by Chaplin's first films and was convinced that the
cinema was going to play an important role in the future devel
opment of nations. He went so far as to predict that movies
would one day be judged by high-class critics, just like theater,
poetry, novels, and music. My friend's father shared these
views. This prophetic father ~as none other than Professor
Richer.
The years after the war were a sort of golden age for film
lovers. It was the great age of the American film. The big thea
ters looked down on the American movies and preferred to show
pretentious nonsense awkwardly acted by worn-out old actors
or else the totally ridiculous Italian films. The Americans found
"MEMORIES" BY JEAN RENOIR' 151
their audiences in the little theaters, which were very cheap. We

got to see two or three films per show and the program changed
twice a week. Sometimes for months at a time I would go to the
movies three times a day. That meant that by the time I went
to bed I had absorbed seven or eight films, fifty by the end of the
week, and about two hundred after a month.
The idea of working in the cinema did not occur to me. It
seemed to me impossible to do anything worthwhile in France.
Weren't the American films I loved so much. and the actors who
transported me, scorned and even totally ignored by most of our
critics? How could L who dreamed timidly of following in their
footsteps, but never hoped to equal them. how could I have con
ceived of having the slightest chance of success in this pedes
trian country of mine? As for actually going to America, I
never would have had the gall to even consider such a utopian
scheme.
One day at the Coliseum I saw Le Brasier Ardent, directed
and acted by Mosjoukine and produced by the courageous Alex
ander Kamenka of Albatros Films. The audience howled and
whistled, shocked by a film so different from their usual pap. I
was ecstatic. Finally, I had before me a good French film. Of
course it had been made by Russians, but in Montreuil, in a
French atmosphere, a French climate. The film was released in a
reputable theater. not successfully, but at least it had been
released.
I decided to abandon my job, ceramics, and to try to make
mOVIes.
My first efforts are. in my opinion, without interest. They
are only worthwhile at all because of Catherine Hessling's act
ing. She was a fantastic actress, much too fantastic for timid
French merchants. That is why she disappeared. NaIvely and
laboriously, I struggled to imitate my American masters. I had
not yet learned that, even more than by his race. man is shaped
by the soil that nourishes him, by the living conditions that
fashion his body and his mind, and by the countryside that pa
rades before his eyes day in and day out. I did not yet know that
a Frenchman, living in France, drinking red wine and eating
Ui2 . JEAN RENOIR
Brie cheese against gray Parisian vistas, can only create a work
of merit if he draws on the traditions of people who have lived
as he has.
The only benefit 1 derived from these first naIve works was
a fairly good knowledge of the use of the camera. of lighting, of
set design. and above all of special effects. I became skilled at
making models: constructing a landscape to scale or a miniature
street was a real pleasure for me.
1 went to the movies less then. because I no longer had the
time. And my taste was no longer exclusively for American
films. Perhaps it was just to be contrary, because by that time
the snobs had discovered and claimed them. It was also because
having become a film maker myself. I was becoming aware of
the flaws in the American products.
It was a great stroke of luck that in 1924 brought me into
a theater which was showing Erich von Stroheim's Foolish
"Vives. This film astounded me. I must have seen it at least ten
times. Destroying my most cherished notions. it made me realize
how wrong I had been. Instead of idly criticizing the public's
supposed lack of sophistication. I sensed that I should try to
reach the audience through the projection of authentic images
in the tradition of French realism. I began to look around me
and was amazed to find quantities of subjects both intrinsically
French and perfectly adaptable to the screen. I began to realize
that the movement of a scrubwoman. of a vegetable vendor. of
a girl combing her hair before a mirror. frequently had superb
plastic value. I decided to make a study of French gesture as re
flected in the paintings of my father and the other artists of his
generation. Then, inspired by my new discoveries, I made my
first film worth talking a bout. N ana, from Emile Zola' s novel.
I saw Nana again a couple of years ago. There is a great
sincerity in its awkwardness. When one is young. and constantly
attacked and scorned as I was, it is natural to take refuge in a
certain pretentiousness. That is apparent in Nana. But, however
that may be, I still like the film. And one of the greatest mo
ments in my life occurred three or four years ago in l\10scow
when a Russian friend of mine introduced me at a convention.
I
\
"MEMORIES" BY JEAN RENOIR
153
The members of the audience, who scarcely knew my name,

started cheering for myoId Nana!
N ana was one of the first films to have a run of several
weeks in one of the boulevard theaters; it commanded a very
good price for the time, and the sale of the foreign rights
brought a price that we would be happy to get now. In spite of
all that, the film was a commercial disaster. I lost everything I
had, down to the very last cent. What I earned was a healthy
respect for the power of the big producers. I was convinced that
as long as they held sway, an independent movie maker could
do nothing on his own.
I learned something else too: that the cinema, like any
other profession, is a special milieu and that for an outsider to
make his way in is not simply a question of ideas or attitudes;
it is a question of language, dress, habits. History teaches us that
great transformations in peoples and organisms come from
within. My mistake was not starting out as one of the insiders
in the film world.
I found work and made a series of insignificant films on
commission. They were not successful, but the producers were
happy. They said my work was "commercial." In cinema jar
gon, a commercial film is not one which necessarily makes
money, but one which is conceived and executed according to
the businessmen's standards.
I should like nevertheless to point out two exceptions in my
work of the period. The first is La Petite Marchande d'Allu
mettes, which was an excellent opportunity to perfect my techni
cal knowledge. The other is Tire au Flanc, a silent version played
by the dancer Pomies and the actor Michel Simon, and which has
nothing to do with Bach's Tire au Flanc. I made La Petite Mar
chande d'Allumettes with Jean Tedesco in a tiny studio we had
fixed up in the attic of the Vieux-Colombier Theater. The rea
son we were forced to set up our own studio was that we were
convinced of the need to switch from orthochromatic to pan
chromatic negative film, and the industry was not ready to
change over.
I had been able to convince the studios I was working for
154
,I
I
t
JEAN RENOIR
to use very fast lenses, which yielded pictures on orthochromatic

film similar to what we get now. Now everyone uses these
lenses, the Cook 2 for example; but at the time it was a real
struggle to get the people to buy them and even more difficult
to convince them to use them.
Ironically, I have now turned against these lenses. For one
thing. highly sensitive modern emulsions and advanced labora
tories have done away with the need for such wide lens aper
tures. Another consideration draws me away from these lenses:
the farther I advance in my profession, the more I am inclined
to shoot in deep focus. The more I work, the more I a bandon
confrontations between two actors neatly set up before the
camera, as in a photographer's studio. I prefer to place my char
acters more freely, at different distances from the camera. and
to make them move. For that I need great depth of field. and it
is my feeling that this sharpness is more pleasing when it is
achieved with a lens made for deep focus, rather than with a
shallower lens which has been stopped down.
The style of photography popular in France in 1925 was
unnaturally harsh, and I was deeply opposed to the number of
shadows on people's faces. If I chose to use fast lenses at that
time. it was because they offered the obvious advantage of
allowing me to use fewer lights and thereby to simplify the
problem of unnatural shadows.
But let us get back to the Vieux-Colombier. Tedesco and I,
along with some other friends. had constructed a ligbting sys
tem which is the ancestor of all such systems used today. The
system was characterized by slightly stepped-up light bulbs. We
placed these bulbs either in metal reflectors, or in front of
painted surfaces, which yielded a softer light. or in front of
spotlight mirrors. by themselves or in groups. exactly as is done
today. \Ve kept a few arc lights so that we would still be able to
tbrow great shadows on the actors or the sets if we wanted to.
Of course the studio technicians did not give a hoot about wbat
we were doing. but we were confident because other technicians
like myoid master Ralleigh and the engineer Richard approved
of our experiments. The current for all these bulbs came from u
155
power plant which we had arranged ourselves. It ran on a motor

from a wrecked car, which was cooled with water from the tap.
We conceived and executed our own sets, our own cos
tumes, and our own models as well. In addition, we developed
and printed our own film. So it was that in the course of a year
we practiced on a very small scale all the specialized skills of
our profession. The result was a film no worse than the next,
which boasted some fantasy scenes that interested the public
and photography by Jean Bachelet that was truly dazzling. Un
fortunately, a rather silly lawsuit* cut short our career and
doomed our workshop to failure.
As for Tire au Flanc, it was a commercial-type film, made
rapidly and with limited funds. I had the good fortune in this
film to introduce Michel Simon, who was already the great
actor that he is today. And I remember the collahoration with
the dancer Pomics, who was to die soon thereafter, as a pleasant
episode in my career. Making this partly tragic, partly whimsi
cal burlesque, with no clear relation to the play it was taken
from, gave me great satisfaction.
We arrive at last at the event which more than any other
marked the lives of all those trying to make a living in films:
the release of The Jazz Singer. The success of this film upset all
esta hlished standards. The French, hesitantly at first and then
enthusiastically, started making sound pictures. I would have
liked to do as everyone else was doing, but I was classified once
and for all as a director of silent dramas and as an enemy of the
theater. As a result I was not welcome in the new profession,
which set a bout filming successful stage productions word for
word.
I had to wait almost two years before I got my chance. Dur
ing this time the entire commercial edifice on which the
industry had heen huilt came crashing down. The cause was
simple. Before the talkies there had been a surplus of films. Prac
tically all foreign films had been adapted for the French public
simply by the addition of suhtitles. As a result the theater own
ers had had great power. Sound changed all that because the
See page 215. Trans.
156 .
JEAN RENOIR
language itself became a barrier which kept out the foreign

products and protected ours. The producers replaced the theater
owners as the captains of the industry.
The foreign film-makers opened the battle. It did not take
them long to find an effective weapon in dubbing. As for the
producers, they overinvested after they saw the first miraculous
receipts from the talkies and soon fell back into the hands of the
middlemen, that is to say. the distributors. That is approxi
mately the situation today. It is safe to say that, with perhaps
a few rare exceptions, the French film industry belongs to
those who managed to step in between the men making the
films and the people willing to pay to see them. They risk little
or nothing and are sure to profit at every turn.
My first talking film was a sort of test. People didn't trust
me. So I had to prove myself. I managed to get On Purge Bebe,
based on Georges Feydeau's play. The film is not much. I shot
it in only four days. Even so, it is more than 2,000 meters long.
It cost the producer less than 200,000 francs and earned more
than a million.
I probably did well to start out with a modest film. It is
likely that I would have regretted it if I had made my debut in
sound with a more ambitious project. It was the age of bad
sound. The props and the sets were arranged around the mikes
with an unbelievable naivete. These practices annoyed me. and
to show how dissatisfied I was, I decided to record the flushing
of a toilet. It was a kind of revolutionary act which did more for
my reputation than a dozen brilliantly filmed scenes ever could
have. The most respected scientific and artistic figures from the
great sound companies declared that it was an "audacious inno
vation." After such a stroke I could no longer be refused the job
that I had been after for a year: the chance to make La Chienne,
based on La Fouchardiere's novel.
In La Chienne I must admit that I was ruthless and unbear
able. I made the film as I wanted, as I understood it, without the
slightest regard for the wishes of the producer. I never showed
him a single page of my shooting script or a word of the dia
logue, and I arranged it so the rushes would remain unavailable
.1
\
\
I
I
I
I
157
until the film was completed. That was when the scandal broke.
The producer, who had been expecting a vaudeville, found him
self with a serious drama on his hands, a pessimistic story re
volving around a murder.
I was kicked out of the studio and barred from my editing
room. Every time I tried to get in, they called the police. Fi
nally, after the producer had tried to have the film re-edited
the way he wanted it and had realized that his ideas would not
work. he decided that perhaps it would be best to let me go ahead
after all. I was allowed back into my editing room and managed
to repair most of the damage. The film was released first in
Nancy. where it met with unprecedented disaster. Apparently
the audiences had been led to expect an uproarious comedy. I
insisted that all future publicity faithfully reflect the mood of
the film. A courageous distributor in Biarritz did just that and
presented the film with good success. It was then decided to re
lease the picture in Paris, at the Colisee. It ran for several weeks.
giving me ample opportunity to enjoy the pleasant atmosphere
of a critical battle similar to that which had accompanied the
release of Nana.
Unfortunately for me, this fight gave me the reputation of
being difficult to get along- with. and I had a hard time finding
work afterward. I was supposed to be impossible to work with.
capable of perpetrating the worst outrages upon the persons of
directors hapless enough to disagree with me. I got along as
best I could, making occasional poor films. until Marcel Pagnol
gave me the opportunity to make Toni.
I saw Toni as the chance to really direct and to get free of
the stupid conformism which afflicts so many of the people who
run our industry. In short. Toni represented for me that liberty
of esprit de corps without which no one in the world is capablC'
of doing good work.
I learned a lot from Toni. This film gave me thC' courage
necessary to try new thing'>. to move in new directions.
Next I made The Crime of /iiI. Lanr;e, La Vie Est (1 Nous.
The Lower Depths, Grand Illusion. La Marseillaise. and I have
just finished The Human Beast. I do not know whether these
-
158
,JEAN RENOIR
films are good or bad. In my humble opinion, it is without im

portance. What I know is that I am beginning to understand
how one should work. I know that I am French and that I must
work in an absolutely national vein. I know also that in doing
this. and only in doing this. can I reach people from other na
tions and act for international understanding.
r know that the American cinema will collapse because it
is no longer American. r know too that we must not spurn the
foreigners who come to us with their knowledge and talent; we
must absorb them. It is a practice which has served us rather
well from Leonardo da Vinci all the way to Picasso. I believe
that the cinema is not so much an industry as people would have
us believe and that the fat men with their money. their graphs,
and green felt tables are going to fall on their faces. Film mak
ing is a skilled trade and it is craftsmen grouped together for
their own protection that will perhaps make French cinema the
best in the world. Knowing that. I feel that I still have every
thing to do in a profession which.. if it were free. could add so
much to our understanding of men and things.
The First Version
if
The Crime of M. Lange
This first version of The Crime of M. Lange was written before

Jacques Prevert arrived to collaborate on the scenario.
The two main characters, Lange and Batala (here called Ca
thala), are already well established, as are the essential elements of
the social commentary and of the detective-story plot. The tentative
title, "The Rise of M. Lange," foreshadows Brecht's The Irresistible
Rise of Arturo Ui of six years later. It is obvious that this first draft
overlooks the possibility of unifying the film by grouping all the
characters around the same courtyard: the concierges, the washer
women, the employees at the press. Mlle. Marion will become the
washerwoman, Florelle (Nadia Sibirskaia). Messrs. Buisson and
Meunier (the son) will become less important, and Pietrini will dis
appear altogether as the female characters and the amorous intrigues
take on added significance in the final version. Renoir's film is almost
here. It awaits the contributions of two other geniuses: Jacques Pre
vert and Jules Berry.
Franc,:ois Truffaul
Jean Renoir and Jean Castanier

M. LANGE (tentative title)
Scenario filed at the Societe des Auteurs de Films. 9 rue Ballu
Oberon, 22, place de la Madeleine, Paris Opha 04-30
THE RISE OF
160 JEAN RENOIR
Preamble
This film is based on the idea that any man who has carved
out a place for himself in society and is worthy of his position
has the right to keep his place and to defend it against one who
would take it from him, even if this thief bases his action on
legal principles.
Specifically it is the story of an employee in a publishing
office who takes over the direction of the business when the
owner leaves. In the absence of his boss, he proves to be a re
markable businessman and a talented promoter. The business.
which had been failing, becomes profitable again. The hackers
are pleased, and the employees are able to live comfortably.
The owner returns and wants to resume his rightful place.
Our man will kill him in order to defend his position, and with
it his own happiness and that of his colleagues.
Is such a crime justified? The people who hear the story.
simple mountain folk living on the border between Spain and
France, think that it is. Before fleeing his country. our hero has
taken refuge at an inn in this region. The people recognize him.
but instead of handing him over to the authorities they will help
him escape across the border.
This subject will be treated in a perfectly realistic way.
which is to say that many of the situations will lend themselves
to laughter because the milieu where the characters will evolve
can be rich in comic situations. Nonetheless. the players will
not act according to the traditions of vaudeville. They will
avoid trying to provoke laughter by facial expressions or by ex
cessively exploiting situations. If there is laughter. i.t shall have
to come from the situations themselves and the personalities of
the characters. We hope that these characters will he sufficiently
varied so that the merciless exposition of their oddities can pro
duce some amusing contrasts.
The central character. M. Lange. appears to be a puny little
functionary. But under his unimpressive exterior seethes an in
tense imagination. The minute he has the opportunity to day
FIRST VERSION: THE CRIME OF M. LANGE' 161
dream, his thoughts turn to his favorite heroes: the cowboys and
Indians of the Far vVest. In his dreams he gallops alongside
them over the prairies.
It seemed to us that a crime of passion that is also a social
protest, like M. Lange's, does not necessarily have to be situ
ated in a sinister milieu. Rather, a study such as ours gains in
dramatic intensity and in tnlP humanity if it is surrounded by
real everyday elements likely to amuse the public.
T he Action: Prologue
The police in a little border outpost in the Pyrenees receive
a photograph of an individual who, having committed a crime,
has evaded the police and will no doubt be trying to cross onto
foreign soil. The man is named Lange, a rather well-known
former writer accused of having murdered his boss, M. Cathala.
A policeman complains to a peasant about the extra work neces
sitated by the search for the accused man.
vVe switch to Lange himself, who is walking calmly along
a little mountain path, accompanied by Nille. Marion. They do
not look like fugitives, but rather like a couple of casual strollers,
pleased to be enjoying the superb view. Some girls offer them
wild flowers. adding to the idyllic atmosphere of the scene.
The prologue could be characterized by the same calm
beauty as that of mountain landscapes where it takes place.
Tired after a long day's walk. M. Lange and Mlle. Marion
decide to spend the night at an inn near the border. Unfortu
nately, the peasant we have seen talking v\'ith the policeman is
at the inn, and he recognizes Lange from the police photograph.
He tells l1is friends of the discovery. \Vill they turn the
fugitive in?
Lange, very tired, has stretched out on his bed and fallen
asleep. Mlle. Marion has overheard the men's conversation. Just
as one of them is about to go tell the police, she enters the room
and asks the strangers to listen to her. She thinks that by ex
plaining the circumstances to these simple people she can con
vince them to change their minds and close their eyes to Lange's
escape.
162 JEAN RENOIR
They decide to listen, and it is her story which provides the

substance of our film.
Part One
Lange and Mlle. Marion work together at the offices of
Popular Publications. Specifically these publications are three
weeklies: The Boy Scout, whose adventurous contents are
Lange's creation; The Petite Lisette, a collection of bright little
stories edited by Mlle. Marion, an ageless, lackluster woman;
and The Illustrated Weekly, the largest of the three publica
tions, written by the entire staff under the direction of the com
pany's owner, M. Cathala.
In back of the editorial offices, on the dark and stifling
courtyard side of the building, is the printing press itself, which
also does job printing. but for a progressively smaller clientele.
M. Cathala has an office overlooking the street, where he
smokes huge cigars in the company of Pietrini, his editor-in
chief. These two live fairly well and always manage to find
enough money in the cash register to pay for their sumptuous
lunches. The blond Edith, although she does not know how to
type, serves as a decorative secretary.
In addition to his responsibilities with The Boy Scout,
Lange corrects proofs, composes dummies, and does a little of
everything. He helps the cashier put off the most insistent of
the company's creditors.
The business is going poorly; the employees wait in vain
for their salaries, always a question mark. Cathala senses that
he is going to have to give up his elegant life style. He would
very much like to sell the business to some big publishing house.
But Lafayette Publishers, sensing that something is wrong, let
Cathala know in no uncertain terms that his offer does not in
terest them.
As a final stroke of bad luck, M. Meunier, the man holding
Cathala's mortgage, sends his representative. M. Buisson to look
at the books; and Cathala receives word that he has been offi
cially charged with fraud.
Cathala and Pietrini decide to resort to exceptional meas
FIRST VERSION: THE CRIME OF M. LANGE'
163
ures: to wit. they will invite M. Buisson to a lavish lunch in a

posh restaurant. where they will try to buy him off.
The scene in the restaurant revolves around Lange's awk
wardness and his several blunders. He has been brought along
to present some papers relative to the affair if they arc needed.
Cathala thinks it looks impressive to be accompanied by a
secretary. Cathala is apparently a habitue of the restaurant. He
refers to "my port" and "my oysters." He is hoping to over
whelm M. Buisson.
Lange. hardly worthy of notice. is allowed to sit down at
the table. but not to cat. Very ill at case, he blushes as the wait
ers push him out of the way to serve the others. He wishes he
could disappear. He provokes a catastrophe, causing the gravy
to be spilled on M. Buisson.
Cathala is very unhappy, and worried too. He is afraid that
M. Buisson will be ill disposed toward him as a result of the
accident and more difficult to corrupt. Also. he seems afraid to
make his move in the presence of Lange. Suddenly solicitous. he
notices that Lange has not had a chance to cat and sends him
off. Lange returns to the office. where Mlle. Marion is waiting
for him. She is surprised that he has had nothing to eat. Always
imaginative, he has her believe that he did not accept Cathala's
invitation to eat at the restaurant because the cuisine was not up
to his standards.
Mlle. Marion has not forgotten that it is Lange's birthday.
She has brought him a present: a gas lamp for camping. She
hopes that this lamp will be only the beginning of a complete
set of camping equipment which will enable them to go camp
ing together the next summer beside a beautiful river some
where. For Mlle. Marion loves Lange and sets hopelessly nalve
traps in an effort to win him. But Lange turns the conversation
toward Cathala. whom he admires. Mlle. Marion docs not like
Cathala at all and says that he is a thief. Lange claims that he
is a gangster. something quite different and worthy of ad
miration.
At this point the beautiful Edith appears, returning from
her lunch at the restaurant. Forgetting everything. Lange
16,~ JEAN RENOIR
dashes after her in an effort to strike llP a conversation. J-Ie

loves her. or at least desires her passionately. In his confusion he
forgets even his own lunch, which Mlle. Marion has finally SllC
ceeded in warming up over the camping lamp. It is a mistake,
for it is clear that the coquettish secretary is not about to waste
her time on a mere employee.
Cathcda and Pietrini return crestfallen from their great
luncheon. They lock themselves in their office and set to argu
ing violently. M. Buisson, a man of integrity, has rejected their
offer indignantly. The coffers empty and the prospect of jail
looming before him, Cathala decides to flee abroad and abandon
his company. Pietrini, envisioning the worst, asks his accomplice
for a little money to tide him over. They quarrel again, and
Cathala leaves on the sly, having bought Pietrini's silence.
Cathala is seated in a first-class compartment on the express
train to Brussels. He is counting his money and writing figures
with a pencil. He has not lost his arrogance-or his fat cigar.
A sudden accident: the train goes off the tracks.
Having passed out briefly, Cathala comes to on the track
bed. In the distance men are helping the injured. Cathala has
an idea. He takes the wallet from a dead man, which supplies
him with new papers and a bit of extra money, and places his
own wallet in the dead man's pocket. Armed with new identity
papers and well supplied with money, Cathala disappears into
the night rather satisfied with the unforeseen turn of events.
Part Two
Following the presumed death of Cathala, M. Buisson, in
the name of M. l\1eunier. the magazines' major creditor. has
come to an understanding with the heirs: they will gladly re
nounce <lIlY claim to the ('nterprise in exchange for payment of
the money owed them.
M. Buisson is perfectly willing to let Popular Publications
continue to operate, his only desire being to make more money
for his boss. Th(' sale of the old equipment would not have pro
165
duced much profit in any case. He calls a meeting of the staff.

explains the situation to them. and informs them that he has
decided not to invest another cent in the enterprise. The em
ployees arc already hehind in their salaries and do not want to
work unless they arc paid up.
The cashier comes up with a solution that is acceptable to
both sides: the workers will share in any future profits if they
stay on.
Assuming that Pietrini will be the new boss. Lange is tllink
ing only of how to convince him to give The Boy Scout a page in
color. Economic questions leave him cold. \Vhat he is interested
in is the technical side of the operation. and he is pushing [or a
new policy which would allow the readers to participate in the
editing of the magazine. But no one listens to Lange. Everyone
is thinking of his own immediate concerns rather than the long
term good of the magazine.
The agreement between 1\'1. Buisson and the staff has to hI'
approved by M. Meunier. so M. Ruisson suggests that the three
main representatives of the company go down to see the indus
trialist. He means Pietrini, the cashier. and Lange.
At the hotel they arc told that M. Meunier has stepped out.
They decide to wait for him. Lange goes out to buy some cig
arettes. At the tobacco stand he makes the acquaintance of a
pleasant drunkard and starts playing little games with him.
They meet thanks to the difficulty the drunk is having with an
electric lighter. Lange forgets about his meeting and becomes
quite friendly with the drunk. then suddenly remembers that
he has an appointment at the Hotel Ritz. "Say. so do 1." says the
drunk. who is none other than M. Meunier himself.
The others are quite surprised to see Lange and M. Meunier
return arm in arm. 1\1. Meunier is even more surprised to learn
that his new comrade is a member of the magazine of which he
finds himself the owner. M. Meunier is quite thrilled to find that
Lange is a proofreader. In his drunken condition he reasons that
a proofreader must be correct and therefore be superior to every
one else. He states that he will not accept the agreement unless
166 .
JEAN RENOIR
Lange assumes the management of the company. He even signs

a contract by which he promises to take no action without the
signature of his new manager.
Pietrini is mortified. but he has no choice but to go along.
Lange is frightened and considers the prospect of taking over
from Cathala. whom he admired so much. with apprehension.
It is now three months later. A creditor. whom we have al
ready seen at the beginning of the film. reappears. Much to his
surprise the ramshackle old offices are full of life. well organized
and . . . he is paid.
M. Lange is talking with the envoy from Lafayette Publish
ers who earlier turned down Cathala's offers to sell. Now he has
gone out of his way to try to buyout Lange, but the new man
ager refuses. in agreement with his fellow workers. who now feel
that they have a stake in the business.
Everyone is now happy except Pietrini and Edith. who has
been kept on to brighten up the office a bit. They are bored and
miss the privileges they enjoyed under the Cathala regime.
Suddenly a loud noise brings all work to a halt. It is M.
Meunier. returning from Lille, drunk as usual. He falls all over
Lange with expressions of friendship. says he is delighted with
the company's success, and proposes to drink to it. He takes
Lange for an aperitif at the cafe. Lange, not used to drinking.
feels quite gay. Then he wants to leave, but Meunier will not
hear of it and takes him to dinner.
Lange has asked Meunier to take him to the restaurant
where he was shamed during the famous luncheon which Ca
thaIa gave for M. Buisson. Timid at first. Lange gradually gains
confidence and ends up asking for "my port" and "my oysters"
as Cathala did. He is carried away by his drunkenness. unlike
Meunier. who although inebriated maintains his propriety and
is much amused by Lange's eccentricities. In his drunken state.
Lange sees Edith everywhere. He thinks he recognizes her at the
next table and among the restaurant employees.
The soiree concludes at a night club. the Prince Igor. amid
167
hundreds of Ediths whom Lange chases madly, causing great

damage to persons and property. The waiters learn that he is an
editor and call him "Big Shot" and "Mr. Manager." Convinced
of his own importance, Lange finally leaves the night spot.
Full of new-found dignity, Lange decides he wants to go to
the office, in spite of the late hour. Alone, he enters the building
and wanders through the deserted premises. This marvelous
evening has left him exalted, and for the first time he enters
the director's office without knocking. He takes possession, open
ing drawers, going through files. Ideas crowd into his head, he
takes notes. As each new idea supersedes the previous one, he
crumples up his notes and tosses them into the wastebasket.
Suddenly a sound makes him shudder. There is someone in
the next room. Worried, he takes a revolver out of the drawer
and prepares to confront the intruder. It is Cathala, the sup
posed dead man, come back to pay a visit on Lange. He has ob
served the whole scene and laughs at Lange. Lange loses some
of his self-assurance. But Cathala does not intend to reclaim his
company, at least for the moment. The police have not yet for
gotten his earlier peccadilloes, and now he is carrying false
identification papers as well. He has just returned to draw a
little money. Cathala leaves when he has gotten what he
wanted, and has made Lange promise not to say a word.
Completely sobered, Lange feels depressed and small. As
his boss leaves, delighted with himself, Lange humbly picks up
the papers that have fallen on the floor and places them in the
wastebasket.
Part Three
The offices of Popular Publications are now completely
modernized, and one has the feeling that the company has en
joyed several months of prosperity. We see the improvements
as the staff is preparing a great celebration out in the country,
to which the readership of all three magazines will be invited.
The party is aimed at the younger readers, and of course
Lange has given it a Wild West motif. At last he can give life to
168 .
JEAN RENOIR
the heroes of his stories-cowboys, and Indians attacking stage

coaches, shooting at one another, etc.
During the preparations Pietrini receives a mysterious tele
phone call. It is obvious that Cathala has chosen this moment to
reveal himself to his old accomplice. The phone call clearly has
something to do with the current situation vis-a-vis M. Buisson,
who has received a new offer for the company from Lafayette,
and this time the price is so high that he would be crazy to turn
it down.
Lange is scarcely listening. A cowboy hat on his head, he is
testing his aim with a bow and arrow. In any case, the other
employees have told him that they do not want to sell.
Noon. Everyone goes out to lunch.
Only Pietrini stays at the office. It is not long before Ca
thala sneaks in. Cathala knows about the offers from Lafayette
and he too, for reasons far removed from Buisson's, would like
the offer to be accepted. What does he have to lose? A few
months in prison for his past and present mistakes? That little
vacation would be well worth the several hundred thousand
francs he would stand to gain from the sale. He knows a way to
force Lange into signing the bill of sale: a year earlier he man
aged to delay payment on a major debt for twelve months. The
cashier thinks that Cathala has since paid the debt, but actually
he took the money from the company coffers and kept it for him
self. So, if Lafayette bought Cathala's note from the original
creditor and ruthlessly demanded payment from the company,
Lange, caught without the money on hand, would have no
choice but to accept Lafayette's terms.
Pietrini is delighted by the ploy. He foresees the possibility
of picking up a few crumbs himself (from Cathala, from Buisson,
and perhaps even from Lafayette) and plots to reinforce the
effectiveness of the scheme by playing on Lange's naIve passion
for Edith.
A lucky or unlucky stroke of fate has it that the IOU will
be presented to Lange at the very moment of his Far West
festival.
FIRST VERSION: THE CRIME OF M. LANGE
169
The festival is in full swing. Scores of little boys and girls

are enjoying themselves immensely in the midst of a large field,
which has been transformed into a Sioux Indian camp for the
occasion. There are little donkeys harnassed like wild mus
tangs, lassos, and even a goat cart serving as a stagecoach. In
a tent Mlle. Marion, dressed up as an Indian, warns Lange
against Edith. She has noticed that her rival has changed her
attitude toward Lange, a turn of events which she finds suspi
cious. Lange replies that she is incapable of understanding
great passion.
In another tent Pietrini is giving his final instructions to
Edith. She is to pretend to give in to Lange's advances and ask
him to take her away to a foreign country. With Lange out of the
way, the company can be sold without his approval.
Meanwhile Lafayette himself has appeared at the office,
the overdue draft in hand. Buisson has brought Meunier along
to precipitate the matter. He has kept his boss practically pris
oner for the past forty-eight hours, absolutely forbidding him to
take a drink, under some vague medical pretext. Meunier signs
anything they like without question. He is counting on the good
judgment of Lange, whose signature is needed for final ap
proval.
The agreement being reached, everyone heads for the festi
val, to have Lange sign the bill of sale and to let the new owner
participate in the promotional celebration.
Edith has found a moment to put on her act of love for
Lange. She has changed into a magnificent cowgirl's outfit,
which greatly excites the naIve Lange. He is all set up to com
mit the irreparable blunder.
Mlle. Marion, still dressed as an Indian, intervenes in time
to thwart Edith's schemes. With Edith at her mercy, she forces
her to confess that it is Pietrini who tells her what to do. Lange
is very upset.
M. Meunier has observed this last scene. and he realizes
that there is some scheming going on. He has regained a little
of his self-assurance, thanks to a couple of drinks at the festival
170 JEAN RENOIR
bar. Outraged. he writes a check to cover the draft which 1\1. La

fayette is holding and declares that he wants to hear no more
about the sale. The company will continue to operate as it has
been.
In a burst of enthusiasm. everyone returns to Paris. singing.
Only Lange returns to the office. to straighten out the draft
bought by Meunier. There he finds Cathala, furious at the fail
ure of his scheme. Cathala pours invective on Lange. reminding
him that he is really nothing hut an employee; that he. Cathala.
is the real owner of the company; and that Lange's efforts to
cross his schemes were to all intents and purposes a form of
theft. At first Lange hangs his head. cringing; but then he gets
hold of himself and stands up to Cathala. He reproaches him for
being selfish and not caring about the company and its staff:
Cathala does not know what real work is. Lange. on the other
hand. has worked wholeheartedly for the company for twenty
years. and now he considers himself to be more the owner than
Cathala himself. who only got hold of it in some shady deal.
The quarrel between the two men takes on the aspects of a
fight over a woman, Lange playing the role of the faithful lover
and Cathala that of the cynical exploiter.
Cathala decides to resolve the matter by telling the police
that he is alive and has returned. He will be arrested as a result.
but he will also regain ownership of the company. He takes the
telephone off the hook, but as he is dialing. Lange shoots him
with a revolver.
Terrified by what he has done, Lange wanders about the
premises until he comes across Mlle. Marion. who has followed
him to the office and overheard everything that happened with
Cathala. He collapses at her feet, crying and clinging to her legs.
Mlle. Marion consoles Lange as one would console a child;
because Lange. in spite of his age. is like a kid. He used his re
volver as he would have a prop in a story of the Far West. Mlle.
Marion, who has remained perfectly calm. convinces him to run
away. She will accompany him on his flight.
FIRST VERSION: THE CRIME OF M. LANGE
171
Epilogue
A long dissolve brings us back to Mlle. Marion. who is fin
ishing her story at the mountain inn.
It is dawn, a child sleeps against his mother's knees. Lange
appears at the door. surprised by the silent gathering. He asks
what is happening. The oldest man present answers simply
that his companion has asked for a guide for a mountain excur
sion and that he "vill ask his son to accompany them and lend
them a mule.
The decision of this improvised jury having been stated. the
scene jumps to the little caravan preparing to climb the ma
jestic peaks beyond the border.
An Early Treatment
if Grand
Illusion
T his first treatment of Grand Illusion is not dated, but it is apparent

that it was done before the roles were cast. Jean Renoir had probably
already thought of Jean Gabin for Marechal and perhaps even of
Pierre Fresnay for Bozeldieu, but not yet of Dalia (Dolette, who later
became Rosenthal), and certainly not of Erich von Stroheim or Dita
Parlo. Some will regret that Renoir dropped the epilogue at Maxim's.
but most of the essentials of the final film are here (developed with
or without the collaboration of Charles Spaak-the manuscript is not
signed): the escape attempts, the taking of Douaumont, the transfer,
the fortress, the prison, the death of de Boi'eldieu, the Swiss border.
and above all the idea that social conditions are more important than
nationality and that people, as Renoir often said, "are more divided
horizontally than vertically."
Franc;ois Truffaut
1916. Behind the French lines. In an air corps canteen we find

the career officer Stanislas de Boi'eldieu, a cavalry captain. Mon
ocle in place. riding crop in ham!.. with a touch of arrogance and
impertinence. He asks a pilot to take him on a reconnaissance
flight. It is Captain Marechal, a rugged character, without pol
ish, a mechanic by trade. The fortunes of war and his own
merits have brought him his commission very quickly. Boi'el
dieu and Marechal are of the same rank, but not of the same
world
AN EARLY TREATMENT: GRAND ILLUSION'
173
They are on the runway. The engine starts; the plane moves
. In the air. Boi'eldieu cannot see anything hecause of the
clouds. "Horses," he says, "we'll go hack to them eventually.
Nothing like them for reconnaissance."
No gunshots, no enemy planes. And then all of a sudden
the engine starts to fail. Boi'eldieu is disturbed: "Just get me
hack behind the lines . . ." Boi'eldieu's tone and his remarks
are grating. On the German side some soldiers, hearded, aged,
and sickly, are guarding a bridge. A French plane appears in
the sky. Excited, the old Germans send off several perfunctory
rounds toward the enemy. And the plane comes down . . .
down . . . The Germans think they have shot it down. The
motor dead, Marcchal has heen forced to land. Boi'eldieu finds
this "annoying."
The Germans run toward the Frenchmen as fast as their
old legs will carry them. The first thing to do is to destroy the
plane quickly so that it will be useless to the Germans. To Marc
char's surprise, Boi'eldieu is unshaken hy the danger and shows
remarkable self-control. The Germans reach the two officers; a
few blows from their cluhs and the Frenchmen are stretched out
on the grass.
A German officer, his face thin and scarred, gets out of a
Mercedes. He has witnessed the scene. He reproaches his em
barrassed men for their pointless hrutality. And in impeccahle
French he excuses himself personally to Boi'eldieu, who is just
coming to. He assures the French officers that General van del'
Winter will be happy to receive them at his table.
The dining room of a very luxurious chateau. The German
general is surrounded by his staff. The two Frenchmen are
there. The table is sumptuously laid out, and the service is at
tended to hy waiters in formal serving garb. The general apolo
gizes for the modesty of his menu: some requisitioned chicken.
But the wines are good. The departed owners of the chateau
knew their vintages.
Boi'eldieu is quite at ease in this elegant company, Marc
challess so. He is not at all adroit with his knife and fork, and
this is a little disturbing to Boi'eldieu. Nonetheless, the conversa
174
JEAN RENOIR
tion sparkles. These men of the world have no trouble making

themselves understood to each other. They all speak excellent
English. The general, quite Parisian, asks about actors and about
Maxim's, where he used to spend his New Year's Eves.
Manchal notes that the man next to him is no more ac
customed to this style of life than he. This brings them to
gether. Surprise: like him, his neighbor is a mechanic-turned
pilot. He speaks good French; before the war he worked in Lyon
at Gnome-et-Rhone. All at once they are talking like old friends
about their common interests: have you had trouble with your
fuel?
Cannon fire. No one is concerned. The windows are opened.
Enemy planes are fighting in the sky. The meal continues.
Boi:eldieu and his colleagues chat about the last Grand Prix;
Marechal and his pal talk mechanics. The general stands and
raises his glass. "Impossible to drink to the success of either
army . . . May the better man win . . . And to the coming
peace . . ." They touch glasses amid the louder and louder
noise of the approaching bombardment.
The next day a foul-mouthed German soldier rather bru
tally packs a group of prisoners into a wagon; among them are
Boi:eldieu and Marechal.
En route to Germany
The prisoners are put in a temporary barracks without
utilities. Their quarters occupy one wing of the building. while
the other is occupied by German women preparing food. Of
course the two wings are completely separated; no conversation
or contact is possible. Only through a vent can they catch
glimpses of the feet of the women as they go to and from their
work.
In the room which Marechal and Boi:eldieu choose, four
officers have been preparing an escape for months. They are
slowly digging a tunnel which will take them under the road
to the air field across from the camp. They are disturbed by the
new arrivals. There are so many informers! Still, they have no
choice but to tell the newcomers their secret. That night Mare
chal and Boi:eldieu join the enterprise, which is directed by a
'i
,I
I
\
I
'I
II
I
,I
tl
AN EARLY TREATMENT: GRAND ILLUSION
175
curious special officer who was in prison when the war began.
He was the leader of a gang which specialized in bank robberies.
Their method had been to dig tunnels under the banks. In war
time this type of man and his specialty become invaluable.
Naturally the work on the tunnel, which is interrupted
periodically by the guards on their rounds, is a complicated and
unpleasant task. In the daytime the rats hide there, and each
night before digging, the conspirators have to rout them out.
The next day, during their outing, the prisoners dispose sur
reptitiously of the earth and the dead rats.
The newcomers are informed of a pleasant diversion: twice
a day, at the opening and closing of one of the nearby work
shops, a woman whom no one has seen rests her foot on one of
the bars in front of the vent to adjust her garter, provocatively
revealing two beautiful legs. The prisoners joke about it a lot.
The morale of the conspirators is excellent. Whatever the
discomfort, no matter how bad the food, the officers respond
with the refrain "The war to end all wars; that's a good one!"
All except BOleldieu, who in the midst of these simple men re
tains his natural stiffness and the manner of expression which
amuses and annoys them.
This is how the days pass: at night, work on the tunnel:
during the day, play rehearsals. For in this camp, as in others,
the prisoners have built a stage in a wooden shack. Musicians,
designers, male and female performers, have been recruited
from the camp. The great Parisian fashion designers send cos
tumes. The rehearsals of this curious production are nothing if
not picturesque.
One night, after the customary appearance of the woman
with the beautiful legs, our heroes are waiting for the hour to
begin their ditch digging. But they hear a great commotion
among the German guards. The news spreads quickly: Douau
mont has just fallen to the Germans. The guards are celebrat
ing with beer and songs, which they sing so well.
The prisoners are disconcerted. They are upset by the news
and affected by the force of the music, which rises up to them in
waves. They wonder if, under the circumstances, they should
176
JEAN RENOIR
not put off their production for a few days. They decide to go
ahead with the show as a reply to the Germans' obnoxious
celebrating. Meanwhile they return to the tunnel with vigor.
The following night the soldiers assume the incongruous
role of dancers-and they acquit themselves quite well. In a
box. surrounded by his subordinates. the commandant of the
camp laughs uproariously at the verve and spirit of the French
rnen.
In the show Marechal acts as Master of ceremonies. He is in
the wings, gluing on a false beard, when he suddenly learns the
news. He leaps onto the stage, stops the scene. goes to the edge of
the platform. and in a thundering voice announces: "Men. we
have just retaken Douaumont "
'
A second of silence. and then in a corner of the room some
one starts singing the "Marseillaise." All the men are standing.
All sing. The commandant rises, infuriated. On the stage the
thrilled soldiers are dancing as if it were Bastille Day. No way
to stop them from taking revenge for the day before. The Ger
man guards. armed, rush into the room. The men refuse to
leave. refuse to be quiet.
And the Germans advance, clubs raised. among the danc
ing. howling madmen, carried by a wave which notlling can
stem.
For Man';chaL guilty of instigating the outburst. it is forty
five days in solitary; forty-five days of complete darkness aml
silence. "The war to end all wars; that's a good one," he thinks
the first day . . . But the silence and the darkness. these are hos
tile forces to which even the strongest succumb.
Each day for five minutes tIle guard comes to watch him
and light the cell while he eats. An old ,guard with sympathetic
eyes who doesn't speak a word of French. In the five minutes
Marechal speaks to him without stopping. He must hear a hu
man voice; he must hear someone reply to him. But the guard
doesn't understand; he nods his head and says nothing. And
Marechal becomes desperate, dangerously so. He can't take it
any morc. He 110wls in his cavc. He thinks of killing himself.
177
The old guard intervenes, calms him with his friendly smile
and eyes. Only the mute compassion of this old German saves
Man~chal from insanity and death.
Marechal rejoins his friends. The tunnel. which they have
continued to dig. is almost finished. However. they take no
pleasure in this fact. They are dejected and querulous for a
reason which lVlarechal does not understand at first.
It is because of the woman, because of her beautiful legs.
What started as a joke has become an obsession. and the men
have begun to take out their frustration on each other. They
must do something to get back at the bitch. to teach her not to
tantalize love-starved men. One of them. hidden by the vent.
will grab the foot which she rests on the bar and make her
their prisoner.
They wait. She comes. Her usual merciless display. She
is seized. Everyone dashes to grab hold of the leg sticking
through the vent. Hearing her cries, the woman's friends grab
her shoulders and pull her back. TIle men take off her shoes.
tear off her stocking. Everyone wants to touch the fresh. gleam
ing skin. And Marechal, cruelly. bites her. The woman screams.
The men retreat. and her friends pull her out. "Now she'll leave
us alone " cry the men.
'
The same night, the soldier who has been working on the
tunnel comes rushing out like a madman. Tomorrow night they
can leave!
But everything cannot he foreseen . . . At roll call the
next morning the sergeant tells them they have one hour to get
ready to move. They are being transferred to another camp.
They are being separated. Their tremendous efforts. their dogged
persistence. was all for nothing.
Then they are in the courtyard. If their tunnel could at
least be used by others . . . The sergeant shows them six Brit
ish officers who have just arrived at the camp. "These are the
ones who are going to occupy your quarters . . ."
By all means. they must tell them. Marechal leaves his
group and manages to accost one of the British soldiers. He ex
plains: on the left, in the corner; all you have to do is remove
178
,JEAN RENOIR
th~ bricks to find the tunnel . . . The Englishman doesn't

understand a word of French. He smiles. Marechal persists; he
gestures. The Englishman laughs heartily and slaps him on the
back. Marechal, unable to communicate the secret, has to go
back to his group. With Boi'eldieu, he is sent to the heart of
Germany.
The British move into the room which the French have
just left. They calculate the disposition of the room, and right
away one of them comes up with a plan of escape: exactly the
same as that of the French. But the hole, where to make it? To
the left? To the right? They argue and then agree on the right.
Five meters from the completed tunnel left by the French pris
oners, the British, with the same faith and the same obstinacy,
begin to dig theirs!
The second camp is located In a gloomy region far from

neutral borders. The men are imprisoned in a medieval cha
teau, complete with towers, ramparts, and stone walls. A fright
ful discipline reigns. And everyone feels weary. This war, the
war to end all wars, just doesn't end . . . No theater here, no
more glimpses of female legs, no more Count of Monte Cristo
type tunnels; nothing but boredom and despair.
Marechal and Boi'eldieu find themselves with a new group
of companions. A former locksmith turned infantry officer, who
will not listen to talk of escape; just mind your own business
and wait for the time when we can go back to our old trades.
A professor of Greek working on a translation of a minor poet;
he is not suffering particularly from his confinement, since it
allows him to dedicate himself completely to his monastic la
bors. Another cavalry officer: Guy de Saint-Privat, from the same
world and class as Boi'eldieu. In the barracks the two men form
their own clique. As soon as the opportunity arises, even in this
hell-hole, the social classes align themselves in the old manner.
A talkative, sardonic Parisian, whose unquenchable wit no
longer amuses anyone. A Negro just out of engineering school,
cold, polite. and reserved. Finally, Dolette, a thin boy with
handsome features, a broad intelligent forehead, and striking
179
eyes. Apparently there is something in common between this

intellectual and the mechanic Marechal. They are both solid
types. both stalwarts. They recognized each other right away.
They will become inseparable.
An empty bed . . . The occupant is in solitary. An inof
fensive pharmacist's assistant from Brittany. He has an incred
ible hatred for the Germans. He cannot control his feelings. At
roll calL on two occasions. he has stepped forward. saluted re
spectfully. and coldly declared to the German sergeant: "You
are all scum. and you can go to hell'''
The first time it was thirty days in solitary; then sixty.
He is serving the latest sentence.
Escape . . . Marechal is constantly haunted by the idea.
But how? The most important requirement is a map of Ger
many. and little by little he puts one together from scraps the
size of postage stamps. smuggled to him in chocolate bars. But
many of the bars are lost en route. and there are holes in the
map.
One morning the little Breton returns. To those who knew
him. he is unrecognizable. He can hardly stand on his feet.
He looks so miserable. so pathetic that the Parisian bursts into
tears. The others gather around this refugee from hell. Dazed,
he doesn't have the strength to reply to them. And then it's roll
call.
The men, lined up. respond to the calling of their names:
the Breton responds in his turn. But then he advances. salutes
formally, and declares in an unshaking voice: "You are all
scum. and you can go to hell!"
On the dilapidated stove in the barracks. with the pathetic
resources available. the prisoners have made a small forge;
they want to make keys. The locksmith, who wants to be left
alone. refuses to help. He will give in. however. if only because
of his passion for his craft.
With the keys, Marechal and Dolette are able to get out
of their room and roam the corridors. They come across the
room where the ammunition is stored. They are going to blow
up the camp. But killing a few old Germans would not be
180 JEAN RENOIR
worth the death of all their friends. They return from their ex
pedition with two revolvers.
They have to try something. Two men will escape while
their companions simulate a revolt at the other end of the camp.
The traditional practice will be observed: the two best-qualified
officers, Man~chal and Dolette, will attempt to escape, while the
two least-valued men, the Parisian and Boieldieu, will sacrifice
themselves. The latter know that they will not get out of it
alive. "The war to end all wars; it's worth the price . . . "
One revolver goes to the group which is going to pretend
to revolt, the other to the fugitives. The night of the escape ar
rives. The Parisian refuses to obey an order. Boieldieu steps in
and hits a guard. Wild disorder breaks out immediately, every
one running and shouting. Boieldieu and the Parisian climb
onto a roof. They fire their revolvers. German reinforcements
arrive on the run. More gunfire. The Parisian falls. Boieldieu
holds out. Finally, he too is hit. "The war to end all wars . . ."
And this man whom we have found odious in all the small
details and magnificent in all the crucial situations dies to as
sure the escape of his two friends; Manchal and Dolette have
gotten over the walls. With a revolver, a map, some biscuits
and sugar, they are going to make it on foot to the Swiss border.
The alarm has been sounded. They will spend the first
night in a pine forest. They are hunted with flashlights. After
almost getting themselves caught, they escape . . . The road is
open, but their destination is far . . .
The sugar and the biscuits are soon gone. Hiding by day
in the most improbable places, Man~chal and Dolette walk
each night, avoiding towns and even villages.
They are already exhausted. To add to their problems, Do
lette twists his foot while crossing a ditch during one of their
nocturnal marches. Whether sprained, broken, torn, or what,
Dolette doesn't know, but he suffers horribly, and he cannot go
any farther. Desperate, the two friends hide in the ditch and
take stock. They hear the tramp of boots on the road next to
the ditch. Voices sing an old marching song. It is a company
of reservists crossing the forest. It passes and continues on.
AN EARLY TREATMENT: GRAND ILLUSION' 181
Dolette insists that Manchal abandon him and continue

on his own. Impossible. They are not far from a village. Mare
chal drags his friend and hides him in a stable which seems
to be abandoned; the cows were eaten long ago.
Stretched out on the hay, Dolette feels better. He soon
goes to sleep. Marechal cocks his ear at the creaking of a door,
the sound of steps. There is light under the door; the door opens.
A lamp in her hand, a woman stands in the doorway. She is
one of those German blondes made to bring beautiful children
into the world.
She is in her nightshirt, with only a shawl over her shoul
ders. And with her clear, calm blue eyes, she gazes at the two
French prisoners whose fate she holds in her hands. Will she
call for help?
She is calm; she moves slowly. She looks at Marechal, and
he thinks her beautiful. She removes her shawl, blows out the
lamp, and lies down in the warm hay beside Marechal. And
Marechal listens to her passionate, foreign tongue as she whis
pers, "It has been over a year since all the men left . . ."
Dawn. Marechal comes out of the barn and looks for eggs
in the yard. Meanwhile, soft and beautiful, her long hair in
lovely disarray, the German woman lies in the arms of the
sleeping Dolette.
They have to be on their way. The two lovers bid good
bye to the woman they shared. She has the same smile for both
of them. And for a long time, she watches them recede in the
distance and disappear, going where?
They have reached the Swiss border. Now they must get
past the guards to reach the other side. Avoiding the patrols,
they reach their goal by a narrow trail, but a lone guard stands
in their way.
This guard is no formidable adversary. He is bearded. and
his beard appears to be white. It was a strange fate which pulled
him from his large family and brought him to this remote
corner of the world to play sentry . . .
But they must get past. Marechal has his revolver in hand.
The German has put down his revolver to warm his hands. He
182 .JEAN RENOIR
Ii
!
,
takes a long orink from l]is canteen. Marechal cannot hrjng

himself to shoot hjm. He tries to give the gun to Dolette. Do
lette refuses: "The 010 guy looks like my uncle. a me
chanic . . ."
A branch snaps. the German seizes his gun and turns to
waro our heroes. l\1arechal aims; two shots and the German
falk The way is clear.
By dawn Marechal and Dolette are in Switzerland. In harl
shape. They are dying of hunger. On the road. where they can
now walk during the day, a little girl comes along. She is car
rying a beautiful loaf of bread. They steal it from her. And the
girL astounded, looks on through her tears as these two
bearded. filthy, unsightly men bite ravenously into the golden
crust.
Now free. at case. the two men chat seated on the edge of
the roao. Surely the ,val' will be over hy the end of the year')
They will have to celebrate the adventure they have just sur
vived and the new peace. They will celebrate Christmas at
l\1axim's! The Maxim's, where neither of them has been, about
which BOleldieu used to talk incessantly. They swear to meet
there on December 2S, 1918. They will reserve a table eight
months in advance.
December 2S. 1918. The first Christmas since the peace.
Maxim's in the euphoria of the early days of the victory. The
room is bursting with officers from all the Allied armies. Splen
did, dazzling women . . . With all the commotion and joy.
a Christmas like no other . . . But in the center of the room.
which is jammed, why this empty table? "Reserved." the sign
says.
Where is MarechaP Where is Dolette?
.~.
Bifore The Rules of the Game:

An Interview with Jean Renoir
In the January 25,1939, issue of Pour Vous, Jean Renoir explained to

Marguerite Russot his plans for the scenario of The Rules of the
Game.
Fran<;ois Truffaut
TALK WITH JEAN RENOIR
The director of Grand Illusion and The Human Beast will

write the story and the screenplay, direct, and act in his new
film: The Rules of the Game.
"I'm leaving Tuesday," Jean Renoir said to me the other
evening. "So if you want to talk a little. come see me before
then."
He greets me with a smile:
"Tomorrow we leave," he says. "I have to finish the screen
play for The Rules of the Game, and the work will go much
better outside of Paris."
"Where are you going?"
"I don't know. Perhaps to Burgundy. or perhaps to the
forest at Fontainebleu. After I start off in the car, I'll flip a
. "
COIn.
A joke? Certainly not. Anyone who has the pleasure of
184 .
,JEAN RENOIR
knowing Jean Renoir understands that this

will }lappen.
IS
exactly how it
Why .Teall Renoir is becoming a producer.

"So you're a producer now?"
"Oh, yes. If you're interested, I'll tell you why. First of alL
I prefer. when I have a good suhject, to shoot right away, in
stead of going to explain it to the producers, which wastes time.
not to mention the fact that it can be dull. In addition. I will
not have to worry about the kind of thing that happened to The
Human Beast: having my film-good or bad, it doesn't make
any difference-mutilated on the grounds that the censor in
some country will not accept certain scenes. * Those who huy
or rent my film will know what they're getting. And I hasten
to add that I received a gracious welcome and a good deal of
encouragement from the distributors to whom I talked-not as
an antagonist, but as a friend naturally. The N.E.F. (La Non
velIe Edition Fram;aise) -that's what I call my production
company-is directed by old friends. One will take care of sales.
Another will be in charge of casting. Another will be executive
producer, and the fourth, Andre Zwoboda, will help me with
the direction. The five of us get along like the five fingers of a
hand, I will make two films a year, and I'll be able to keep my
crew: de Bretagne. the sound engineer; Bachelet. the camera
man; Lourie, the designer~ and the others . . .
"In The Rules of the Game, for which I have conceived
the scenario, I will do the dialogue and the shooting script. I'll
also playa major role."
"Just what will The Rules of the Game be like?"
"A precise description of the bourgeois of our age. I want to
show that for every game, there are rules. If you don't play ac
cording to them, you lose,"
His great love for women.
"But what I want to convey in this film is my great love
for women," Renoir continnes. "To do this, I have to show
The Human Beast was produced by Robert and Raymond Hakim, F.T
,/
BEFORE THE RULES OF THE GAME: AN INTERVIEW'
185
mcn, men who talk about women, who say everything that can
be said about them.
"My heroine will bc Christinc, a woman of thc world who
is bored. Thc job of thc women of the world is a dreary onc.
Christine is thc daughter of a great orchcstra conductor from
Salzburg. This Stiller was a kind of Toscanini. A young baron
(hc doesn't have a name yet, so let's call him just 'baron')
brings Stiller to Paris, thcn marries his daughtcr. Later. old
Stiller dies. but Christine has long ago changcd her life: shc.
who was once hcr father's collaborator, has becomc just an
othcr Madame X, the rich wife who gives receptions . . . and
who looks dcspcrately for something to overcome hcr unhappi
ncss . . . "
"Christinc has childrcn?"
"No, because then her life would be differcnt
"
A woman must work or be a mother.

"In our age, there are two possibilities for a woman: work.
havc a career which occupies her, or spcnd her time wiping
baby's bottoms. Without one or the other she will always bc
unhappy, unfulfilled . . ."
"Who will play Christine?"
"Nora Grcgor. Christine thinks that the solution to her
problems is clear-cut. She thinks that everything is simple, as
long as shc follows her heart. But things are much morc com
plicated than that."
"And who will play her husband, the baron?"
"Dalio. "
"Did you say that he 'brings Stiller to Paris'?"
A lover of art who fancies people more than ideas; a ro
mantic lover, a flirtatious chambermaid, and other matters.
"The baron is a patron of the arts. He becamc onc more or
less from idlencss. The son of a very wealthy man, he is a mem
ber of a few boards of directors. He decides to takc up the arts.
But does he understand them? A little. For him, Stillcr repre
sents music. That is why he brings him to Paris. Later. whcn
186 .
JEAN RENOIR
Stiller dies, he loses his interest in music and turns to painting.

In short, he fancies people more than ideas."
"Are there any other major characters?"
"Yes, there is a romantic lover, who will be played by
Roland Toutain. Don't be surprised. I am sure that it is pre
cisely the role for him. There will also be a chambermaid,
married to Ledoux: who has Carette the poacher for her lover."
"Who will play that part?"
"I don't know yet. Because I haven't decided if she will be
tall and blond, or brunette and plump . . . "t
"And what role will you take yourself?"
"A failure. I would like to have been a musician, but I am
too lazy. So I satisfy myself with being a music critic. And I
give advice to everyone, which leads to the worst problems and
the most impossible complications."
"How long will you be shooting?"
"About eight weeks, if I count the shooting on location in
Sologne."
"And afterward?"
"Afterward . . . there will be the editing. I'm planning
to present The Rules of the Game at the World's Fair in New
York. And then? A little rest, before starting a new film."
* Fernand Ledoux was replaced by Gaston Modot. F.T.
It turned out to be a small, plump blonde: Paulette Dubost. F.T.
An Early Scenario Jor
The Rules of the Game (extracts)
This early treatment of The Rules of the Game is closer to Renoir's

idea of the film at the time of the Pour Vous interview than to the
final script, which can be found in its entirety in a volume of Simon
and Schuster's Classic Film Scripts Series, or in an excellent sum
mary by Claude Beylie in the Filmography of this book.
If The Rules of the Game is the most exciting of Renoir's films,
the history of the film-before, during, and after its conception-is
no less so and would undoubtedly be worth a whole book (along the
lines of Lillian Ross's Picture, on the making of John Huston's The
Red Bad ge of Courage) .
This extract from the early draft of the screenplay that we dis
covered stops before the great hunting scene, but it illustrates, in
terms of details which were forgotten, abandoned, or modified, in
terms of its differences with the final version, what Jean Renoir's
intentions were.
Fran<;:ois Truffaut
Prologue
The Paris Opera. A great concert is being given by Paul
Stiller. It was his friend Robert Monteux who convinced the
great conductor to come to Paris and who financed this sensa
tional performance. Monteux is very proud, and he accepts
188
,JEAN RENOIR
the congratulations as if he had composed the music himself

Great enthusiasm from the audience. Monteux decides to fol
low up this triumph by asking for the hand of Christine. Stil
ler's daughter.
Conversation between Christine and Andre Cartier. * a
flyer. Andre Cartier loves Christine, but he loves flying even
more, and the young girl feels unable to enter into a world so
foreign to her. She assists her father, and by marrying Mon
teux. a prominent antique collector but also a patron of music.
she will not have to change her activities. Only one person is
not enthusiastic about the marriage. It is Octave. forty-five
years old, a friend of Stiller's for the past twenty-five years. an
unsuccessful musicographer, who knows Christine like a daugh
ter. having often stayed at Stiller's in Vienna. more or less
sponging off him. He likes Monteux, but he likes Christine
more, and he thinks that the newlyweds will not get along with
each other for long because Christine is more intelligent and
Monteux. despite all the money he has earned, is a fool. Peo
ple make fun of him. But the marriage is set.
Scene I
At the airport. The "Marseillaise" fills the air and the
crowd is enthusiastic. Andre Cartier has just landed. having
smashed all the world aviation records. Description of the kind
of insanity that takes possession of a euphoric crowd.
The most eminent public figures congratulate Cartier.
The most beautiful women throw kisses to him. Finallv Jle
manages to reach his car. It is a beautiful automobile in which
his chauffeur whisks him away. To get back to Paris he will
have to take an extensive detour since the heavv traffic has
blocked the direct route.
"
Scene II
Cartier reaches home. A lovely apartment with a view of
the Palais-Royal. His chauffeur and servants succeed in pull
In the film Andre Cartier becomes Andre Jurieu. F,T.
EARLY SCENARIO: THE RULES OF THE GAME'
189
ing him away from the crowd of admirers waiting in front of

his door.
Finally he is home. His luxurious apartment is filled with
flowers. Almost all of them come from stage and film actresses.
Exhausted, he lets his valet undress him. The telephone
rings. It is his friend Octave, who had gone to meet him at the
airport but was unable to get ncar him. He is calling from a
nearby bar. Cartier tells him to come up right away.
Cartier's first question to Octave is, "Was she at the air
port?" She, we realize, is a woman whom Cartier must love
very much. Octave replies that she was not there because it is
"her day." Tea, cocktails. petits fours. important people, etc.
Impossible to miss such a ceremony, even to watch a friend's
spectacular triumph.
Cartier tells his friend of his definite intention to declare
his love to the woman in question. Octave tells him that he is
wronf.!; and that he docs not have a chance. He knows Aline*
well because she is his goddaughter. Her father, Colonel de
Brienne. was his best friend. They were in the war together. But
Aline is a very proper person. who agreed loyally and without
enthusiasm to marry her husband and who will probably re
main faithful to him.
Andre is not discouraged by his friend's warnings. He picks
up the telephone and calls Aline to make a date with her for the
next day.
Then, exhausted, he starts to go to sleep. Octave rouses him
for an instant to announce that he is going to spend the night.
He doesn't have a cent right now, and he has just been kicked
out of his hotel. Andre acquiesces, and Octave, as he prepares
himself a generous Scotch and soda, announces that he is going
to get his suitcase.
Betwpen the prolog-up and this second scene the heroine has changeel
names as wdl as fathers and husbands, but she is still the same vvoman
who will finally be called Christine (Nora Gregor) in the film. FT.
190 JEAN RENOIR
Scene III
The next day. We are at Aline's. The women are having
a party. Aline's husband, Robert Dunoyer. is at work. He is a
successful lawyer. He is very wealthy and very busy. The hus
bands of all these women arc important people either in in
dustry or business. In reality, all these men lead completely
separate lives, and their wives sec rather little of them. The
principle behind all this is that the men of a certain milieu have
wives in the same way they might have collections of paintings.
or stables of race horses, or beautiful automobiles.
What can such a woman of the world do. if she has no
children? If she does not want to die of boredom. have her mind
stultify, or sink into pettiness, she has only one recourse: to
take a lover.
Other outlets are mentioned: religion. charity vvork. music.
A lover is better. It is a far more spirited enterprise. and
from the point of view of the husband. the taking of a lover
by the wife is a means of extending and strengthening one's
social ties.
The world is made up of clans which elbow and fight their
way toward material success, and it is in the interest of the
mem bers of these clans to be united by strong bonds. One must
only remember to keep up appearances and to observe the rules
of the game.
The rules of the game infuriate Aline. and she insists that
if she ever loved anyone but her hushand, she would not hesi
tate to give herself to him without thinking about it. At this
point a visitor is announced, and Aline leaves her friends.
Scene IV
It is Andr(' Cartier.. who following up his telephone call of
yesterday, has come to declare his love.
He has prepared a long speech on the way over. but once
in the presence of the young woman he no longer knovvs wha!
to say. Aline starts by congratulating him on his exploit and
191
then puts him at ease by telling him that she knows very well
what he wants to tell her.
Before his flight they had seen each other several times.
and one evening at a party he had even spoken to her very
tenderly and she had let him go on. But now she tells him that
the secret rendezvous in a bachelor's apartment. however ele
gant. and the series of lies and hypocrisies that such an under
taking involves are not for her. He protests the purity of his
intentions. Then if his intentions are pure. he must want to
take her away and settle down with her. She imagines the hos
tility that would arise between her husband and him. Perhaps
the two would fight a duel? She would be the heroine of a pub
lic scandal. But she does not feel at all cut out for such a role.
She has a husband who satisfies her very well. and she is quite
happy as she is.
Andre cannot believe that she really loves her husband. a
remarkable but authoritarian and self-centered man.
For one thing. if Aline had really wanted to rebuff him
strongly, why had she let him make advances before. and why
had she almost encouraged him?
Aline mentions the natural flirtatiousness of women. Does
it constitute a promise just to allow a man to say pleasant
things to you?
Andre still insists. He 15 jealous of everyone who ap
proaches her. He is jealous of her husband. He wants to have
her for himself.
She ends the conversation by telling him that she is very
flattered to be loved by a hero. by a great man whom she re
spects more than anyone in the world. but that love is out of
the question. Friendship, companionship, camaraderie, as much
as he likes, but no more. He leaves, crushed, and she goes back
to the room where her friends are waiting for her.
Scene V
Looking out the window, one of Aline's friends sees Car
tier walking away. She realizes what Aline's visit must have
192 JEAN RENOIR
been about. Immediately all the ladies, not without a certain

jealousy, congratulate Aline on her brilliant catch. T}ley sup
pose that she too has found a pleasant arrangement without
compromising her position and that, in spite of what she says,
she, like the others, observes the rules of the game.
Scene VI
Andre rejoins Octave, who has been waiting for him not
far from Aline's on a path in the Bois du Boulogne. He tells
him of his failure. Octave becomes furious and declares that
nothing in the world works, because people are not well
matched.
The person he loves most in t}le world is Aline. Her fa
ther was his best friend. Even now he is inconsolable over his
death. When she was little her mother neglected her. and it
was he who took her out and entertained her. T}mrsdays he
would pick her up at the convent and take her to the theater.
the movies, or simply to the merry-go-round. He would like to
see her happy. and he deplores her marriage with this ridicu
lous lawyer. If she accepted him, it was only to rescue her
mother from misery. On the other hand, }Je likes and admires
Andre. And now he has become a national hero. These two
would be a perfect couple.
But things will not work out that way naturally. So Oc
tave decides to make it his business. The union of Andre and
Aline will henceforth be his goal in life, and as he leaves his
friend he swears to dedicate himself to this mission.
Scene VII
At Dunoyer's. The end of a business lunch. Except for
Aline. there are only men. At first they talked of Dunoyer and
Aline's departure in a week or so on a hunting trip; otherwise
the conversation is entirely about business. Aline is bored. Du
noyer is informed that Octave is asking for him. Irritated, Du
noyer asks his wife to take care of this dubious character, whose
role in Aline's life he himself has taken over since his mar
riage. Aline agrees and goes to receive Octave.
193
Scene VIII
Aline greets Octave in a way which makes it clear that she
does not share her husband's sentiments. She rushes to him
enthusiastically and asks him what he wants. He is a little em
barrassed because he would have preferred to ask Dunoyer.
What he wants is simply to come and stay at the home of his
goddaughter. Right now there are money problems; he has been
kicked out of his hotel. All this is temporary. It is just a matter
of weathering a few bad days, but he would like, even for such
a short period, to avoid sleeping under bridges. Aline is very
amused at the idea that her old godfather has not changed, that
he is just as crazy and carefree as ever. She kisses him affec
tionately, and without giving it another thought, leads him to
a room and starts to unpack his things.
As she arranges the contents of his suitcase in a wardrobe,
Aline reproaches Octave vigorously for not having asked her for
money. But Octave points out that if he had money he would
feel obliged to pay his hotel bilL and that would not please him
at all.
He is a little worried about how Dunoyer wm take his ar
rival in the house. But she reassures him. Dunoyer himself
arrives, surprised by his wife's prolonged absence. He looks
unpleasantly at Octave, but Aline reminds him of a promise
he made to her during their engagement that he would give her
a room in which she could put up anyone she wanted. Rather
gracelessly, Dunoyer assents and goes back to his guests.
Continuing to arrange his things, Aline suggests a rendez
vous at lunch the day after next. Until then she is the prisoner
of the inexorable schedule of her dreary life: dinner at an em
bassy, a golfing date, etc.
Scene IX
So it is two days later that Fran<;oise, * Robert, and Octave
are brought together over lunch. This first meal is rather awk
Alirw turns into Fran<;oise, but it is still Christine! F.T.
19 t
JEAN RENOIR
ward. and to enliven the conversation Fran<;oise proposes a

game of Philippine* to Octave.
Franc;oise reminds her husband of the story of the guest
room which she had been promised during their engagement.
She congratulates herself on this arrangement which enables
her to receive Octave. Robert asks Octave to what he owes the
honor of his visit. Octave explains that it is because he is out of
money. Great theorizing about the sanctity of familial relations.
and then he starts to talk about parasites. In Octave's perverse
view. it is Robert who is the parasite. not him.
The conversation about games has taken place previously
between Octave and Fran<;oise. The audience must understand
quickly the nature of the ties which unite the young woman
and her old friend. One might follow the remark about para
sites with one about appearances. For example. many people
are parasites without appearing to be so. but they are in that
they perform jobs created for no real purpose except to provide
them with a livelihood. One can imagine. for example. that the
legal profession-judges. lawyers, and others-have deliber
ately complicated the society with their absurd laws simply to
justify their existence. Another example: one can imagine a
doctor who has no customers conceiving the idea of persuading
rich families to engage him to check their diets. Everyday he
would stop by their kitchens and check the menus. comparing
them to yesterday's and tomorrow's and keeping track of the
number of calories. After a short while this post would become
indispensable, and rich families would not dare to think of
living without such a specialist. In addition. the cooks would
go along readily. out of respect for science.
Robert replies to Fran<;oise and Octave in the same ironic
tone, but being very busy. he has to leave. He is hardly gone
when Fran<;oise and Octave begin to play at chasing each other
around the room. Suddenly Fran<;oise stops. She asks Octave
* A French gaml\ traditionally played for almonds. The winner is tlw
first to say "Good morning. Philippine" to the other after a minimum
wait. Trans.
195
why he has really come. She does not believe a word of his story
about sleeping under bridges. He promises to tell her the real
reason. if she will answer one question. She agrees. The ques
tion is: "Are you happy?" The young woman begins to cry.
huddles in his arms, and confesses all the emptiness and bore
dom of her upper bourgeois existence.
Description of the dreary servitude which is the life of an
upper-class woman.
At this moment. we hear the sound of the organ grinder
in the street. Fran<;oise opens the window, and Octave asks him
to playa certain tune. There are several people standing around
the organ grinder, among them a laborer who works in the
neighborhood whose wife has just brought him a snack. They
seem quite close as they listen happily to the music.
Fran~oise tells Octave that of course she can imagine the
difficult life of these poor people, but that she would give any
thing to be in the place of this woman whose husband greets
her with such appreciation.
The music continues. It is Octave's turn to explain himself.
He asks for a reprieve until the next morning.
Scene X
The morning of the next day. Octave is still sleeping in
the much-discussed guest room. Fran(oise wakes him to win the
game of Philippine. She begins by taking away the bottles
which crowd Octave's bedside table. He has been drinking heav
ily. Then she tells him that as her reward for having won the
game. she is going to ask him to get married. After all. he has
talent; what does he need to succeed? The opportunity to
write in peace, free from financial worries. She has a friend
with an independent income who would make an excellent
wife. She would not make great demands on him and would
never interfere with their beautiful friendship by feeling jeal
ous. She is rich, and she knows how to cook. He would he sitting
pretty. free to turn out one masterpiece after another. Octave
agrees to meet the friend in question, on the condition tllat
196 .
JEAN RENOIR
Fran<;oise agree to meet Andre and consider his proposition.

At last they have a basis for agreement, and it is decided to
invite Andre to the hunting party at Sologne.
Octave continues with his propaganda, severely denigrat
ing her husband and falsely portraying the impending meeting
with Andre as a casual affair. After all, what does it amount
to? An experiment. They are going to get to know each other.
There's no commitment involved. In two weeks Andre will
have forgotten her; she will be no more unhappy for having
seen him, and will have avoided being unnecessarily cruel.
She agrees on the condition that Octave also come to the
hunt. He tries to beg off because he loathes that type of thing,
but in the end he gives in. Franc;oise leaves. Enter the chamber
maid bringing breakfast. Mistaken identity scene between the
chambermaid and Octave. Octave talks gaily about going off
to Sologne to meet a lover. The chambermaid thinks this means
her, since, while she is married to the gamekeeper, she is also
the mistress of a poacher in the area.
This scene will have to be moved along by innuendo; for
example, suggesting Franc;oisc's unhappiness, to give every
one else an idea of what the situation is. The scene will end
with Octave and the maid in perfect understanding.
Scene Xl
At Sologne. All the guests are standing on the steps of the
chateau around Dunoyer, Franc;oise, and Octave. They are very
excited about the arrival of Andre, the great aviator. the na
tional hero. They are puzzled that he has not yet arrived. par
ticularly since an automobile company has given him its latest
model sports car.
Octave. dubious, expounds his ideas on sports cars. He
himself has an old four-cylinder Citroen; not too exciting, but
it gets him where be's going on time. Franc;oise expresses her
complete agreement and starts to ridicule Andre. Turnabout
by Octave, who contradicts himself. His new line of argument
is supported by the arrival of Andre.
Fran<;oise is annoyed by the adulation with which Andre
EARLY SCENARIO: THE RULES OF THE GAME
197
is greeted. Octave does his best to assuage her. Brief descrip

tion of the evening meal at which everyone talks about Andre's
flight and a bout the hunt. Fran(oise finds it idiotic. Andre
senses the young woman's reticence and is embarrassed. Octave
tries to straighten things out.
After the meal the older men play Ping-Pong. Andre
agrees to be a fourth at bridge. Fran(oise is occupied with her
duties as mistress of the house. Octave jokes with the maid, and
the gamekeeper, husband of the maid, comes to find out his or
ders for tomorrow.
Night.
We see the poacher coming out of the house of the game
keeper's wife. The guard comes back from his duties at the
same moment and fires on the poacher as he flees into the
shadows.
A hallway on the second floor of the chateau. A door
opens. The guests bustle about in their night clothes and go
down to the foyer. The guard arrives and explains that the
poacher has come again to steal pheasants. What audacity, just
when the chateau is full of people. He tried to stop him. The
poacher fired at him, and he fired hack.
Dunoyer proclaims that this is intolerable, that such an
act is larceny pure and simple. If it happens again he will or
ganize a posse to track down the culprit. Everyone approves ex
cept Fran<;:oise and Octave, who couldn't care less, and Andre,
who, noticing Fran<;:oise's attitude, prudently remains silent.
The excitement of this event having died down, everyone
goes back to hed.

PART THREE
Fi1m onraphy
FILMOGRAPHY
This filmography is probably the most complete to date, but it

is not necessarily definitive or free from errors. Some directors
are less formal in their working arrangements than others, and
Jean Renoir is a man for whom the dividing line between com
rade and collaborator is seldom clearly drawn. In a list of cred
its for Toni, for example, we find "Mechanics: Bcbert." We will
never know which Bebert, or for that matter, which mechanics.
Some people who observed the making of A Day in the
Country remember a certain Italian errand boy named Luchino
Visconti; others say he was in charge of costumes. The filmog
raphers usually list him with the assistant directors, and Claude
Beylie mentions him as an apprentice prop man. In any case,
we know that Renoir was drawn to the young man and sug
gested he read The Postman Always Rings Twice, the novel
which became the source of Visconti's first film, Ossessione, five
years later.
Thus a crew assembled around Henoir is less a stratified
team than it is a little group of friends. Henoir himself has sug
gested that one should organize films "like pranks: by sur
rounding oneself with good accomplices." That is why the
credits can never be as definitive as for a Hollywood produc
tion.
The filmography which follows is essentially the one pub
201
202 .JEAN RENOIR
lished in the Christmas 1 ~}) 7 issue of Cahiers dll. CinL;ma. It was

put together by Andre Bazin, who described it as "a prelimi
nary effort for a work on Jean Renoir." (He was referring to
this book.) Each list of credits is followed hy interpretive notes
written in 1957 by Jacques Doniol-Valcroze, Claude de Givray,
Jean-Luc Godard, Louis Marcorelles, Jacques Rivette, Eric Roh
mer, myself, and of course Andre Bazin. To these notes we have
added unpublished texts by Bazin and (for the more recent
films) Jean Douchet and Michel Delahaye. All the technical
credits have been checked and completed by Janine Bazin,
Claude Beylie, and Jean Kress, who also wrote the synopses.
This collective work does not pretend to be definitive. It
remains open to addition and correction, as probably all work of
this nature must.
FRAN<j0IS TRUFFAUT
N.B. The filmography often gives the lengths of films in meters.
There are approximately 27.1 meters to each minute of sound
film, and 18.3 meters to each minute of silent film. A "reel" is
a bout 305 meters, or 16.6 minutes at silent speed and 11 minutes
long at sound speed. Trans.
Catherine, or Une Vie sans .loie
(1924)
DIRECTOR: Albert Dieuclonne

SCREENPLAY: Jean Renoir, from a story by Jean Renoir and Pierre
Lestringuez
CAMERAMEN: Jean Bachelet and Gibory
SHOOTING: March-May 1924 at Gaum'ont Studios and on location at
Cagnes-sur-Mer, St-Paul-de-Vence
PRODUCER: Jean Renoir
LENGTH: 1,800 meters
DISTlUBUTOR: Films Jean Renoir, then Pierre Braunberger (after
19 2 7)
FIRST SHOWING: November 9, 1927, at the Max Linder
FILMOGRAPHY 203
ACTORS: Catherine Hessling (Catherine Ferrand); Albert Dieudonnc

(M. Mallet); Pierre Philippe, pseudonym for Pierre Lestringuez
(Adolph the pimp); Pierre Champagne (the younger Mallet);
Eugenie Naud (Mme. Laisne); Oleo (a prostitute); Jean Re
noir (the subprefect); Georges Terof (Gedeon Grane); Louis
Gauthier (Georges Mallet)
Catherine Ferrand, a young servant girl in Nice, is in love
with the tubercular son of her employer. The father is a solid
citizen, the deputy from St-Paul-de-Vence. His political rivals
see the affair between the son and the maid as an opportunity
for an odious blackmail campaign, which forces Catherine to
run away and take refuge in a railroad car. The car is on a sid
ing, but a switchman's error sends it rolling toward a cliff. The
son manages to stop the car in time and brings Catherine back
to the house. But the political rivals resume their efforts, and
she takes flight again. She goes to the city, where she falls into
the clutches of a notorious pimp. After numerous and varied
adventures she finds the son once again, and they live happily
ever after.
Jean Renoir wrote and financed this film, which intro
duced Catherine Hessling to the screen. He also participated in
the shooting under Alhert Dieudonne's direction with the hope
of learning the trade. Apparently the young backer did not find
his director as sympathetic as he had hoped, judging by a
rather imperious letter Dieudonne wrote to Cin'a-Cind on Jan
uary S, 1926: "I am the only director of a scenario which I
wrote from a story created by Jean Renoir . . . with my col
laboration. Moreover, 1\1. .Tean Renoir was my backer and my
pupil. I shall sec by his future productions whether or not I
should be satisfied with him."
Pierre Lestringuez, who wrote Renoir's first scenarios,
plays the role of the pimp under the name of Pierre Philippe.
He will appear frequently in Renoir's films, even playing sev
eral roles in one film, Nana, and showing up as a priest in A
Day in the Country.
ANDRt: IIAZlr\
204 . JEAN RENOIR
La Fille de l' Fau
(1924)
DIRECTOR: Jean Renoir

SCREENPLAY: Pierre Lestringuez
ASSISTANT DIRECTOR: Pierre Champagne
SETS: conceived by Renoir
DIRECTORS OF PHOTOGRAPHY: Jean Bachelet and Gibory
SHOOTING: summer 1924 at G.l\1. Films studios and on location at
Marlotte, "La Nicotiere" (Cezanne's estate), and the Bon Coin
Cafc
PRODUCER: Jean Renoir; Maurice Rouhier in France, Films Renoir
and subsequently Studios Films abroad
LENGTH: 1,700 meters, cut to 1,600 meters on its first release
RUNNING TIME: 1 hour 10 minutes
FIRST SHOWING: April 1925 at the Cine Opera
ACTORS: Catherine Hessling (Virginia Rosaert); Pierre Philippe,
pseudonym for Pierre Lestringuez (Jef, Virginia's uncle); Pierre
Champagne (Justin Crepoix); Maurice Touzc (Bouche, or La
Fouine, the little vagabond); Georges Terof (M. Raynal); Mme.
Fockenberghe (Mme. Raynal); Harold Lewingston (Georges
Raynal); Henriette Moret (La Roussette, an aging bohemian) ;
Charlotte CIasis (Mme. M au bien, the miller); Pierre Renoir (a
peasant); Andre Derain (the owner of the Bon Coin Cafe); Van
Doren (the leading man)
Virginia is cooking on a river barge. Her Uncle lcf is lead~
ing a horse along the tow path. Her father is busy on the boat.
From the bank M. Raynal and his son Georges watch Virginia.
They are amused and charmed. They take a picture. She makes
a face at them.
Reaching down to get some water, the father slips and
falls. When Virginia realizes what has happened, it is too late.
The search for the body with poles and lanterns continues into
the night. When the body is finally found, it is a horrible sight.
Later, the uncle has squandered his inheritance on drink.
The barge is going to be sold. Virginia scolds her uncle. He
tries to rape her. She hides under the bed-a fairly impressive
FILMOGRAPHY 205
I
II
1r
!
f
scene which foreshadows Toni. Eventually, she escapes with

her dog. She encounters a young gypsy. who takes her to the
trailer where he lives with his mother.
The gypsy makes his living stealing and poaching fish. He
laughs contemptuously when a local hick discovers and breaks
his fish traps and swears angrily to ruin him for his thieving.
The gypsy gets his revenge by setting fire to a haystack. The
firemen come to put out the blaze, and the hick convinces them
to punish the gypsy by burning down his trailer. Foreseeing
the disaster, the mother and son have taken flight by the time
an angry crowd of peasants (among them Pierre Renoir) ar
rive to confront a terrified Virginia. They set fire to the trailer.
Once again abandoned and frightened, Virginia lives like
a wild animal. Raynal's son brings her things to eat. One
stormy night, sleeping in the rain, Virginia has a nightmare:
Dressed in a white veil, she is at the foot of a tree where her
uncle is hanged. The hanged man descends from the tree and
comes to life. The rope around his neck becomes a snake. She
runs away and takes refuge on the branch of a tree, only to
find her uncle and the hick. Next, she is trapped in a gallery
of columns over which the faces of her uncle and the peasant
are superimposed. A monster (a chameleon with wings and a
little makeup) makes his way through the colonnade. Finally.
she sees a door at the end of the gallery and escapes. On the
other side of the door she finds Raynal's son, dressed as a knight
and riding a white charger. He carries her off. (This seguence.
shot in slow motion, contains several special effects-for exam
ple. a horse riding through the clouds-which prefigure the
dream seguence in La Petite Marchande d'Allumettes.)
The storm over, M. Raynal discovers Virginia the follow
ing morning. He takes her to the mill, where the farmers will
care for her. She recovers rapidly. A romantic stroll with the
younger Raynal. He is too shy to declare his love.
Later, Virginia goes to town to do some errands and runs
into her uncle, who has become a railwayman. He forces her
to give him the money she has in her purse and demands that
,i
206 JEAN RENOIR
she bring more. The same afternoon M. Raynal sends Virginia

to the village to pay the harness maker, and she gives the
money to her uncle.
The inevitable occurs. M. Raynal learns that the harness
maker has not been paid, and naturally he suspects Virginia.
Desperate, she decides to confess, but as she is going to M. Ray
nal's chateau, her uncle accosts her and intimidates her further.
Virginia cries out her hatred of her uncle, telling him he is
making her lose her only friend by turning her into a thief.
Luckily, M. Raynal happens to be on the other side of the wall
and hears the whole exchange. He leaps over the wall and
grapples with the despicable uncle. A fairly long fight scene on
the riverbank. M. Raynal finally manages to throw the uncle
in the water, and he swims off. All's well that ends well.
The theme of Orvet is already apparent in this first film.
The water is of course significant, as is the role of poaching.
There is a brief shot of the gypsy, up to his thighs in water,
holding a fish in his hand, which reminds me of a similar shot
of Zachary Scott in The Southerner.
Renoir's realism is already well developed. There is physi
cal realism (nature, shot on location) and human realism
(close-ups of the peasants of Marlotte). The fire seguence re
minds one of Stroheim-for example, the diabolical shot of
Pierre Renoir, seen through the tongs of his pitchfork.
The scenario is obviously melodramatic, but with some
very cruel elements. The only good characters are the Raynals.
Even the gypsies are not sympathetic.
ANDRE BAZIN
Nana
(1926)

SCREENPLAY: Pierre Lestringuez, from the novel by Emile Zola,
adapted by Jean Renoir
TITLES: Mme. Leblond-Zola
FILMOGRAPHY .
207
ASSISTANT DIRECTORS: Andre Cerf, Pierre Lestringuez (?)

SETS: Claude Autant-Lara, executed by Robert-Jules Garnier
COSTUMES: Claude Autant-Lara
DIRECTORS OF PHOTOGRAPHY: Edmund Corwin and Jean Bachelet
CAMERAMEN: Ralleigh and Gibory
ASSISTANT CAMERAMEN: Holski, Asselin, Perie
STAGE MANAGER: R. Turgy
SOUND: R. Turgy
EDITOR: Jean Renoir
SHOOTING: from the end of October 1925 to February 1926, on loca
tion in the Paris area (the race-track scene), at Montigny, and
at the Gaumont studios in Paris and the Grunewald studios in
Berlin
PRODUCER: Films Jean Renoir
DISTRIBUTOR: Aubert-Pierre Braunberger
FIRST SHOWING: Aubert Palace
ACTORS: Catherine Hessling (Nana); Jean Angelo (Count de Van
deuvres); Werner Krauss (Count Muffat); Raymond Guerin
Catelain (Georges Hugon); Jacqueline Forzane (Countess Sa
bine Muffat); Valeska Gert (Zoe, Nana's chambermaid); Har
bacher (Francis, N ana's hairdresser); Pierre Philippe, pseudo
nym of Pierre Lestringuez, (Bordenave); Claude Moore, pseudo
nym for Claude Autant-Lara (Fauchery); Nita Romani (Satin);
Jacqueline Ford (Rose Mignon); Pierre Champagne (La Fa
loise); Rene Koval (Fontan); Marie Prevost (Gaga); Andre
Cerf ("Le Tigre"); Pierre Braunberger and R. Turgy (specta
tors at the Theatre des Varietes)
Nana is an ambitious young actress. After some success in
earthy roles, she suffers a total failure when she attempts to
playa respectable lady. She decides to become a prostitute and
is kept by a series of lovers, whom she more or less drives to
suicide. She finally dies herself, of smallpox.
Nana is the first of his films which Renoir considers worthy
of discussion. It cost exactly one million francs, and although
fairly well received, it was a financial failure. It was the first
of Renoir's films in which acting took predecence over the story
and the plastic elements. It was made under the influence of
208 JEAN RENOIR
Foolish Wives, which accounts for the emphasis on the heroine's

cupidity. This influence also explains why Nana is the only
one of Renoir's films in which money plays an important role.
The most original and personal clement in the film is the paral
lel treatment of masters and servants. (Renoir will think back
to Nalla when he makes The Rules of the Game and Diary of a
Chambermaid. )
Probably reacting against the stiffness of his preceding
film, Renoir brings his characters close together in Nana, con
stantly shooting them in American-style two-shots. Only in the
four very long dolly shots (for which he used the chassis of an
old Ford) docs one become aware of the splendor and the
(partly illusory) size of the sets, designed by Claude Autant
Lara. There arc various characteristic themes here: the love of
spectacle, the woman who chooses the wrong vocation, the
actress trying to find herself, the lover who dies of his sincerity,
the distracted politician, the showman. In short Nana rhymes
with Elena (Paris Does Stran~e Things).
FRANyOIS TRUFFAUT
Renoir had financed Nana himself, and its failure at the box office
ruined him. He directed Marquitta to earn money while he was work
ing on Charleston for his own pleasure.
Charleston, or Sur
WI
Air de Charleston
(19 26 )
ALTERNATE TITLE: Charleston-Parade

SCREENPLAY: Pierre Lestringuez, from an idea by Andre Cerf
ASSISTANT DIRECTOR: Andre Cerf
DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY: Jean Bachelet
MUSIC: Clement Doucet
FILMOGRAPHY 20g
SHOOTING: autumn 1926 (in a few days) at the Epinay studios

DISTRIBTJTOR: Nco-Film
LENGTH: 600 meters, cut to 29 minutes
FIRST SHOWING: March 19, 1927, at the Artistic or the Pavillon (later
the Palais Berlitz)
ACTORS: Catherine Hessling (the dancer); Johnny Huggins (the
black explorer); Pierre Braunberger and Pierre Lestringuez
(two angels). (.Johnny Huggins was a famous tap-dancer in "La
Revue Negre" on the Champs-Elysees.)
Glaciers have descended on Europe and thrown it into dis
order. A black scholar, who has come to explore the continent,
discovers a savage white woman, who introduces him to the
barbaric dances of the day, notably the Charleston. Needless
to say, the woman is none other than Catherine Hessling, hips
swaying and more provocative than ever. She emerges from the
billboard column on which the scholar's flying ship has landed.
At the end of the film the elegant Negro invites the naked
white woman to come away vvith him. A fur coat and an um
brella appear from a manhole. Equipped for the voyage, she
climbs aboard the space ship with Johnny Huggins and they
leave France, now terra incognita.
Because its humor was strictly burlesque, Charleston had
no success at all, but what remains of its original 1,200 meters
is zany, spontaneous, and very amusing. Taking advantage of
the freedom the film gave them, Catherine Hessling and
Johnny Huggins threw themselves into it wholeheartedly.
Catherine Hessling's eroticism, evident in Nana, is here system
atically exploited. It is not surprising that this orgy of thighs
displayed hy a dancer wearing nothing but panties and a half
open corset caused some scandal. Only the silent version sur
vives, hut apparently the film was once accompanied by some
fine music written for it by Doucet.
FHANgOIS TRUFFAUT
210
JEAN RENOIR
A1 arquitta (1~)2 7)
ORIGINAL TITLE: "Marcheta," from the name of a song by SaintGranier

SCREENPLAY: Pierre Lestringuez, from an adaptation by .lean Renoir
SETS: Robert-Jules Garnier
DIRECTORS OF PHOTOGRAPHY: .lean Bachelet and Raymond Agnel
SHOOTING: winter 1926-27 at the Gaumont studios and on location
at Nice (Moyenne Corniche)
PRODUCER: Artistes Reunis (Marie-Louise Iribe*)

DISTRIBUTOR: Jean de Merly
LENGTH: 2,400 meters, cut to 2,200 meters
FIRST SHOWING: September 13,1927, at the Aubert Palace
ACTORS: Marie-Louise Iribe (Marquitta); Jean Angelo (Prince
Vlasco); Henri Debain (the chamberlain, Count Dimitrieff);
Lucien Mancini (the adoptive father); Pierre Philippe, pseudo
nym of Pierre Lestringuez (the manager of the casino); Pierre
Champagne (a taxi driver)
The film itself has been lost, but three different accounts
of it survive:
"A Russian prince has a particularly exasperating mistress.
One day in front of the Barbes metro station he sees a Piaf-style
street singer and says to his mistress : 'You arc not irreplaceable.
I'll bet that in a year I can make a star of that beggar.' He un
dertakes the project, but the street singer proves to be ten times
more unbearable than the old mistress. She forces him to leave
restaurants in the middle of meals and humiliates him so much
and in so many ways that the prince finally throws her over
and returns to his old lover, who takes him back with open
arms."
This summary was dictated to me in 1919 by Pierre Les
La Societe des Artistes Reunis was founded by Marie-Louise Tribe,
sister-in-law of Pierre Lestringuez and at the time the wife of Pierre
Renoir. F.T.
FILMOGRAPHY 211
tringuez. Andre Bazin left a note which summarizes the film

in a different way:
"A little street singer is noticed by a Russian prince, who
takes her on as his protegee. This lower-class woman accustoms
herself to the prince's elegant life style without difficulty, but
her adoptive father, who has also been taken in by the prince,
steals an enormous sapphire from their benefactor. The prince
has the innocent Marquitta kicked out. The little singer becomes
famous singing her street songs in elegant dance halls. One day
she runs into the prince, who, having lost his fortune in a revo
lution, has joined a Russian dancing troupe. The stolen sapphire
saves the prince from a life of misery and assures the happiness
of the reunited lovers."
In his pamphlet Jean Renoir, published in the series Al
bums Diapositives, Claude Beylie tells the tale in yet a third
fashion:
"The prince, the heir of Decarlie, falls for a little street
singer on a trip to Paris. In spite of the warnings of his cham
berlain, he goes off to the Riviera with her, where they live in
high style. They cause a scandal at Cannes. The rest of the film
is comprised of a series of adventures-the arrival of the singer's
father (a crafty thief) ; an affair involving the dynastic legacy
of the Soviet crown; the sudden return of the prince, fed up
with the excesses of his mistress, to his native land; his exile
following a palace revolution; their reunion in Nice; an auto
mobile chase along the cliffs."
We know that to make the film Renoir had to construct a
miniature of the Barbes metro station, which appeared life size
when reflected in a mirror. The actors worked in front of the
mirror. It was a variation of Abel Gance's "pictograph."
FRAN~OIS
TRUFFAUT
Back on his feet, Renoir joined with Jean Tedesco, manager of the
Theatre du Vieux-Colombier, and set up a tiny studio in the attic of
212 . JEAN RENOIR
the Theater. It was under these primitive conditions that he made

La Petite Marchande d'Allumettes.
La P'tite Lili*
(1927)
DIHECTOR: Alberto Cavalcanti

SCREENPLAY: Alberto Cavalcanti, suggested by a 1900 song by Louis
Branch
SETS: Eric Aes
DIHECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY: Rogers
EDITOR: Marguerite Renoir
MUSIC: Max de la Casiniere (for the silent versiont)
SHOOTING: 1927 at the Boulogne-Billancourt studios
PRODUCER: Neo-Film (Braunberger), Albatros (?), Armor (?)
LENGTH: 300 meters
FIHST SHOWING: October 1, 1927, at the Ursulines theater along with
N JU by Paul Czinner
ACTORS: Catherine Hessling (La P'tite Lili); Jean Renoir (the
pimp); Guy Ferrand (the singer) ; Roland Caillaux (the woman
concierge) ; Eric Aes, Rogers, Dido Freire (silhouettes)
La p'tite Lili was shot in three days under cloudy skies m

an outdoor set at Billancourt. They were able to use the Paris
street set precisely because of the bad weather; no one else
wanted it. The idea of shooting the film through a sort of burlap
cloth provided the artistic justification for the dull gray photog
raphy.
* Renoir acted in this film and Le Petit Chaperon Rouge, both of which
were directed by Alberto Cavalcanti, the Brazilian-born director who was
associated with the French avant-garde at the end of the silent era, then
with the English documentarists for many years, and with the brief
flowering of the Brazilian cinema in the early 1950s. His films include
Rien que les Heures (1927), En Rade (1928), Went the Dar Well?
(1942), Simao 0 Caolho (1952),0 Canto do Mar (1954). Trans.
t Darius Milhaud produced a sound track for it in 1930 for the Festival
of Baden-Baden. This sound version was very successful in Germany, but
was never presented in France. F.T.
FILMOGRAPHY . 213
The title, taken from a popular song already twenty years
old and forgotten when the film was made, was chosen because
Catherine Hessling often sang such popular tunes. Among the
other players were Renoir, Guy Ferrand, Roland Caillaux, Eric
Aes, Rogers, Dido Freire (Cavalcanti's niece and the future
Mme. Jean Renoir).
The film cost 7,100 francs. It had two runs at the Ursulines
theater and was distributed throughout the world after Darius
Milhaud added the sound track.
Apparently Jean Cocteau stormed out of the opening, furi
ous that someone had had the bad taste to make fun of the song
"La P'tite Lili."
ANDRE BAZIN
I,
I
La Petite il1archande d'Allumettes
(1928)
ORIGINAL TITLE: "La Petite Fille aux Allumettes," designed to avoid

confusion with an American film starring Mary Carr which was
released in Paris in 1926 under the title La Petite A1arclzande
d' Allumettes
DIRECTORS: Jean Renoir and Jean Tedesco
SCREENPLAY: Jean Renoir, from the story by Hans Christian Ander
sen ("The Little Match Girl")
ASSISTANT DIRECTORS: Claude Heymann and Simone Hamiguet
SETS: Eric Aes
MUSIC: (added in 1930): a potpourri of Mendelssohn, Strauss, Wag
ner, etc.
ARRANGEMENTS: Manuel Rosenthal
SHOOTING: August 1927 to January 1928 at the Theatre du VieuxColombier and on the sands of Marly
PRODUCERS: Jean Renoir and Jean Tedesco
DISTRIBUTOR: S.O.F.A.R.
LENGTH: 29 minutes (considerably cut from its original length)
FIRST SHOWING: March 31, 1928, at the Alhambra in Geneva and
June 1928 at the Vieux-Colombier in Paris. (The original Paris
2 L1< .JEAN RENOIR
run was interrupted and the film seized when Edmond Rostalld's
widow brought suit against the film makers for plagiarism. The
second release, with a sound track added, took place in February
193 0 . )
ACTORS: Catherine Hessling (Karen, the little match girl); Manuel

Raa hi (the policeman and the Hussar of Death); Jean Storm
(the rich young man and the cavalier); Army Xells (Amy
Wells?; the mechanical doll)
It is a cold winter's night in a distant northern city. A
I
t
little girl dressed in rags and tatters tries in vain to sell her
matches to passers-by hastening to the warmth of their homes.
Knocked about. ignored. and il bit frightened by the watchful
eye of a nearby policeman. she had sold nothing and dares not
return to her squalid shanty. She falls asleep on the snow-cov
ered ground beside a fence, and begins to dream . . .
She enters a toy store. where she recognizes one of the
men from the street as the lieutenant commanding a platoon
of wooden soldiers. The policeman is a jack-in-the-box dressed
to look like the "Hussar of Death." Chased by the hussar, the
little match girl and the lieutenant flee into the clouds. But
Death has the last word. Karen comes slowly back to reality.
but not to wake up. Passers-by gather around her frozen. life
less body.
CLAUDE llEYT.TE
La Petite Marchande d'Allumettes stands apart from the

rest of Renoir's silent work. Its tragic fairy-talc subject and its
fantastic technical effects place it, superficially at least. in the
French avant-garde at the end of the silent era. It blatantly
contradicts the fallacious notion of Renoir as essentially a real
ist. StilL his choice of subject seems to have been determined
much less by the influence of an "avant-garde" expressionism
than by his admiration for Andersen and his taste for l'igging
up special effects (d. the metro scene in Marquittai.
La Petite Marchande gave Renoir his first opportunity to
make a film indoors with panchromatic film. In order to do
FILMOGRAPHY 215
this. after consultation with the Philips Company. Renoir and

Jean Bachelet decided to use supercharged lamps backed by
metal reflectors. This technique-the forerunner of the modern
floodlight-was to have an important future.
The film required the use of several special technical ef
fects. Along with Nana it is probably the most interesting and
instructive of Renoir's silent films. In spite of the avant-garde
technique. however. La Petite 11-1archande has none of the ex
pressionist dreaminess of some of the cinema of its day. Its tech
nique is expressionist, but its style is impressionist. More pre
cisely. it amused Renoir to superimpose impressionism on
expressionism. The special effects were not created for the sake
of fantasy but as ends in themselves, as games to amuse their
inventor.
As for the style of acting and its general sensibility. they
clearly derive directly from Chaplin. His influence is partiCll
larly noticeable in Catherine Hessling's acting and in the street
scenes preceding Karen's dream.
ANDRE BAZIN
The "silly lawsuit" resulted in an order enjoining the showing of the

film, but Renoir remained in the good graces of the producers by
agreeing to make the kinds of military comedy and pseudo-historical
film which were popular at the time (Tire au Flanc and Le Bled).
Tire au Flane
(1929)
DIRECTOR: ] ean Renoir

SCREENPLAY: adapted by Jean Renoir, Claude Heymann, and Andre
Cerf from the comedy by A. Mouezy-Eon and A. Sylvane
TITLES AND DRAWINGS: Andre Rigaud
ASSISTANT DIRECTORS: Andre Cerf and Lola Markovitch
216 .
JEAN RENOIR
SETS: Eric Aes

DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY : Jean Bachelet
STAGE MAN AGER: Pascal
SHOOTING: at Billall court studios and on location at a military bar
racks at St-Cloud and at the Bois de St-Cloud
PRODUCER: Neo-Film-Pierre Braunberger
DISTRIBUTOR: Annor
LENGTH: 2,2001neters
FIRST SHOWING: December 1928 at the Electric
ACTORS: Georges Pomies (Jean Dubois d'Ombelles); Michel Simon
(Joseph Turlot, the servant); Fridette Fatton (Georgette, the
soubrette); Felix Oudard (Colonel Brochard); Jeanne Helbling
(Solange Blandin); Jean Storm (Lieutenant Daumel); Paul
Velsa (Corporal Bourrache); Manuel Raabi (the adjutant);
Maryanne (Mme. Blandin); Esther Kiss (Mme. Flechais); Cath
erine Hessling (the teacher [? J); Andre Cerf (a soldier); Max
Dalban (a soldier); Zellas (Muflot); Kinny Dorlay (Lili, So
lange's sister)
Jean Dubois d'Ombelles is a poet by profession, and he is
not in the least looking forward to his imminent induction into
the army. His aunt, Mme. Blandin, does her best to make things
easy for him by pulling strings with Colonel Brochard and
sending her servant, Joseph, along with him to training camp.
Jean immediately becomes the butt of the classic barracks
pranks, while Joseph, a gregarious soul and an enthusiastic
womanizer, feels completely at home. The fiancees of these t\VO
young soldiers are also on the scene: Jean's, il capricious young
lady, flirts with a dashing lieutenant; Joseph's, a sprightly
waitress in the canteen, is everybody's sweetheart. Jean's in
stinctive eccentricities get him into a little scrape with the po
lice. But he stands up heroically to adversity, and during a wild
masquerade party, organized to celebrate the ilnniversary of
the regiment, he and Joseph succeed in eliminating any ves
tiges of civil or military propriety still vaguely observed by the
stunned gathering.
CLAUDE BEYJ.IE
FILMOGRAPHY 217
This comedy by Mouezy-Eon and Sylvane has been

brought to the screen on three different occasions, with Jean
Bachelet as director of photography. A fourth version was made
by Claude de Givray in 1961 with Raoul Coutard as camera
man.
If the film historians are to be believed, Tire au Flanc is
nothing but a shabby vaudeville show of no interest whatever.
If we are to judge by the enthusiastic reaction of contemporary
audiences at the Paris Cinematheque, however, it is one of the
funniest films ever made in France and one of the greatest si
lent comedies.
Certainly Tire au Flanc is the Renoir film which owes the
most to Chaplin. Quite probably, it in turn had considerable
influence on Jean Vigo's Zero de Conduite. Renoir's film is to
life in the barracks what Vigo's is to life in boarding school.
The structures-short sketches of eight or ten shots-are similar
too. The arrival at the barracks, the inoculations, the tryout of
the gas masks in the forest, are among the hilarious scenes. The
film, which was obviously shot as rapidly as possible and was
clearly completely improvised, is a masterpiece of "living cin
ema" in the tradition of Chaplin's Shoulder Arms and A Night
in the Show.
The camera work in Tire au Flanc is a tour de force. Tri
umphing over technical limitations, the camera pivots, pans,
spins around, pulling close-ups from crowd scenes, coming to a
halt only when the two comrades fall exhausted to the floor.
When the hilarity starts again, Renoir brings a new sketch to a
quick climax in four or five shots.
There are few films in which the tension between a direc
tor anxious for movement and equipment with a tendency for
static recording is so obvious, few films where the director's
triumph over circumstances is so complete.
Michel Simon's mugging foreshadows some of the greatest
faces in the French cinema, which will come in his creations of
Bruel, Caussat, Boudu, and Pere Jules.
FRANc,::OIS TRUFFAUT
218 . JEAN RENOIR

Note the extraordinary liberty with which Renoir, royally
indifferent to verisimilitude, pushes situations to outrageous
limits in Tire au Flanc. Keep in mind in particular the se
quence a la Stroheim: Pomies, in prison, glued to the window,
his body against the wall like a great nailed bird. The grace
fulness of this farcical appearance is incredible; meanwhile be
low in the courtyard the lieutenant and Pomies's fiancee are
kissing in the midst of a forest of men's trousers hung out on the
lines to dry.
As for themes, note the "Cytherian" ending, which fore
shadows the triumph of love in Paris Does Strange Things.
ANDRE llAZIN, manuscript notes
Le Tournai, or Le Tournai dans la Cite
(1928)

SCREENPLAY: Henry Dupuy-Mazel and Andre Jaeger-Schmidt
ADAPTATION: Jean Renoir
ASSISTANT DIRECTOR: Andre Cerf
TECHNICAL ADVISER (for the cavalry): Colonel Wemaere
SETS: Robert Mallet-Stevens
COSTUMES: Georges Barbier
DIRECTORS OF PHOTOGRAPHY: Marcel Lucien and Maurice Desfas
slaux
CAMERAMAN: ].-L. Mundwiller
STAGE MANAGER: Pierre Belmonde
EDITOR: Andre Cerf
SHOOTING: summer-autumn at the St-Maurice studios and on loca
tion at Carcassonne
PRODUCTION: Societe des Films Historiques
PRODUCERS: M. de Maroussem and Franc;:ois Harispuru
DISTRIBUTOR: Jean de Merly and Fernand Wei I
LENGTH: 2,400 meters, cut to 2,000
FIRST SHOWING: December 1928 at the Agora in Brussels and Feb
ruary 9, 1929, at the Marivaux in Paris
ACTORS: Aldo Nadi (Franc;:ois de Baynes); Jackie Monnier (Isabelle
FILMOGRAPHY' 219
Ginori); Enrique Rivero (Henri de Rogier); Blanche Bemis

(Catherine de' Medicis); Suzanne Despres (Countess de Baynes);
Manuel Raabi (Count Ginori); Gerard Mock (Charles IX);
Vivian Clarens (Lucrece Pazzi, the Florentine); Janvier (the
guard officer); William Aguet (the Master of the Horse); the
dwarf Narval (Antonio, the jester); Max Dalban (Captain du
Guet); and with the participation of the black cadre of Saumur
The action takes place in the South of France, where
Queen Catherine de Medicis and Charles IX have come to try
to smooth over the tensions between the Catholics and the
Protestants. In honor of the queen, a tournament has been or
ganized (despite the royal edict outlawing hand-to-hand com
bat) .
The Protestant nobility is represented by the Countess de
Baynes, who has lost her husband and her two sons in the war.
Her only surviving son, Fralll;;ois de Baynes, is a courageous
fellow, but he is thoroughly profligate. In love with Isabelle
Ginori, he provokes a duel with her father, in spite of the royal
ban, and kills him.
Isabelle, however, is secretly engaged to Henri de Rogier.
Queen Catherine gives Isabelle in marriage to Fralll;ois de
Baynes as a peace offering to the Protestants. Fralll;;ois organizes
a great Florentine-style engagement party. At the banquet
Henri de Rogier appears to rescue Isabelle. The guards inter
vene, and de Rogier is wounded in the left arm and then taken
to the queen. He resolves to decide the affair before God in the
course of the tournament, which is set for the next day. De
Baynes returns to the chateau, and Isabelle takes refuge in the
apartments of the Countess de Baynes.
De Rogier is handicapped by the injury to his arm. He will
fight under Isabelle's colors. Blades break at the third or fourth
pass. and de Rogier is knocked from his saddle. Swordplay en
sues on the ground. Meanwhile Lucrece Pazzi (de Baynes's
mistress), jealous of Isabelle, has denounced de Baynes as the
man responsible for the death of Count Ginori. Soldiers break
up the fight to arrest de Baynes. He defends himself to the death
220 JEAN RENOIR
with his mace. Mortally wounded by a sword thrust through

his breast plate, he is left alone on the battlefield. His mother
runs from the sidelines to hear his last words. He begs her for
giveness and dies.
This resume is sketchy because of the disastrous condition
of the surviving copy of the film.
Le Tournai is a little boring, but more because of the limi

tations of the genre than because of the filming, which is rather
successful. The evocation of the period is by no means naIve.
and the costumes in particular suggest that some serious his
torical research was done. The duels and the tournament are
technically very well done.
As for the style. we noticed an attempt at realism and psy
chological depth which is rare in films of this type. Thp ambig
uous character of Fran<;ois de Baynes is exceptionally well
drawn. His mixture of vice and perfidy with the virtues of no
bility is shown in an interesting fashion. and when he dies we
find him quite sympathetic.
Perhaps even more noteworthy are the many details which
reveal a desire to present realistically the violence and cruelty
of the period: the dueL the blood from the sword wiped on Lu
creee's hair, eroticism and death. The conventional plot un
folds against a disturbing background of brutality.
Also interesting are the mundane details revealed beneath
the military pomp and ceremony; for example, at the end of the
film. when Lucrece denounces Fran<;ois to Captain du Guet. the
captain is still in his night cap.
ANDRE nAZIN
foe Bled (1~)29)
(fA'
Bled
1929)
JeaH Renoir
SCHEENPLAY: Henry Dupuy-Maze! and Andre Jaeger-Schmidt
DIRECTOR:
ADAPT ATION:
Jea II Ren oil'
FILMOGRAPHY' 221
TITLES: Andre Rigaud

ASSISTANT DIRECTORS: Andre Cerf and Rene Arcy-Hennery
TECHNICAL DIRECTOH: ].-L. Mundwiller
SETS: William Aguet
DmECTORS OF PHOTOGHAPHY: Marcel Lucien and Morizet
CAMERAMEN: Boissey and Andre Bac
EDITOH: Marguerite Renoir
SHOOTING: February-lVIarch 1929 at the .loinville studios and on lo
cation in Algeria
PRODUCTION: Societe des Films Historiques
DISTRIBUTOR: Mappemonde-Film
FIRST SHOWING: May II, 1929, at the Marivaux
ACTORS: Jackie Monnier (Claudie Duvernet); Diana Hart (Diane
Duvernet, Claudie's cousin); Enrique Rivero (Pierre Hoffer, thf'
nephew); Alexandre Arquillere (Christian Hoffer); Manuel
Raabi (Manuel Duvernet); Berardi Aissa (the Algerian, Zoubir,
friend of Pierre); Jacques Becker (laborer); Hadj Ben Yasmina
(the chauffeur); M. Martin (Ahmed, the falconer); Mme. Ro
zier (Marie Jeanne)
The film opens with a series of documentary shots of Al

geria as a prologue.
A young man (Pierre Hoffer) and a girl (Claudie Du
vernet) meet on the boat to Algeria. He is broke and has come
to try to wheedle some money from his uncle, Christian Hoffer.
The girl is going to Algeria for the reading of her uncle's will.
At the dock the young man meets an Arab, a comrade from his
army days. The girl is met by her cousins, who arc also vying
for the inheritance.
The opening of the will, at the notary's office. Claudie is
the sole heiress. Manuel Duvernet and his sister, Diane, leave.
Pierre Hoffer arrives at the house of his uncle, whom he
thinks a peasant. That evening he comes down to dinner in a
tuxedo, to the great amusement of the rest of those present, who
are all wearing country clothes. Among those around the table:
Jacques Becker.
The following day the uncle takes his nephew around to
see the property. They walk on ground that his ancestors re
222 .JEAN RENOIR
claimed from the marshes. The uncle, who has immediately

realized the purpose of Pierre's visit, asks him outright how
much he wants. Pierre suggests 100,000 francs. The uncle does
not say no, but takes Pierre to the edge of the sea. It was here
that the French troops landed in 1830. The event materializes
in their imagination, and the two men, inspired by the memory
of this historic event, march at the head of the landing troops.
Then the tractors arrive (one thinks of Eisenstein's General
Line). Finally the uncle announces that he will give Pierre
the money on one condition: that he work at the farm for six
months to learn the value of money.
A few days later Claudie, out horseback riding, asks di
rections from a laborer. It is Pierre. A storm comes up. They run
for shelter. Declaration of love among the sheep and tIle shep
herds. Pierre hurries to tell the good news to his uncle, who is
not at all pleased. "You will go back to Paris as soon as she has
sold her property," he predicts. The Arab friend appears, to tell
Pierre that he is leaving for the south. His destination is near
the place where Claudie has to go to inspect the land she has
inherited. Pierre convinces his uncle to let him go with his
friend, on the pretext that he is going to buy sheep from him.
Everyone is together again in the south. The Algerian
friend organizes a gazelle hunt, to which he is going to invite
Claudie and her cousins. Diane Duvernet decides that she
would like to get rid of Claudie so that she can have tIle inherit
ance after all. She convinces her brother to set up an ambush.
The chauffeur will help out in the scheme. While they are
chasing a herd of gazelles, the chauffeur draws Claudie away
from the rest of the group to pursue a single animal, which they
end up killing. Claudie cries, upset by the cruelty of tile hunt.
The chauffeur suggests that they go rest at the oasis. It is there
that Manuel, the murderous cousin, is waiting for them, hav
ing come directly in hi.s car. He explains the situation to Clau
die without beating around the bush: she must marry him or
die. Claudie refuses; he takes her off in the car.
Meanwhile Manuel's sister has taken a fall from her
horse. She is seriously injured. Feeling the need to unburden
FILMOGRAPHY 223
her conscience, she reveals her brother's plans to Pierre. Pierre

and several other riders take off after Manuel.
Manuel's car has broken down at a ford, but he has con
tinued into the desert on camelback with his hostage. It will be
difficult for the horses to follow them in the sand. Pierre orders
the falconers to seno their biros after the camel. The falcons at
tack the beast and blind it. Manuel is obliged to give himself
up. Pierre Hoffer brings back the girl.
An epilogue shows the engagement dinner at the farm.
This time everyone is in evening clothes, and Pierre shows up
dressed for work'
ANDRE I3AZIN
Here is another commissioned work, taken in the same

light spirit as Le Tournai. Since the simplicity of the script gave
him a good deal of latitude, Renoir took the opportunity to make
an adventure film in the style of the American pictures he had
enjoyed so much in his youth. Le Bled, following the healthy
tradition of Douglas Fairbanks in his Triangle days, starts out
as comedy, comes to a climax of high adventure, and turns to
ward the sentimental at the end. Pierre (Enrique Rivero) him
self, the inexperienceo and awkward fellow inspired at the last
minute by a threat to his loved one, is reminiscent of Fairbanks.
It is all carried off with verve, the more serious scenes being
slipped in without breaking the rhythm: the traditional love
scene (this time in the rain, among the shepherds) glistens al
ready with a few droplets from Le Fleuve; and the punishment
of the villain, blinded by the falcons, allows Renoir to let an
other, more pungent liquid flow: "this precious blood" which
still obsesses him.
JACQUES RIVETTE
224 JEAN RENOIR
Le Petit Chaperon Rouge
(1929)
DIRECTOR: Alberto Cavalcanti

SCREENPLAY: adapted by Alberto Cavalcanti and Jean Renoir from a
story by Charles Perrault ("Little Red Riding Hood")
DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY: Marcel Lucien (or Rene Ribaud?)
CAMERAMAN: Rogers
ASSISTANT CAMERAMAN: Eli Lotar
MUSIC (added later): Maurice Jaubert; words of the song "La Java
du Loup" by Claude Andre Puget
SHOOTING: summer 1929 at Billancourt studios and on location at
Bourbon Marlotte (property of Renoir) and Foret de Fontaine
bleau
PRODUCTION: Jean Renoir
PRODUCER: M. Guillaume
FIRST SHOWING: May 14, 1930, at the Tribune Libre du Cinema
ACTORS: Catherine Hessling (Little Red Riding Hood); Jean Renoir
(the wolf); Andre Cerf (the notary); Pierre Prevert (a little
girl); Pablo Quevedo (the young man); La Montagne (a
farmer); William Aguet (an old Englishwoman); Viviane Clar
ens, Pola Illery, Mme. Nekrassof, Raymond Guerin (the sil
houettes)
A Sunday entertainment ill the tradition of Charleston~

which is to say that Renoir's Sundays would be likely to terrify
any hapless weekend artists who might come around to set up
their easels on his property. More than a risque tale, the aes
thetic is that of debauchery or an orgy done a la Mack Sennett.
Renoir or Cavalcanti? The question is an idle one, or at least
it answers itself. Let us say that one held the camera while the
other ran in the buff after a rather scantily clad Catherine
Hessling. The character is a lusty cousin of the hussar in La
Petite Marchande who carries her off in a balloon by the seat
of her pants.
JACQUES RIVETTE
FILMOGRAPHY' 225
La Chasse Ii fa Fortune, or La Chasse au

Bonheur (Die ]agd nach dem Gliick 1930)
DIRECTOR: Rochm Gliese (set designer of Murnau's Sunrise)
SCREENPLAY: Lotte Reiniger and Carl Koch, from an idea by Alex
Trasser
SPECIAL EFFECTS: Theatre d'Ombres and LOUe Reiniger
DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY: Fritz Arno Wagner
MUSIC: Theo Mackeben
SHOOTING: late 1929 and early 1930 on location in Germany and at
Toulon
PRODUCTION: Comenius Films
FIRST SHOWING: May 25, 1930, in Berlin at the Marmorhaus
ACTORS: Jean Renoir (a businessman); Bertold Bartosch (the ped
dler); Catherine Hessling (Fortunel?]); Mme. Jean Tedesco,
Alexander Murski, Anny Xells (Amy Wells?)
La Chasse a fa Fortune was apparently a film which used

real actors along with silhouettes in the tradition of ombres chi
noises. The director of the Theatre d'Ombres, Lotte Reiniger,
later collaborated with Renoir on La l\1arsellaise (the scene in
the theater where the entertainer presents the royal family in
silhouette) .
A Frankfurt newspaper published an account of the film
on May 30, 1930. The following is an extract from that report:
"La Chasse au Bonheur was presented at the Marmorhaus
amidst much publicity. A parade of famous names: Lotte Rein
iger wrote and directed. along with Carl Koch and Bochus
Gliese. The principal actors are the French Jean Renoir and
Catherine Hessling. the Russian Alexander Murski. and the
American Amy Wells. An international group, and as a subject
something right up to date: a mixture of a sound and a silhou
ette film."
JEAN KHESS
226 JEAN RENOIR
Renoir went for two years without filming. It was the advent of the
talkie. On Purge Behe would be a sort of "test." Thanks to the success
of this film, he was able to make La Chienne a year later. During the
filming he was "pitiless and intolerable" and had numerous quarrels
with his producers.

SCREENPLAY: adapted by Jean Renoir from a play by Georges Fey
deau
ASSISTANT DIRECTORS: Claude Heymann and Pierre Schwob
SETS: Gabriel Scongnamillo
DIRECTORS OF PHOTOGHAPHY: Theodore Sparkuhl and Roger Hubert
STILL PHOTOGRAPHY: Roger Forster
SOUND: D. F. Scanlon
RECORDING: Western Electric
STAGE MANAGER: Gaillard
ASSISTANT: Gaillard
EDITOR: Jean Mamy
SHOOTING: quickly-the end of March 1931 at Billancourt studios
PRODUCTION: Pierre Braunberger and Roger Richebe
PRODUCER: Ch'3.rles David
EXECUTIVE PRODUCER: Roger Woog
ORIGINAL LENGTH: 2,000 meters.
FIRST SHOWING: end of June 1931 at the Roxy
ACTORS: Marguerite Pierry (Julie Follavoine); Louvigny (Folla
voine); Michel Simon (Chouilloux); Olga Valery (Mme. Chou
illoux); Nicole Fernandez (Rose); Fernandel (Truchet); Little
Sacha Tarride (Toto)
A little domestic drama in the Follavoine household: baby

Toto refuses to take his medicine, much to his mother's dismay,
just as his father is about to receive an important visitor. The
influential guest, M. Chouilloux, is to help M. Follavoine sell
his unbreakable chamber pots to the army. Greeted brusquely
by the frantic mother, offended by the obstreperous baby, ap
FILMOGRAPHY' 227
prised that the chamber pots do indeed break, and annoyed by

the arrival of his coquettish wife. Chouilloux finally leaves in a
huff.
CLAUDE BEYLIE
\
!
I
I,
I'

SREENPLAY: adapted by Jean Renoir and Andre Girard from a novel
by Georges de la Fouchardicre
DIALOGlH:: Jean Renoir
ASSISTANT DIRECTORS: Pierre Prevert, Pierre Schwab, Jacques Becker
(?), Claude Heymann(?)
SCRIPT GIRL: Suzanne de Troye
SETS: Gabriel Scongnamillo
DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY: Theodore Sparkuhl
CAMERAMAN: Roger Hubert
ADVISERS (sound): Hotchkiss and Bell
SOUND: Joseph de Bretagne and Courme
RECORDI)';G: Western Electric
EDITORS: Denise Batcheff-Tua] under the direction of Paul Fejos
(rough cut), Marguerite Renoir and Jean Renoir (final version)
MUSIC: song by Eugenie Buffet, "Sois BOline, 0 lYIa Belle Inconnue,"
sung by ToselJi (at the piano) and "Malbrough S'en Va-t-en

Guerre," sung by M. Simon
SHOOTING: summer 1931 at Billancourt studios alld 011 location at
Montmartre, Nogellt( ?), Avenue Matignon
PRODUCTION: Films Jean Renoir, later Braunberger-Richeb(~
PRODUCER: Charles David
EXECUTIVE PRODUCER: Roger Woog
ART DIRECTOR: Courme
DISTRIBUTOR: Braunberger-Richebe, then Europa-Film (C.S.C.)
LENGTH: 3,000 meters, cut to 1 hour 40 minutes
FIRST SHOWING: November 19, 1931, at the Colisre (preview at the
Nancy)
ACTORS: Michel Simon (Maurice Legrand); Janie Mareze (Lulu
228 JEAN RENOIR
Pelletier); Georges Flammand (Andre Jauguin, called Dede);

Magdeleine Berubet (Mme. Adele Legrand); Gaillard (Sergeant
Alexis Godard) ; Jean Gehret (M. Dagodet) ; Alexandre Rigllault
(Langelard, the art critic); Lucien Mancini (Walstein, the art
dealer); Courme (the colonel); Max Dalban (Bonnard, a col
league of M. Legrand); Romain Bouquet (M. Henriot, Legrand's
boss); Henri Guisol (Amedee, the waiter at the cafe); Pierre
Destys (Gustave, the pal of Dede) ; Jane Pierson (the concierge) ;
Argentin (the magistrator); Mlle. Doryans (Yvonne); Sylvain
Itkine (Dede's lawyer); Colette Borelli (Lily, Lulu's friend)
As Paris Does Strange Things was a homage to Venus
Ingrid Bergman, The Golden Coach a homage to Columbine
Magnani, Gruet to the young Leslie Caron, so La Chienne was
made for Michel Simon.
Renoir, who excels at depicting the exceptional individuals
who sacrifice their comfort for their liberty, shows us here a
strictly ordinary Frenchman. Not only is Legrand a cashier. but
he has received an award reserved for the most faithful of em
ployees. In this exemplary but dismal existence there is only
one means of escape: painting. When he encounters the possi
bility of adventure in the person of Lulu Pelletier, he is seduced
by the idea of the perfect model as much as by the tempting
flesh-and-blood of the woman. And if the little apartment
rented with stolen money gives him a place for his illicit trysts,
it will also be the home for his beloved paintings, so despised
by his wife.
An artist without knowing it and an assassin without
meaning it, Legrand will follow the example of his wife's first
husband and become a bum. The freedom of a good rogue is
better than the servitude of an honnete homme. Note that the
myth of Simon-Boudu-La Chienne was completed twenty years
later in Sacha Guitry's La Vie d'un Honnete Homme.
CLAUDE DE GIVRAY
c'
I
I
Ii
FILMOGRAPHY
229
I
i
After La Chienne, Renoir acquired a reputation for being tempera

mental and, he says, he made "some infrequent and poor films." But
this remark is uniust, and nol only to l\1adame Bovary.
La Nuit du Carrefour (1932)

(Night at the Crossroad!~;, 1932)
SCREENPLAY: adapted hy Jean Renoir and Georges Simenon from a
novel by Georges Simenon
DIALOGUE: Jean Renoir
ASSISTANT DIRECTORS: Jacques Becker and Maurice Blondeau
SCRIPT GIRL: Mimi Champagne
SETS: William Aguet, assisted hy Jean Castanier
DIRECTORS OF PHOTOGRAPHY: Marcel Lucien and Asselin
ASSISTANT PHOTOGRAPHER: Fabian
SOUND: Bugnon, Joseph de Bretagne
EDITOR: Marguerite Renoir, assisted hy Suzanne de Troye, with the
participation of Walter Ruttmann
SHOOTING: January-March 1932 or winter 1931-32 at Billancourt
studios and on location at La Croix Verte a Bouffemont (at the
intersection of Routes N 1 and N 309)
PRODUCTION: Europa-Films
PRODUCER: Jacques Becker
DISTRIBUTOR: C.F.C.
ORIGINAL LENGTH: 2,000 meters
FIRST SHOWING: April 18, 1932, at the Theatre Pigalle
ACTORS: Pierre Renoir (Inspector Maigret); Georges Terof (Lucas,
his assistant); Winna Winfried (Else Andersen); Georges Kou
dria (Carl Andersen, Else's brother, the jailer); Dignimont (Os
car); G. A. Martin (Grandjean); Jean Gehret (Emile Michon
net); Jane Pierson (Mme. Michonnet, Emile's wife); Michel
Duran (Jojo, the garage attendant); Jean Mitry (Arsene); Max
Dalban (the doctor); Gaillard (the butcher); Boulicot (a police
man); Manuel Raabi (Guido); Lucie Vallat (Mme. Oscar)
230 JEAN RENOIR
Three houses at an intersection in Avrainville: the undis

tinguished villa of the insurance agent, Michonnet, M. Oscar's
garage, and an old home set back from the street belonging to
two rich foreigners of Danish origin, Carl Andersen and his
sister, Else.
Inspector Maigret, who has come to investigate the theft of
Michonnet's car, finds the automobile in question in Andersen's
carriage house, a dead man at the wheel. The victim is the dia
mond merchant Goldberg. Andersen, who denies any knowl
edge of the crime, is released for lack of evidence. The intersec
tion is placed under twenty-four-hour surveillance. A car pulls
to a stop in the middle of the night, a woman leans out, shots
are heard, Mrs. Goldberg rolls dead to the street. The following
night the mysterious assassin seriously wounds Andersen, as
Maigret is questioning his beautiful and enigmatic younger
sister. The inspector is not altogether insensitive to her charms.
Suddenly she collapses into his arms. She has been poisoned
and is only brought around with considerable difficulty. Giving
her first aid, Maigret notices that Else has a small scar on her
left breast-rather surprising on a girl of noble birth who
claims to have led an uneventful existence in a Danish chateau.
Maigret gradually begins to solve the mystery after he
happens upon a fight between Else and Michennet. Else has
tried to kill Michennet, who is puny but spirited. In self-defense
he has practically strangled her. The inspector learns that the
woman who was passing as a rich heiress is really nothing more
than a common prostitute, daughter of an executed murderer,
and sought by the Danish police for various armed robberies.
Carl Andersen is not her brother at all, but a respectable man
who has fallen for her, helped her to escape, and married her
in the hopes of making her go straight. But he underestimated
her violent instincts. More at home with the local hoods than
with her rich husband, it is she who set up the Goldberg mur
ders, providing one of Oscar's mechanics with the gun.
JEAN KRESS
FILMOGRAPHY 231
Renoir's most mysterious film. Perhaps an involuntary ob

scurity, since Jean Mitry lost three reels after the film had been
shot and Renoir had to do without them, but mysterious all the
same, to wit: characters from Dostoevsky in the sets from Une
Temibreuse Affaire. Maigret fans will say, "Of course, because
Simenon = Dostoevsky
Balzac." I say that La Nuit du Carre
four proves that this equation is only true insofar as Renoir
verifies it.
We are frightened by this strange and poetic film. It is a
fear which is not quite fear and yet is nonetheless the justifica
tion for it. Moreover, Pierre Renoir/Maigret finds the solution
to the problem before it has even been presented. And we fi
nally understand the exclamation that Simenon puts in Mai
gret's mouth at the end of every case: "Why didn't I think of it
sooner?" Clair-obscur is half clair. Thanks to Renoir, we realize
this right away.
The shots which ring out in the night, the roar of a Bugatti
racing after the smugglers (a brilliant sequence speeding
through the streets of the slumbering village), the dazed or
shady looks of the inhabitants of the godforsaken hamlet.
Winna Winfried's English accent and her old-fashioned eroti
cism. Pierre Renoir's drooping falcon's eye, the smell of the
rain and the fields soaked by the mist, every detail, every sec
ond of every shot, makes La Nuit du Carrefour the only great
French detective movie-in fact, the greatest of all adventure
mOVIes.
JEAN-LUC GODARD
Chotard et Cie.
(1932)
SCREENPLAY: adapted by Jean Renoir from a play by Roger Ferdi
nand
DIALOGUE: Roger Ferdinand
ASSISTANT DIRECTOR: Jacques Becker
2)2 ,JEAN RENOIR

TECHNICAL DIRECTOR: Ralleigh
SET: Jean Castanier
DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY: J-L. Mundwiller
CAMERAMEN: Claude Renoir aile! R Ribault
SOUND: Kalinowski
RECORDING: Tobis Klangfilm
EDITORS: Marguerite Renoir and Suzanne de Troye
PRODUCTION: Films Roger and Ferdinand
DISTRIBUTOR: Universal
ORIGINAL LENGTH: 2,125 meters, cut to I hour 23 minutes (?) or
t hour t ) minutes
FIRST SHOWING: J\1arch 19)3
ACTORS: Ferdinand Charpin (Fran<;ois Chotard); Jeanue Lory (Ma
rie ChotaI'd, Fran<;ois's wife); Georges Pomies (Julien Collineti;
Jeanne Boitel (Reine ChotaI'd, Collinet's wife); Mme, Treki (Au
gustine, the maid); Max Dalban (an employee of ChotaI'd, the
grocer); Luis Tunc, or Tunk (the subprefect); Louis Seigner
(the police captain); Dignimont (Julien's friend); Robert Seller
(the police chief); Fa bien Loris (a guest at the masquerade ball)
The masquerade ball with its revealing disguises and de

lightful mix-ups, the "resistible rise" of the captain of police,
the narcissistic posing of the dancer-poet Pomies in the seclu
sion of his room, Chotard's predictable metamorphosis (he
dresses up as a bourr;l'ois r;l'ntilhommc and then in fact becomes
one; in other words, no one can escape his destiny, no one can
refuse the role he has to play), a sort of simultaneous rejection
of both Poujadism and what we would call today the spirit of
protest, all this makes Chotard et Cil', a strangely deceptive film,
It does not suffer from the "filmed theater" syndrome, but has
the same high-spirited style which marks Tire au Flane and
Boudu, In short, the film seems to live up to Renoir's wish "to
make something comparable to a nice American comedy."
CLAUDE BEYLIE
FILMOGRAPHY . 233
Boudu Sauve des Eaux (1932)

(Boudu Saued from Drouming, 1967)
SCREENPLAY: adapted by Jean Renoir from a play by Rene Fauchois
ASSISTANT DIRECTORS: Jacques Becker and Georges Darnoux
SETS: Jean Castanier and Laurent
DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY: Marcel Lucien
CAMERAMEN: Jean-Paul Alphen and Asselin
SOUND: Kalinowski
RECORDING: Tobis Klangfilm
MUSIC: Raphael and Johann Strauss; flute, Jean Boulze; choir, Ed
ourad Dumoulin; song "Sur les Bords de la Riviera" by Leo
Daniderff (Danidoff?)
SHOOTING: summer 1932 at Epinay studios and on location at Chenne
vieres, the Seine quais, and the Pont des Arts
PRODUCTION: Societe Sirius
PRODUCERS: Jean Gehret and Le Pelletier
DISTRIBUTOR: Jacques Haik '
ORIGINAL LENGTH: 1 hour 23 minutes
FIRST SHOWING: mid-November 1932 at the Colisce
ACTORS: Michel Simon (Boudu); Charles Granval (Lestingois);
Marcelle Hainia (Mme. Lestingois); Severine Lerczinska (Anne
Marie); Jeall Daste (the student); Max Dalban (Godin); Jean
Gehret (Vigour); Jacques Becker (the poet on the bench); Jane
Pierson (Rose, the neighbors' maid; Georges Darnoux (a mar
riage guest)
Disappointed by society, Boudu, a rather appealing Paris
bum, has thrown himself into the Seine from the Pont des Arts.
Lestingois, who runs a bookstore overlooking the river and
claims various liberal views, saves Boudu and wants to reform
him. But Boudu, bored by the bourgeois life, spends most of his
time causing trouble. He scandalizes clients in the store, se
duces the maid, and audaciously satisfies the repressed desires
of Lestingois's wife at the very moment that the bookseller is
234
JEAN RENOIR
receiving a medal for his bravery in saving Boudu. To "comply

with the morality of the day" and "respect the laws of divine
nature," Boudu is married to the spirited and obliging maid. It
is too much for a congenital anarchist. The very day of the wed
ding Boudu escapes during an outing on the river, letting him
self be carried away by the current. Society, shaken momen
tarily, can breathe easily again.
CLAUDE BEY LIE
I
i
Boudu is the archetypal hobo, the model for 99 percent of

the real and would-be bums. If the type had not existed. Boudu
would have invented it. He is a perfect specimen of the species.
Seeing him for the first time, we can only express our admira
tion, much as Lestingois does when he spies him through his
telescope. This perfectly natural being is also a perfect come
dian, comedy being a natural thing. He could only have been
created by a great actor. Renoir gives Michel Simon free rein;
and, not having to worry about the acting, he is free to concen
trate on filming. He uses his camera unerringly, whether shoot
ing deep-focus scenes in Lestingois's apartment or filming the
outing on the Marne. The use of liaisons (the trumpet), even
though this technique is unfashionable now, has not lost any
of its comic effectiveness. If Renoir lets Simon/Boudu wander
around free, it is because he expects pleasant surprises from
him. He does not want to restrict the actor any more than the
character. Also, he discovers in Boudu too much of his own
philosophy not to let him speak as he pleases. If "philosophy"
is saying too much, we can say at least that Boudu has all the
charming capital vices enumerated in Renoir's Album de Fa
mille: lust, gluttony, hypocrisy, and above all, sloth, the famous
laziness celebrated in entirely different terms in The River and
Paris Does Strange Things. Only envy and avarice are missing,
saved for The Diary of a Chambermaid.
With Boudu Renoir revealed a good half of himself in a
single, clear stroke. The rest, timid and hidden, will take longer
to emerge.
ERIC ROHMER
FILMOGRAPHY
235
lHadame Bovary ( 1933)

(Jl,ladame Bovary, 1934)
SCREENPLAY: adapted by Jean Renoir from the novel by Gustave
Flaubert
ASSISTANT DIRECTORS: Pierre Desouches and Jacques Becker
SETS: Robert Gys and G. Wakewitch(?)
COSTUMES: Medgyes (Valentine Tessier's clothes by Mme. Casse
grain)
DIRECTOll OF PHOTOGRAPHY: Jean Bachclet
CAMERAMEN: Gibory and Claude Renoir
SOUND: Courme and Joseph de Bretagne
MUSIC: Darius Milhaud, "Le Printemps dans la Plaine"; Orgue de
Barbarie, "Lucie de Lammermoor" (Donizetti)
SHOOTING: autumn 1933 at Billancourt studios and on location in
Normandy (Rouen, Rys, Lyons-La-Foret)
PRODUCTION: N.S.F. (Gaston Gallimard)
PRODUCER: Jaspar or Jaspard
EXECUTIVE PRODUCER: Robert Aron
DISTRIBUTOR: C.LD. (Cie. Independante de Distribution)
ORIGINAL LENGTH: 3 hours 30 minutes, cut to 3,200 meters
FIRST SHOWING: January 4,1934, at the Cine Opera
ACTORS: Pierre Renoir (Charles Bovary); Alice Tissot (Mme. Bo
vary, his mother); Valentine Tessier (Emma Bovary); Helena
Manson (the first Mme. Bovary); Max Dearly (M. Homais, the
pharmacist); Daniel Lecourtois (Leon); Fernand Fabre (Ro
dolphe) ; Leon Larive (the prefect); Pierre Larquey (Hipollyte,
the clubfoot); Florencie (Father Bournisien); Le Vigan (Lheu
reaux, the cloth merchant); Romain Bouquet (Master Guil
laumin, the notary); Georges Cahuzac (old Rouault); Alain
Dhurtal (the surgeon); Andre Fouche (Justin, the chemist);
Georges de Neubourg (the marquis de Vaubyessard); Edmond
Beauchamp (Binet); Robert Moor (the footman); Henri Vilbert
(Canivet); Monette Dinay (Felicite); Marthe Mellot (Nicaise,
the old woman); Maryanne (Mme. Homais); Rene Bloch (the
coachman); and Pierre Bosy, Max Trejean, Albert Lambert,
Christiane Dor, Odette Dynes, and Paulette Elambert.
236
JEAN RENOIR
Flaubert's masterpiece is one of the five or six novels which

most stubbornly defy adaptation to the screen. Renoir, without
abandoning a strict fidelity to the dialogues and scenes from
the novel (the original version. never shown, was over three
hours long). does not let himself be intimidated by Flaubert's
golden pen. Instead he concentrates on the characters, doing
his best to help them realize a wish at least half-consciously
conceived by their creator: to escape forever the confines of
literature.
One consistent stylistic touch is used to check the novelist's
dogmatic realism: perspective, in the material sense of the
word. Strictly speaking, this does not mean the use of depth of
field, as we have seen previously in La Chienne and Boudu, be
cause the foregrounds in Madame Bovary are only fragments
(furniture, window and door casements), while the essential
action takes place in the background. These "frames within the
frame" indicate (and the ball at Rouen affirms it beyond a
doubt) that the heroes of the story are acting out a play for
themselves that even the pangs of death cannot interrupt. The
doors which close on the loge prefigure the final curtain of The
Golden Coach.
For Renoir, Madame Bovary's syndrome is only another
form of the uncertainty that will plague Camilla: "Where does
the comedy begin? Where does life end?" Madame Bovary is
real even when she is the most contrived, artificial even in her
moments of truth. In her comportment everything is composed
and stilted except those elements which are so basic as to be by
nature beyond artifice: the quality of her flesh and her expres
sion, which cannot lie, at least in front of the camera. With
wonderful assurance Valentine Tessier reveals only those tech
niques of acting which can be imputed to the character of
Emma Bovary. At a respectful distance, Pierre Renoir and Max
Dearly follow her lead.
vVhat was natural in 1850 is not natural in the twentieth
century. Madame Bovary scnlpulously takes notice of this fact,
and everything-text, intonation, movement, behavior-com
bines to re-create the earlier reality. It may be said that in Re
FILMOGRAPHY . 237
noir's other "period" films, from The Lower Depths to Paris, he
opted consciously for an anachronistic style. But the roads that
lead to Art and Truth are different, and it is the point where
they cross which has always fascinated Renoir. Each perspec
tive is true, each is false. They complement one another.
ERIC ROHMER
Madame Bovary, a misunderstood film, was also a commercial fail

ure. Even so, Renoir got the opportunity, thanks to Marcel Pagnol
among others, to undertake a project close to his heart: Toni, which
today appears as the glorious precursor of Italian neorealism. It is
only fair to add that the Italians later credited Pagnol as much as
Renoir. And Renoir himself declared in Pour Vous, "I consider Mar
cel Pagnol the greatest contemporary cinematic author."
Toni (1934)
(Toni, 196R)
DIRECTOlt: Jean Renoir

SCREENPLAY: Jean Renoir and Carl Einstein, based on research by
Jacques Mortier suggested by a newspaper article
DIALOGUE: Jean Renoir and Carl Einstein
ASSISTANT DIRECTORS: Georges Darnoux and Antonio Canor
ASSISTANT: Luchino Visconti
TECHNICAL DIRECTOR: Albert Ausouad
SETS: Leon Bourelly and Marius Brauquier
DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY: Claude Renoir
CAMERAMAN: Roger Ledru
SOUND: Barbishanian, assisted by Sarrazin
RECORDING: R.C.A.
MECHANICS: Bebert
MUSIC: guitar and popular songs by Paul Bozzi
238
,JEAN RENOIR
SHOOTING: summer 1934 011 location in Martigues and at Marcel

Pagnol's studio (Marseille) for several retakes
PRODUCTION: Films d'Aujourd'hui
PRODUCER: Pierre Gault
EXECUTIVE PHODUCER: E, Boyer
DISTRIBUTOR: Films Marcel Pagnol
ORIGIN AL LENGTH: 1 hour 40 minutes, cut to 2,600 meters
FIRST SHOVVrNG: February 22, 1935, at the Cine Oppra and at the
Bonaparte
ACTORS: Charles Blavette (Antonio Canova, called Toni); Jenny
Helia (Marie); Celia Montalvan (Josepha); Edouard Delmont
(Femand); Andrex (Gaby); Andre Kovachevitch (Sebastian);
Max Dalban (Albert); Paul Bozzi (Jacques Bozzi, the guitarist)
The film's prologue: "The action takes place in the South
of France, where nature, destroying the spirit of Babel, knows
how to bring the different races together."
Toni, a foreign worker, arrives in Martigues and soon be
comes the lover of his young landlady, Marie. A few months
later he falls in love with a beautiful Spaniard, Josepha, who
lives with her father, Sebastian, at the home of their cousin,
Gaby. Toni's foreman, a greedy and lecherous boozer named
Albert, rapes Josepha in a ditch just as Toni has received per
mission to marry her from the aging Sebastian. Albert marries
Josepha. She has his child and names Toni the godfather. After
Sebastian dies, Toni leaves Marie with the hope of convincing
Josepha to go off with him to start their life anew elsewhere.
Albert surprises Josepha as she is stealing all the money from
the farm in preparation for her escape. She kills her husband.
Gaby, who suggested the theft, disappears. Toni is discovered
by a gendarme as he is burying Albert's body. He confesses to
the murder, runs away, and is shot down by a man from the
town. Meanwhile Josepha has turned herself in.
Renoir likes to point out that Toni, shot entirely against
real backgrounds mostly with nonprofessional actors, is the first
neorealist film. In fact, what is striking about Toni is its dream
like quality, the fantasy-like atmosphere surrounding the
rather ordinary drama. The mise en scene is entirely "in
1
I
FILMOGRAPHY
239
vented," and particularly disconcerting and primitive when

compared to La Chienne, for example. One gets the impression
that Toni was made in an improvised, even disorderly way.
The most remarkable thing about the movie is not the con
trast of the characters of the two women but the delineation of
the two distinct stages in the life of one woman, Josepha. Before
her marriage to Albert she is a seductive tease, exciting, irre
sistible. Afterward, she becomes just another poor victimized
woman, like Marie. The scene where Josepha, stung by a
wasp, implores Toni to suck out the poison, all the poison, is
unforgetta ble.
In every gesture of Max Dalban in the role of Albert one
can recognize Renoir caricaturing himself as he directs his look
alike. Toni is one of the five or six most beautiful of Renoir's
films, a tragedy in which the sun takes the place of Fate.
FRANgOISTRUFFAUT
I
i
The following year saw the first and only collaboration of Jean Re
noir and Jacques Prevert. It turned out to be a very fruitful one.
The Crime of M. Lange marks a turning point in Renoir's work. It
begins a period in which social preoccupations will color his films up
to The Rules of the Game (not counting A Day in the Country)' It
was the time of the triumph of the Popular Front. Renoir "committed
himself." La Vie Est a Nous was made to order for the Communist
Party, La Marseillaise for the Confederation Generale de Travail. It
was then that Renoir became "famous" to the mass audience and
acquired an international reputation with The Lower Depths, Grand
Illusion, and The Human Beast.
Le Crime de M. Lange (1935)

(The Crime of M. Lange, 1964)
EARLY TITLES: "L'Ascension de M. Lange," "Sur la Cour," "Dans la
Cour," "Un Homme Se Sauve"
240 .
JEAN RENOIR

SCREENPLAY: Jacques Prevert and Jean Renoir, adapted by Jacques
Prevert from a story by Jean Castanier and Jean Renoir
DIALOGUE: Jacques Prevert and Jean Renoir
ASSISTANT DIRECTORS: Georges Darnoux and Jean Castanier
SCRIPT GIRL: Marguerite Renoir
SETS: Jean Castanier and Robert Gys, assisted by Roger Blin
CAMERAMAN: Champion
STILL PHOTOGRAPHY: Dora Maar
SOUND: Moreau, Louis Boge, Loisel, Robert Teisseire (continuity)
RECORDING: the first Marconi sound track belonging to Vaison and
Moreau
MUSIC: Jean Wiener and a song by Joseph Kosma, "Au Jour, Ie Jour,
a la Nuit, la Nuit"
ORCHESTRA: under the direction of Roger Desormieres
SHOOTING: October-November 19315 at Billancourt studios and on lo
cation in Paris-Le Treport
PRODUCTION: Oberon
PRODGCER: Andre Halley des Fontaines
ART DIRECTOR: Marcel Blondeau
DISTRIBUTOR: Minerva
ORIGINAL LENGTH: 2,200 meters
FIRST SHOWING: January 24,1936, at the Aubert Palace
ACTORS: Jules Berry (Batala); Rene Lefevre (Amedee Lange); Flor
elle (Valentine) ; Nadia Sibirska'ia (Estelle); Sylvia Bataille
(Edith); Henri Guisol (young Meunier); Marcel Levesque (the
concierge); Odette Talazac (the concierge's wife); Maurice Ba
quet (their son, Charles) ; Jacques Brunius (M. Baigneur) ; Mar
cel Duhamel (a worker); Jean Dastc (a worker); Paul Grimault
(a typesetter); Guy Decomble (a worker); Claire Gerard (the
prostitute); Edmond Beauchamp (the priest in the train); Rene
Genin (a customer at the inn at the border); Paul Demange (a
creditor); Sylvain Itkine (Batala's cousin); Fabien Loris, Janine
Loris, Bremaud, Henri Saint-Isles, Lupovici
Monsieur Amedee Lange works for Batala's publishing
house, feverishly writing adventure novels which Batala pub
lishes in a desperate attempt to escape bankruptcy. One day.
FILMOGRAPHY 241
Batala leaves town to elude his creditors. Following a train

wreck he is believed dead. His company, taken over and run
cooperatively by the workers, begins to prosper. Lange has an
idyllic love affair with Valentine, a laundress who lives in the
courtyard and was previously Batala's mistress. Charles. the son
of the concierge, is going to marry another of the laundresses
whose baby by Batala is stillborn.
It is at this moment that the ignoble Batala, disguised as a
priest, returns with the intention of resuming control of his
company and dissolving the cooperative. Lange guns him down
and runs away to Belgium with Valentine. Recognized by the
peasants at the border, they are not turned in, thanks to Valen
tine's eloquent recounting of the events leading up to the mur
der. The film takes the form of a single flashback which is
Valentine's story.
The Crime of M. Lange being an unanimiste* work. this
brief precis of the story does not do justice to the ensemble of
the actors. Batala's secretary (Sylvia Bataille), the little laun
dry girl (Nadia Sibirskala), the concierge (Marcel Levesque),
M. Meunier's son (Henri Guisol), the printers (Jean Daste.
Paul Grimault. Marcel Duhamel) all play important roles in
the action.
The poetic force of the film seems to stem not only from
the combined talents of Renoir and Prevert, but also from the
disparity of its several intentions.
"Who paid when Estelle had her baby? The co-op! vVho
paid for Charles' doctor's fees? The co-op'" This bit of dialogue
from the middle of the film reminds us of the authors' social in
tentions. Yet in spite of the perfection of the scenario. which
emphasizes love as a social force. these polemical intentions re
main in the background, simply because the characters are so
vital and healthy. Here is another example of a phenomenon
common in Renoir's work: in his concern for human truth. he
creates a film which quickly enters into the realm of fantasy.
Jules Berry plays an ignoble and treacherous Batala. but Pre
vert and Renoir have so much fun developing and fooling
S(,f' footnotf' on pag!' .k).
242 .
JEAN RENOIR
around with his character that he becomes a baroque figure, al

most sympathetic in the complex machinations of his dark
spirit. This petty publisher is suspiciously reminiscent of the
film producers who plagued Renoir. Perhaps one of those who
obliged him to make On Purge Bebe in four days?
Of all Renoir's films M. Lange is the most spontaneous, the
richest in miracles of camera work, the most full of pure beauty
and truth. In short, it is a film touched by divine grace.
FRANC;:OIS TRUFFAUT
La Vie Est /i Nous (1936)

(People of France, 1937)
!
I
DIRECTORS: Jean Renoir, Andre Zwoboda, Jean-Paul Le Chanois

SCREENPLAY: Jean Renoir, Paul Vaillant-Couturier, Jean-Paul Le
Chanois, Andre Zwoboda, and others
ASSISTANT DIRECTORS: Jacques Becker, Marc Maurette, Henri Car
tier-Bresson, Maurice Lime, Jacques B. Brunius, Pierre Unik
SCRIPT GIRL: Renee Vavasseur (called Ritou)
DIRECTORS OF PHOTOGRAPHY: Louis Page, Jean Isnard, Jean-Serge
Bourgoin, A. Douarinou, Claude Renoir
EDITOR: Marguerite Renoir (a Aubervilliers)
MUSIC: the "Internationale"; Ronde des Saints-Simoniens, and songs
of the Popular Front sung by the Chorale de Paris; songs of the
Komsomol (by Shostakovich); "Aupres de Ma Blonde"; "La
Cucaracha," hummed; choruses under the direction of Suzanne
Conte
SHOOTING: at Franc(J'ur studios and OIl location in Porte de Mont
reuil, Marlotte
DISTRIBUTOR: Cinemas Associes
LENGTH: 1 hour 6 minutes
FIRST PUBLIC SHOWING: November 12, 1969
ACTORS: Jean Daste (the teacher); Jacques B. Brunius (president of
the Conseil d'Administration); Simone Guisin (a lady at the
casino); Teddy Michaux (a Fascist); Pierre Unik (the secretary
of Marcel Cachin); Max Dalban (Brochard); Madeleine Sologn"e
(a factory worker); Fabien Loris (a worker); Emile Drain (old
I
FILMOGRAPHY
243
Gustave Bertin); Charles Blavette (Tonin); Jean Renoir (the

bistro owner); Madeleine Dax (a secretary); Roger Blin (a
sailor); Sylvain Itkine (the bookkeeper); Georges Spanelly (the
factory manager); Fernand Bercher (the secretary); Eddy De
bray (the usher); Henri Pons (M. Lecocq); Gabrielle Fon
tan (Mme. Lecocq); Gaston Modot (Philippe, the Lecocqs'
nephew); Leon Larive (the customer at the auction); Pierre
Ferval (second customer); Julien Bertheau (Rene, unemployed
engineer); Nadia Sibirskaia (Ninette, Rene's friend); Marcel
Lesieur (the garage owner); O'Brady (Mohammed, the North
African); Marcel Duhamel (M. Moutet, a Volontaire Na
tional); Tristan Severe (an unemployed worker); Guy Favieres
(the old unemployed worker); Muse d'Albret 0) (an unem
ployed working woman); Jacques Becker (the young unem
ployed worker); Claire Gerard (a bourgeois woman in the
street); Jean-Paul Le Chanois (Little Louis); Charles Charras
(a singer); Francis Lemarque (another singer). In the final
parade: Vladimir Sokoloff, Fran<;ois Viguier, Yolande Oliviero,
Madeleine Sylvain, and appearing as themselves: Marcel Cachin,
Andre Marty, Paul Vaillant-Couturier, Renaud Jean, Martha
Desrumeaux, Marcel Gitton, Jacques Duclos, Maurice Thorez,
and the involuntary participation of Colonel de la Rocque.
The film was not approved by the censors, but it was never
theless shown with great success before the war in neighbor
hood theaters. The audience did not pay at the entrance but in
stead subscribed to a short-lived program called Cine Liberte,
which was created especially for the occasion. The real com
mercial career of the film began in 1969 (probably thanks to
the student-worker revolt of 1968) at the Studio Git-Ie-Cceur.
The film opens with a close-up of the faces of a man and a
woman. The camera moves back to reveal their miserable living
conditions. Political statements, read by Maurice Thorez, Mar
cel Cachin, and Jacques Duclos, follow. Renoir's style is evident
in the camera work used for these opening scenes. The speeches
are filmed as at the beginning of The Lower Depths when the
minister is lecturing Jouvet: the camera wheels slowly around
the speaker on a circular track. The procedure is the same for
all three talks.
2.tef
,JEAN RENOIR
La Vie Rst
a NOlls
ends exactly like Boudu, The camera is

in a ditch, shooting up at a parade of militants singing no
longer "Sur les Bords de la Riviera," but the "Internationale."
Among the "comrades" we recognize a few pals as well: Julien
Bertheau, Itkine, Roger Blin. Gaston Modot. Bnmius. Loris.
Jacques Becker. and. for the first time on the screen. Madeleine
Sologne, who was at the time the wife of A, Douarillou. one of
the film's cameramen.
FRAN<;;OIS TRUFFAUT
Unc Partie de Campagne' (J 936)

(1 Day in tlze('ounlry. 1(50)
SCREENPLAY: adapted by Jean Renoir from the story by Guy de
Maupassant
ASSISTANT DIRECTORS: Jacques Becker, Claude Heymann. Jacques B.
Brunius, Yves Allegret, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Luchino Vis
eanti (props)
SETS: Robert Gys
CAMERAMEN: Jean-Serge Bourgoin, A. Viguier, Eli Lot'll'
SOUND: Courme(?) and Joseph de Bretagne
MAKE-UP: Gaidaroff
EDITOR: Marguerite Renoir (final version, Marinette Cadix, under
the direction of Marguerite Renoir, assisted by Marcel Cra
venne)
MUSIC: Joseph Kosma and Germaine Montero
ORCHESTRA: under the direction of Roger Dcsormieres
SHOOTING: July-August j 936 on 10catiOll near Montigny and Mar
lotte
PRODUCTION: Pierre Braunberger-Films du Pantheon
PRODUCER: Roger Woog
EXECl:TIVE PRODUCER: Jacques B. Brunius
DISTRIBUTOR: Pantheon (194 6 )
r
i
I.
FILMOGRAPHY
245
I
ORIGINAL LENGTH: 1,232 meters, cut to 1,100 meters
FIRST SHOWING: May 8,1946, at the Raimu
ACTORS: Jeanne Marken (Mme. Juliette Dufour); Gabriello (M. Cy
prien Dufour); Sylvia Bataille (Henriette Dufour); Georges
Darnoux (Henri); Jacques Borel, pseudonym for] acques Bru
nius (Rodolphe); Paul Temps (Anatole); Gabrielle Fontan (the
grandmother); Jean Renoir (old Poulain); Marguerite Renoir
(the servant); Pierre Lestringuez (an old priest)
In A Day in the Country comedy is constantly dissolving
into emotion: emotion before nature. emotion of the senses.
romantic emotion. It is useless to consider the film as a short
subject or as a pictorial film (even though at least three of Au
guste Renoir's paintings arc re-created in it: "La Grenouilli>re."
"La Balancoire," and "Le Dejeuner des Canotiers"). Useless
also to say that the movie is not complete. The various problems
Renoir had to face. his indecision about the final length. the
long time between the film's completion and its release. the loss
of the first version to the Germans, the fact that the second ver
sion was edited in Renoir's absence, the exterior scene which
was not shot and had to be replaced by a backdrop, the failure
to shoot any of the studio scenes (for the boutique). all this
finally does not affect the film in the slightest. Whether its
director and producer know it or not. A Day in the Country was
finished the day somebody wound the camera for the last time.
Not a frame is missing.
The film is a romantic dialogue between Renoir and nature.
a conversation now gay, now serious, at which de Maupassant
is only a spectator. Nature responds to Renoir's love for her by
cooperating with his filming: during a long scene in which the
mother and the daughter arc talking about spring ("a sort of
vague desire . . .") a butterfly is flying back and forth between
the two, darting in and out of the camera's range.
JACQUES DONIOL-VALCROZE
246 .
.JEAN RENOIR
Les Bas-Fonds (1936)

(The Lower Depths, 1917)
SCREENPLAY: Eugene Zamyatin and Jacques Companeez, adapted by
Charles Spaak and Jean Renoir from the play by Maxim Gorki
DIALOGUE: Charles Spaak and Jean Renoir
ASSISTANT DIRECTORS: Jacques Becker and Joseph Soiffer
SETS: Eugene Lourie and Hugues Laurent
DIRECTOHS OF PHOTOGHAPHY: Fedote Bourgassoff
and Jean Bache
let
CAMERAMAN: Jacques Mercanton
SOUND: Robert Ivonnet
STAGE MANAGEH: Kaura
MUSIC: Jean Wiener, song (words by Charles Spaaki sung hy Irene
Joachim
SHOOTING: August-October 1936 at Eclair il Epinay studios and on
location along the Seine (between Epinay and St-Denis)
PRODUCTION: Albatros-Alexandre J{amenka
PnODUCER: Vladimir Zederbaum
ART DIRECTOR: Alexandre Kamenka
DISTRIBUTon: Les Distributeurs Fran~'ais, S.A.
LEJ'\GTII: 1 hour 30 minutes
FIRST SHOWING: December 19-16 at the J\.1ax Linder; awarded the
Prix Louis-Delluc, 1936
ACTORS: Louis Touvet (the baron); Jean Cabin (Pepe!); Suzy Prim
(Vasilissa); Vladimir Sokolov (Kostileff); J unie Astor (Na tncha,
sister of Vasilissa); Robert I.e Vigan (the actor); Camille Bert
(the count); Leon Larive (Felix, servant of the baron); Gabri
ella (the police chief); Renp Genin (the old man); Maurice
Raquet (the accordion player); Lucien Mancini (owner of the
outdoor cafe); Paul Temps, Henri Saint-Isles, Rene Stern. Syl
vain, Rohert Ozenne, Alex Allin, Fernand Bercher, Annie Ceres,
Nathalie Alexiefl', .T acgues Becker (silhouette); Tany Holt (the
prostitute)
en
The two masters of the silent cimena who impressed Jean

Renoir the most and are in a way responsible for his voca tion
FILMOGRAPHY' 247
are Erich von Stroheim and Charlie Chaplin. Just as Nana was
a friendly hello to the author of Foolish Wives, The Lower
Depths is a knowing wink directed at Chaplin. Not only does the
last sequence of The Lower Depths refer directly to Modern
Times, but Junie Astor's acting is entirely inspired by Paulette
Goddard, whom Renoir himself will have the opportunity to
direct in The Diary of a Chambermaid.
It is clear what Renoir found attractive in Gorki's play. It
is something we find throughout his films: a remarkable gallery
of dissatisfied, fiercely individualistic, nicely revolutionary
characters, more sociable than socialist, whose unusual situa
tions allow us to experience, if not to judge, the human condi
tion. For Renoir's characters live as they think, and they re
create in the midst of their dissatisfaction a community more
pure than ours.
I:
CLAUDE DE GIVRAY
!
!"
I
j
La Grande Illusion (1937)

(Grand Illusion, 1938)
SCREENPLAY: Charles Spaak and Jean Renoir
DIALOGUE: Charles Spaak and Jean Renoir
ASSISTANT DIRECTOR: Jacques Becker

SCRIPT GIRL: Gourdji (FrarH;:oise Giroud)
TECHNICAL ADVISER: Carl Koch
SETS: Eugene Lourie
COSTUMES: Decrais
WARDROBE: Suzy
DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY: Christian Matras
CAMERAMEN: Claude Renoir, Ernest Bourreaud, Jean-Serge Bourgoin
STILL PHOTOGRAPHY: Sam Levin
SOUND: Joseph de Bretagne
MAKEUP: Raphael
PROPS: Alexandre and Pinon
STAGE MANAGER: Pierre Blondy
248 .
JEAN RENOIR
EDITOR: Marguerite Renoir, assisted by Marthe Huguet (195 8 :

Renee Litchtig*)
MUSIC: Joseph Kosma; the song "Si Tu Veux, Marguerite" (Frag
son) by Vincent Telly and A. Valsien
ORCHESTRA: under the direction of Emile Vuillermoz
SHOOTING: winter 1936-37 at Billancourt-Eclair studios and on loca
tion in Alsace, in the vicinity of Neuf-Brisach in the Haut
Koenigsburg and the Colmar barracks
PRODUCTION: R.A.G (Realisation d'Art Cinematographique), Frank
RoHmer, Albert Pinkovich, and Alexandre
PRODUCER: Raymond Blondy
DISTRIBUTOR: R.A.G (1937), then Cinedis, Film-Sonor Gaumont
FIRST SHOWING: June 1937 at the Marivaux; awarded the prize for
the best artistic ensemble at the Film Festival, Venice 1937+
ACTORS: Erich von Stroheim (von Rauffenstein); Jean Gabin (Mare
chal); Pierre Fresnay (de Boieldieu); Marcel Dalio (Rosenthal);
Julien CareUe (the actor); Gaston Modot (the engineer); Jean
Daste (the teacher); Georges Peclet (a French soldier); Jacques
Becker (an English officer); Sylvain Itkine (Demolder); Dita
Parlo (Elsa, the farm widow); Werner Florian, Claude Sainval,
Michel Salina
I will not be so perverse as to belittle the one Renoir film

which has been understood and loved by audiences all over the
world. I think simply that Grand Illusion is just as good a film
as Toni, or The Lower Depths, or The Southerner and that its
great success is based, if not on a misunderstanding, on appear
ances. Everything that we love in Renoir's work (and every
thing for which he is usually criticized)-the changes of tone,
the casualness, the frivolity, the digressions, the crudity, the
preciousness-are all here. This time, however, they are serv
ing a patriotic theme, and everyone knows that movies about
* The film was mutilated during its original distribution. In 1958 Renee
Lichtig edited under Jean Renoir's direction a new version conforming to
the master print. Renoir had an introductory sequence made for this ver
sion, in which he speaks a commentary he wrote for the occasion. F.T.
t It was banned before the war by the Fascists in Italy and was called
by Joseph Goebbels "cinematographic enemy No. 1."
FILMOGRAPHY
249
the war, the resistance, and prison escapes succeed automati

cally, be they baroque (Open City), lyrical (J'Accuse) , pseudo
poetic (Quelque Part en Europe), literary (La Bataille du Rail),
romantic (Kanal) , comic (Stalag 17), intelligent (Man's
Hope), demagogical (Vivre en Paix), abstract (Un Condamne
a Mort S'est Echapp/:) , or totally without interest (La Derniere
Chance).
In short, any excess is permitted within the genre, and
Grand Illusion, acclaimed by Roosevelt, Celine, and Field Mar
shal Goering, is no exception to the rule. Banned in Belgium by
the minister Henri Spaak, brother of the co-writer, mutilated
in Germany by Goebbels, who deleted all scenes in which the
Jew is sympathetic, Grand Illusion was boycotted at the Venice
Film Festival. II Duce had the Grand Prix bestowed on Carnet
de Bal. In France the critic Georges Altman protested against the
movie's anti-Semitism.
The fundamental idea in this film, a concept which will
reappear in La Marseillaise and of course in The Rules of the
Game, is that the world is divided horizontally rather than
vertically. Renoir explains very clearly that the idea of class
should remain, all the more since certain classes disappear on
their own. On the other hand, the idea of national boundaries,
the source of all misunderstanding among men, should be
abolished.
Another reason that this film is so popular is that it is one
of the few Renoir pictures where psychology takes precedence
over poetry. It is perhaps the least eccentric of all of Renoir's
French movies.
FRANyOIS TRUFFAUT
La 111arseillaise (1937)
(La lJ1arseillaise, 1939)
DIRECTOR:
Jean Renoir
Jean Renoir, with the collaboration of Carl Koch,
SCREENPLAY:
250 .JEAN RENOIR
N. Martel Dreyfus, and Mme. Jean-Paul Dreyfus (historical

consultants)
ASSISTANT DIRECTORS: Jacques Becker, Claude Renoir, l-P. Dreyfus
(J.-P. Le Chanois), Demazure, Marc Maurette, Tony Corteg
giani; Lotte Reiniger (of the Theatre d'Ombres)
SETS: Leon Barsacq, Georges Wakhevitch and Jean Pl~rier
CAMERAMEN: Jean-Serge Bourgoin, Alain Douarinou, .J ean-'Marie
Maillols, Jean-Paul Alphen,]. Louis
SOUND: Joseph de Bretagne, Jean-Roger Bertrand, .J. Demede
STAGE MANAGERS: Edouard Lepage, Raymond Pillon, Barnathan,
Veuillard, Henri Lepage, Decrais, Deffras
EDITOR: Marguerite Renoir, assisted by Marthe Huguet
MUSIC: Lalande, Gretry, Rameau, l\10zart, Bach, Rouget de l'Isle,
Kosma, SauvepJane
SHOOTING: summer-autumn 1937 at Billancourt studios and on loca
tion in Fontainebleau, Alsace, Haute-Provence, Antibes, Place du
Pantheon
PRODUCTION: Societe de Production et d'Exploitation du Film La
Marseillaise
PRODUCERS: A. Zwoboda and A. Seigneur
EXECUTIVE PRODUCER: Louis Joly
DISTRIBUTOR: R.A.C. in 1938, Compagnie Jean Renoir since 1967
LENGTH: 2 hours 15 minutes
FIRST SHOWING: February 9, 1938, at the Olympia
ACTORS: The court: Pierre Renoir (Louis XVI); Lise Delamare (Marie
Antoinette); Leon Larive (Picard, the king's valet); William
Aguet (La Rochefoucauld-Liancourt); Elisa Ruis (Mme. de
Lamballe); G. Lefebure (Mme. Elizabeth); Pamela Stirling,
Genia Vaury (two servants)
Civil and Military officials: Louis Jouvet (Roederer); Jean
Aquistapace (the mayor); Georges Spanelly (La Chesnaye);
Pierre Nay (Dubouchage); Jaque Catelain (Captain LangJade);
Edmond Castel (Leroux)
The aristocrats: Aime Clariond of the Comedie Fran<;aise (M. de
Saint-Laurent); Maurice Excande (lord of the village); Zibral
(M. de Saint-Mcry); Jean Ayme (M. de Fougerolles); Irene

Joachim (Mme. de Saint-Laurent)
FILMOGRAPHY 251
The Marseillaise: Andrex (Honore Arnaud); Charles Blavette,

later Edmond Ardisson (Jean-Joseph Bomier), who replaced
Blavette in the course of the shooting; Paul Dulac (Javel); Jean
Louis Allibert (Moissan); Fernand Flament (Ardisson); Alex
Truchy (Cuculiere); Georges Peclet (Lieutenant Pignatel) ; Geo
Dorlys (a Marsielle leader); J 0 Lastry (Captain Massugue);
Adolphe Autran (the drummer); Edouard Delmont (Cabri, the
farmer)
The people: Nadia Sibirska'ia (Louison); Jenny Helia (the inter
pellant); Gaston Modot, Carette (two volunteers); Severine
Lerczinska (a farm woman); Marthe Marty (the mother of
Baumier); Edmond Beauchamp (the priest); and Roger Pregor,
Pierre Ferval, Fernand Bellon, Jean Boissemond, Blanche Des
tournelles, and Lucy Kieffer
Louis XVI is a regular fellow, not too upset by the fall of

the Bastille. Marie Antoinette is beantiful, but something of a
sourpuss. In the mountains, peasants aroused against the nobles
are cooking their food over camp fires. In Marseille a volun
tary batallion is organized to go up to Paris. Louis is interested
in "this new dish," tomatoes. He does not like the "style" of this
Brunswick fellow, but Marie Antoinette forces his hand. The
militiamen from Marseille adopt the song of the Army of the
Rhine: "Allons, enfants de la patrie . . ." (familiar tune).
Louis against Marie Antoinette's wishes, approves of the new
hygienic practice which consists of brushing one's teeth: "I will
gladly attempt this brushing." The emigres from Coblenz are
discontented. The soldiers from Marseille have arrived in Paris
and attacked the Tuileries Palace. crushing the Swiss guards.
Tomorrow, Valmy . . .
Renoir, faithful to his principle of balance and careful to
avoid the artifice and stiffness inherent in a period film with
costumes and historic characters, succeeds perfectly in human
izing the thirty or so major characters in this neorealist fresco
by using details from everyday reality. The dialogue of La Mar
seillaise, for example, is the richest in culinary vocabulary of
any of Renoir's films; and real cuisine is echoed by the political
potpourri. We are moved by the Swiss guards as much as by the
252 JEAN RENOIR
troops from Marseille, by the emigrant courtiers as much as by

the oppressed peasants. We note much nobility in the revolu
tionaries, much ingenuity and honesty in the nobles. Renoir
serves up an entire world. where all causes are presented with
the objectivity, generosity, and intelligence which mark all his
work.
Renoir is above the struggle; he observes. La lI:larseillaise
has more than anything the look of newsreels culled from the
French Revolution. Only Renoir could make a film about cave
men and have it look like an authentic documentary!
FHAN<;:OIS THUFFAUT
IJa Bele Hurnaine (1938)

(The Human Beast, 1939)
SCREENPLAY: adapted by .lean Renoir from the novel by Emile Zola
ASSISTANT DIRECTOR: Claude Renoir and Suzanne de Troye
SETS: Eugene Lourie
DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY: Curt Courant
CAMERAMAN: Claude Renoir (senior) and Jacques Nat1eau
ASSISTANT CAMERAMEN: Maurice Pecqueux, Guy Ferrier, Alain Renoir (apprentice)
STILL PHOTOGRAPHER: Sam Levin
SOUND: Robert Teisseire
RECORDING: R.C.A.
EDITOR: Marguerite Renoir (railway sequences: SUZal1lle de Troye)
MusIc: Joseph Kosma; "Le P'tit Ccrur de Ninon," Italian song, hit
In 1920
SHOOTING: August-September 1938 at Billancourt studios and on lo
cation in Gare St-Lazare, Le Havre and surroundings
PRODlJCTlON: Paris Film Production-Robert Hakim
PRODUCER: Roland Tual
DISTRIBUTOR: Paris Film
FILMOGRAPHY . 253
LENGTH: 1 hour 45 minutes, cut to 2,400 meters (Cinematheque
Fran<;aise copy)
FIRST SHOWING: December 29, 1938, at the 1\1adeleine (first run: 13
weeks)
ACTORS: Jean Gabin (Jacques Lantier); Simone Simon (Severine);
Fernand Ledoux (Roubaud, Severine's husband); Julien Carette
(Pecqueux); Jenny Halia (PhilomEme, Pecqueux's friend); Co
lette Regis (Victoire, Pecqueux's wife); Gerard Landry (the
Dauvergne son); Jacques Berlioz (Grand-Morin); Leon Larive
(Grand-Morin's servant); Georges Spanelly (Carny-Lamothe,
Grand-Marin's secretary); Jean Renoir (Cabikhe, the poacher);
Emile Genevois and Jacques B. Brunius (farm hands); Marcel
Perez (the lamp maker); Blanchette Brunoy (Flore); Claire
Gerard (the traveler); Tony Corteggiani (the supervisor); Guy
Decomble (the gatekeeper); Georges Peclet (railway worker);
Charlotte Clasis (Aunt Phasic, the godmother); Marceau (a
mechanic)
Engineer of the locomotive La Lison, Jacques Lantier. a

hereditary epileptic, is infatuated with Severine, the exceed
ingly young wife of the assistant stationmaster, Roubaud. In
sanely jealous of the well-to-do Grand-Morin for having once
seduced his wife, Roubaud has murdered him on the Paris
Le Havre run with the aid of Severine. The crime, to which
there were no witnesses, is attributed to a poacher. But Lantier,
who was in the same car as the couple on the day of the crime,
suspects Roubaud. He keeps quiet because of his love for Seve
rine, who has succumbed readily to his advances, even suggest
ing that he get rid of her husband, who oppresses and disgusts
her. But it is she whom Lantier kills in a fit of insanity, after
which he kills himself, leaping from the speeding train.
The film is preceded by a short passage taken from the text
of Zola's work recounting Jacques Lantier's alcoholic heredity.
This is followed by a portrait of the novelist.
If The Golden Coach is a triangle film and The River a
circle film, then The Human Beast is a straight-line film. That
is to say, it is a tragedy. Between the credits and the admirable
254 .
"(
t
j
,JEAN RENOIR
sequence without dialogue of Ga bin and Carette driving their

locomotive, a signed photograph of Zola appears, along with a
quotation from the novel: "Sometimes he had the feeling of
suffering for all the fathers and mothers, for the generations of
alcoholics who had rotted his blood," Jacques Lantier's fate is
determined by a material, or rather physiological, destiny, The
ancient gods would strike down the different branches of a
genealogical tree with bolts of lightning, The modern gods
have reserved a far more horrible fate for the Rougon-Mac
quarts*: they have spilled poison in their veins, The laws of
heredity have been substituted for divine vengeance, but the
forces of destiny remain the same,
"Jacques Lantier interests me as much as Oedipus Rex,"
wrote Jean Renoir in Cindmonde in 1938, "This train engineer
carries a curse as heavy as that of any of the ill-fated Atrides,"
Gabin in The Human Beast, like Claude Laydu in Diary of
a Country Priest, like Humphrey Bogart in In a Lonely Place,
carries his own drama, his own suspense, within him, His prob
lem becomes clear to us in the first minutes of the film: Can
Lantier's undermined constitution stand up to the test? From
then on, every move he makes takes on added value for us: the
way he eats, works, speaks, makes love, and stops making love,
Love is Simone Simon, the most charming provincial coquette
imaginable, She expresses herself in awkward cliches ("I have
lived my whole life in this one minute") which are rendered
insurpassably precious by the peculiar affectation of her voice.
She is profoundly evil. She plays on the nerves of her lover like
a cat with a ball of yarn. For that matter, she is a cat herself. In
her first appearance we see her empathiZing with a white An
gora. In Renoir's mythology Simone Simon takes her rightful
place between Catherine Hessling and Leslie Canm, No one has
ever been more sensitive to the dangers of woman.
CLAUDE DE crVRAY
Rougon-Macquart: the French family whose various branches and gen

('rations provide the characters for the twenty-novel cycle by Zola which
includes The Human Beast. Trans.
FILMOGRAPHY . 255
After The Human Beast, a new direction in Renoir's work, a desire

to get away from naturalism toward a more classical, more poetic
genre: the great experiment of The Rules of the Game, which Renoir
fully expected to be controversial for a long time.
La Regie du leu (1939)
(The Rules of the Game, 1951)
EARLY TITLES: "Les Caprices de Marianne," "Fair Play," "La Chasse

en Sologne"
SCREENPLAY: adapted by Jean Renoir with the collaboration of Carl
Koch
ASSISTANT DIRECTORS: Carl Koch, Andre Zwoboda, Henri CartierBresson
SCRIPT GIRL: Dido Freire
TECHNICAL ADVISER (for the hunt): Tony Corteggiani
SETS: Eugene Lourie, assisted by Max Douy
COSTUMES: Coco Chanel
CAMERAMAN: Jacques Lemare
ASSISTANT CAMERAMEN: Jean-Paul Alphen and Alain Renoir
STILL PHOTOGRAPHER: Sam Levin
SOUND ENGINEER: Joseph de Bretagne
MAKEUP: Ralph
STAGE MANAGER: Raymond Pillon
EDITOR: Marguerite Renoir, assisted by Marthe Huguet
MUSIC: Mozart ("Danse Allemande"), Monsigny, Sallabert, Johann
Strauss ("La Chauve-Souris"), Saint-Saens ("Danse Macabre"),
Chopin ("Valse"), arranged by Roger Desormieres and Joseph
Kosma
SHOOTING: February-March 1939 at Joinville studios and on location
in La Motte-Beuvron, Chateau de la Ferte Saint-Aubin, Au
bigny, the surroundings of Brinon-sur-Sauldre
256
JEAN RENOIR
PRODUCTION: N.E.F.
PRODUCER: Claude Renoir (senior)
ADMINISTRATOR: Camille FrmH;;ois
DISTRIBUTOR: N.E.F., Gaumont, Les Grands Films Classiques (1965),
Marc Gelbart (in foreign countries)

LENGTH: 1 hour '53 minutes, cut to 3,006 meters or 1 hour 52 mill
utes
FIRST SHOWING: July 7, 1939, at the Aubert Palace and the Colisee
PARIS REVIVAL: cut' version, September 26, 1945, at the Imperial
Cinecran
REVIVAL OF INTEGRAL VERSION: April 23, 196'5, at the Studio Medicis
ACTORS: Marcel Dalio (the marquis Robert de La Chesnaye*); Nora
Gregor (Christine, La Chesnaye's wife); Roland Toutain (An
dre Jurieu); Jean Renoir (Octave); Mila Parely (Genevieve de
Marrast); Odette Talazac (Charlotte de La Plante); Pierre Ma
gnier (the general); Pierre Nay (M. de Saint-Aubin); Richard
Franc<pur (M. La Bruyere); Claire Gerard (Mme. La Bruyere);
Anne Mayen (Jackie, Christine's niece); Roger Forster (the
effeminate guest); Nicolas Amato (the South American); Tony
Corteggiani (Berthelin); Paulette Dubost (Lisette, Christine's
chambermaid); Gaston Modot (Lisette's hushand, Schumacher,
the gamekeeper); Julien Carette (Marceilu, the poacher); Eddy
Debray (Corneille, the steward); Leon Larive (the cook); Jeuny
Helia (the servant); Lise Elina (the radio reporter); Andre
Zwohoda (the engirwer from Caudron's, the airplane company);
Camille Fran<;;ois (the announcer); Henri Cartier-Bresson (the
English domestic)
The pilot Andre Jurieu has just accomplished a stunning
feat: be has crossed the Atlantic in twenty-three hours. He hopes
in doing- this to capture the love of a wealthy bourgeoise. Chris
tine de La Chesnaye. But she has not even come to the airport to
meet him. Piqued. he childishly proclaims his disappointment
over the radio.
After Jurieu has tried to kill himself in his car. Octave. a
mutual friend, in the hope of fixing- things up, g-ets the La Ches
nayes to invite Jurieu to a hunting party they are giving at their
estate, La Colinii-'re. in Solog-ne. Meanwhile Robert de La Ches
o
* In thp CI'pdits thp name is sppllpd La Cheynipst. F.T.
l'
I,
I
,
,
FILMOGRAPHY
257
naye, while touring his estate, engages the services of the

poacher Marceau, despite the vigorous objections of his game
keeper, Schumacher. During the hunt Christine discovers by
chance that her husband has been having an affair with one of
their friends, Genevi(~ve de Marrast, just at the moment when he
is in the process of breaking it off for good. Hurt, she allows
Jurieu and another suitoc M. de Saint-Aubin, to declare their
love. It is during a costume party that the masks will fall.
Jurieu fights with Saint-Aubin, then La Chesnaye with Jurieu.
while in the midst of the guests the gamekeeper Schumacher
pursues Marceau with a gun, having surprised him making ad
vances to his wife, Lisette.
A brief lull follows. Jurieu and Robert, reconciled, discuss
Christine's future. Marceau consoles Schumacher, who has been
fired. Meanwhile Octave, who has long been secretly in love
with Christine and feels his hour has come, declares his love and
convinces her to go away with him. But Schumacher, confused
by a double change of costume and urged on by Marceau, kills
Jurieu. Before their disbelieving guests, who have gathered at
the sound of gunfire, La Chesnaye and his wife go back into
the house trying to maintain their dignity.
CLA UDE llEYLIE
At the time of its release: the greatest failure of Renoir's

career. In retrospect: his masterpiece' Renoir had aimed too
high, for although many of his films have taken a few years to
find a broad audience, this one for decades was appreciated only
by film buffs. Two re-releases of The Rules of the Game, in 191'1
and 19.~8, met with complete commercial failure before the
great success of the release of the definitive version in 1965.
After Grand Illusion and The Human Beast, Renoir was
tired of psychology in movies. Undoubtedly he felt the need to
show instead of to analyze, to move instead of to touch. As he
explained in an interview, the "rules of the game are those
which must be observed in society if one wishes to avoid being
crushed." The problem is that of sincerity in love: "Dishonesty
is a garment which weighs heavily . . . Earnest people are so
258 .JEAN
RENOIR
boring . . . I would like to disappear, my friend, to see nothing

morc . . . Then I would no longer have to try to figure out
what is good and what is bad; because you see in this world
there is one awful thing, and that is that everyone has his rea
sons . . . I am suffering. and I can't stand that." These com
ments suggest the tone of the film and show how important the
moral element is.
The nine principal characters of The Rules of the Game
have a sentimental problem to resolve, and since the film shows
them on the eve of a crisis. we will see them behave at their
worst. The only sincere person-the pilot Andre Jurieu-awk
ward in an unfamiliar milieu. unleashes a tragicomedy in
which he is the only victim, precisely because he has not fol
lowed the rules of the game.
Ludicrous skeletons. the characters of The Rules of the
Game. viewed at a critical moment in their decay, forsake the
farandole ("It's nice, but it's a little old-fashioned") for a danse
macabre which assaults the senses. For the ostensible purpose
of a party. they are led to disguise themselves. which is to say,
to take off their masks. The shadows of the masters and servants
mingle and merge in an image of a sybaritic life style which
cannot last: man is imperfect, he is a born liar, and besides, "If
love is endowed with wings. is it not to flutter?" The Rules of
the Game is a profoundly pessimistic film. a bitter and pro
phetic carnival in which friendship itself is exposed as just an
other empty game. "I don't believe in much, but I am begin
ning to believe in friendship," La Chesnaye confides to Jurieu.
speaking of Octave, their mutual friend. who at that very mo
ment is getting ready to carry off the woman they both love.
After the hunt Christine de La Chesnaye follows through
a small spyglass the activities of a little squirrel perched on the
branch of a tree. Then comes a tribute to the optics of the
glasses, which one would like to think was meant as we]] as a
definition of the camera and a homage to the cameraman: "Its
lens is so powerful and it is so well made that, from a short dis
tance, you see all of the animal's private life, without his know
ing it."
!i
FILMOGRAPHY . 259
Personally, I cannot think of another film maker who has
put more of himself-and the best of himself-into a film than
Jean Renoir has into The Rules of the Game.
FRANC;;OIS TRUFFAUT
As everyone knows, The Rules of the Game was a total commercial

failure. A few days after the opening, Renoir agreed to make a dozen
important cuts, mostly affecting the role of Octave, which he played
himself. Shortly afterward the film was withdrawn from circulation
because it was anticommercial and thought to be "demoralizing" for
the French public. Renoir left for Italy to make La Tosca, but Italy's
entry into the war prevented him from going beyond the first five
shots.
La Tasca
(1940)
DIRECTOR: Carl Koch (Jean Renoir: five shots)
SCREENPLAY: Luchino Visconti, Jean Renoir, and Carl Koch from the
play by Victorien Sardou

DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY: Dbaldo Arata
EDITOR: Gino Bretone
MusIc: Giacomo Puccini
ORCHESTRA: under the direction of Fernando Previtali
MUSICAL ARRANGEMENT: Dmberto Mancini
SONGS: Mafalda Favero and Ferruccio Tagliavini
SHOOTING: winter 1939-40 at the Scalera studios, Rome, and on loca
tion in Rome, Palais Farnese, and Chateau St-Ange
PRODUCTION: Scalera-Films
FIRST SHOWING: September 30, 1942, 111 Paris at the Lord Byron
(dubbed version)
DISTRIBUTOR (in France): Scalera-Films
ACTORS: Imperio Argentina (Tosca); Michel Simon (Scarpia); Ros
sano Brazzi (Mario Cavaradossi); Massimo Girotti (Angeloti);
Clara Candiani, Adriano Rimaldi, Juan Calvo, Nicolas Perchicot
260 JEAN RENOIR
Or the aborted masterpiece. No, there is no point in deni

grating Carl Koch, whose direction, whether or not it follows
Renoir's plan, is consistently elegant and sometimes has great
allure. He is responsible for those broad movements in the
chapel and the final execution scene, where a brief dolly shot,
following Tosca to where she throws herself into the void, leaves
us face to face with Rome. There is nothing in this well-crafted
work which is unworthy of the opening, but neither is there
anything which attains the enchantment of the five or six open
ing shots of nocturnal riding, where the magical baroque spec
tacle suddenly comes to life. Under the close scrutiny of the
camera the stones seem to pulsate and merge with the movement
of the drama. La Tasca is no longer a real1stic opera; it is reality
become opera.
JACQUES RIVETTE
I
i
1
t
lean Renoir returned to Paris, then, after a few jobs for the Army Film
Service, left for the South of France. A long letter from Robert Fla
herty convinced him to come to America. In the autumn of 1940 he
embarked for the United States, bringing with him Dido Freire, Ca
valcanti's niece and the script girl on The Rules of the Game, whom
he married shortly thereafter, not realizing that his divorce from
Catherine Hessling, although recognized in America, was not valid
elsewhere, and thus becoming an unintentional bigamist. (Renoir has
often wrongly been credited with a third wife: Marguerite Mathieu,
one of the best French editors, known as Marguerite Renoir, who
lived with him from 1935 to 1940.) Renoir divides his American pe
riod in two: "a few short efforts in the big studios and some others
with the independents." Hired by Fox, he chose a Dudley Nichols
script and made Swamp Water.
Swarnp TVater (194.1)

SCREENPLAY: Dudley Nichols, from a story by Vereen Bell
FILMOGRAPHY 261
SETS: Thomas Little

COSTUMES: Gwen Wakeling
DIRECTORS OF PHOTOGRAPHY: Peverell Marley and Lucien Ballard
MAKEUP: Guy Pearce
ART DIRECTOR: Richard Day
EDITOR: Walter Thompson
MUSIC: David Rudolph
STUDIO: 20th Century-Fox
LOCATIONS: Georgia
PRODUCTION: 20th Century-Fox
PRODUCER: Irving Pichel
ASSOCIATE PRODUCER: Len Hammond
DISTRIBUTOR: 20th Century-Fox
LENGTH: 2,535 meters (86 minutes)
FIRST SHOWING: December 5,1941
ACTORS: Dana Andrews (Ben Ragan); Walter Huston (Thursday
Ragan); John Carradine (Jesse Wick); Eugene Palette (Sheriff
Jeb MacKane); Ward Bond (Tim Dorson); Guinn Williams
(Bud Dorson); Virginia Gilmore (Mabel MacKenzie); Walter
Brennan (Tom Keefer); Anne Baxter (] ulie); Mary Howard
(Hannah); Russell Simpson, Joseph Sawyer, Paul Burns, Dave
Morris, Frank Austin, Matt Williams
The vast swampy expanses of Georgia have often attracted
adventurers and hunters, many of whom have never returned.
A group of men-Ben Ragan, his father. Thursday, Jesse Wick,
Sheriff Jeb MacKane-have gone to search for two hunters lost
in the swamp; after many hours of searching, they decide that
their friends must be dead. Later, when Ben's dog, Trouble, runs
off into the swamp in pursuit of a deer, Ben jumps into his boat
and heads out to look for him, despite the warnings of his father
and the pleas of his fiancee, Mabel.
Watching out for crocodiles, Ben penetrates farther and
farther into the swampy forest. He leaves his boat and sets out
on foot. When night falls he lights a fire and sets up camp.
While sleeping, he is struck on the head with a club.
Coming to, he finds himself, along with his dog, prisoner of
an escaped criminal, Tom Keefer. Tom refuses to let them go,
fearing that Ben will reveal his hideout, but after Ben nurses
262 JEAN RENOIR
him and cures him of a snake bite, Tom agrees to let him leave
on condition that he take care of his daughter Julie, who lives in
the same town.
On returning, Ben finds Jesse Wick making advances to his
stepmother in his father's absence. Later Ben argues with his
father and leaves the house to live on his own.
Mabel is furious about his prolonged absence. and when
Ben lets it slip that he was not alone in the swamp. she becomes
SUSplCIOUS.
Jesse continues to pursue Hannah when Thursday goes off

hunting. Although she resists him, Jesse is not discouraged. One
day he has to take off in a hurry when Thursday comes back
unexpectedly. Hannah refuses to reveal the name of her visitor
for fear that Thursday will kill him. and distrust begins to grow
between them.
Seeing Ben taking Julie to a dance, Mabel becomes angry.
After Ben refuses to see her, she guesses that he is hiding some
one in the swamp, and that it is Torn Keefer.
Ben, having learned that Torn is really innocent of the
murders, threatens Jesse with telling his father everything un
less he reveals the truth, and Jesse admits that the Dorsons are
the real killers.
Ben goes off into the swamp to find Torn, but the Dorsons
prepare an ambush on his way back. Their plan fails, and they
pursue Ben and Torn. Tom leads them into a particularly dan
gerous swamp. Bud Dorson disappears in the (luicksand, and
his brother Tim is set free on condition that he go through the
fatally dangerous section.
Thursday and Hannah are reconciled. Torn is vindicated.
Ben and Julie can at last be happy.
JEAN KRESS
The second of Renoir's films to be shown after the Libera

tion, Swamp Watcr caused the misunderstanding which was to
turn the most admired of French film makers into the most
widely scorned. The supreme irony was that it was Renoir's
I
I
II
[
~
I
!
FILMOGRAPHY
263
warmest partisans who cast the first stone, the same stone previ
ously cast at The Rules of the Game, which even after five years of
world-wide chaos, had not won comprehension or acceptance.
Swamp rVater can be credited with having, over the long
run, revolutionized Hollywood. For the first time a major com
pany accepted the idea of not shooting the exterior shots in the
studio. The principle of Swamp Water is that of Toni, but with
twenty years of experience behind it. It represents no longer
the taste for risk, but the assurance of confident audacity.
Jeered in Biarritz before its Paris opening, Swamp Water
is one of the seven or eight decisive turning points in Renoir's
work. The difficulty is that it is not the beginning of the turn
but the end of it. And everyone knows that as he comes out of a
curve. the champion driver floors the accelerator to take off at
full throttle. This is what Renoir does on the aesthetic plane.
Genius, Malraux wrote somewhere. is born like a fire: in
the destruction of what it consumes. If The Rules of the Game
was not understood in its time. it was because it burned. de
stroyed. The Crime of M. Lange. And Swamp l-Yater because it
consumed in its turn The Rules of the Game. In the same way
Paris Does Strange Things will be disdained by those who ap
plauded French CanCan. And wrongly, because Renoir proves
to us continually that the only way not to lag behind is to be
always ahead. Just as one is admiring the rashness of his crea
tion, he is already destroying it.
JEAN-LUC GODARD
!
After Swamp Water, which had some success in America, Renoir
broke amicably with Darryl Zanuck. Universal proposed a film with
Deanna Durbin, which he started but did not finish. He thought of
making Saint-Exupery's 'Vind, Sand, and Stars, but the project was
never realized. He made two propaganda films, This Land Is Mine
and Salute to France. Then Robert Hakim allowed him to make The
Southerner, an independent production distributed by United Artists.
264 ..JEAN
RENOIR
T his Land Is 111ine
(1
943 )

SCREENPLAY: Dudley Nichols and Jean Renoir
DIALOGUE: Dudley Nichols
DIALOGUE DIRECTOR: Leo Bulgakov
ASSISTANT DIRECTOR: Edward Donohue
SPECIAL EFFECTS: Vernon L. Walker
CHIEF STAGE DESIGNERS: Eugene Louric, Albert d'Agostino, Walter F.
Keeler
SETS: Darrell Silvera and At Fields
DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY: Frank Redman
EDITOR: Frederic Knudtsen
SOUND: Terry Kellum and James Stewart
MusIc: Lothar Perl
ORCHESTRA: vnder the direction of Constantin Bakaleinikoff
PRODUCTION: R.K.O.
PRODUCERS: Jean Renoir and Dudley Nichols
DISTRIBUTION: R.K.O.
FIRST SHOWING: March 17, 1943
ACTORS: Charles Laughton (Albert Lory); Kent Smith (Paul Mar
tin); Maureen O'Hara (Louise Martin, Paul's sister); George
Sanders (George Lambert) ; Walter Slezack (Major von Keller) ;
Una O'Connor (Mrs. Lory, Albert's mother); Philip Merivalc
(Professor Sorel); Thurston Hall (the mayor); Nancy Gates
(J ulie Grant); I van Simpson (the judge); Wheaton Chambers
(Mr. Lorraine); John Donnat (Edmund Lorraine); Franck
Alten (Lieutenant Schwartz); Leo Rulgakov (Little Man); Ce
cile Weston (Mrs. Lorraine)
Albert Lory, a schoolmaster of uncertain age and a shy.
fearful man. secretly loves his colleague Louise Martin. Louise
is engaged to George Lambert. a railway engineer who is an
avid partisan of the Nazi regime. Following an assassination
attempt, the German authorities take a group of hostages. in
cluding Lory, who will be shot if the real culprits are not de
nounced. Mrs. Lory, who loves her son with a fierce possessive
FILMOGRAPHY
265
ness and who is very jealous of Louise, had seen the girl's
brother, Paul, in compromising circumstances immediately fol
lowing the attempt. She denounces Paul Martin to Lambert.
who in turn tells Commandant von Keller. But at the last min
ute Lambert realizes the monstrousness of what he has done.
He tries to warn Paul of the danger-but the young man is shot
down by the Nazis.
Lory is released. but when he learns the truth he rushes.
crazed with rage and despair, to have it out with Lambert. He
arrives too late. Tormented by guilt. Lambert has just killed
himself. Lory, who arrives at the engineer's office moments
after the suicide, is accused of murder.
During the trial von Keller comes to see Lory in prison.
Singing the praises of the Nazi regime, von Keller promises
Lory his freedom. A letter of farewell supposedly written by
Lambert will be produced in court. and Lory will be vindicated.
The timid schoolmaster is almost convinced, but when he looks
out his window and sees the other hostages being executed, he
understands what is behind von Keller's friendly words. In the
course of the trial, the weakling finds the moral courage to pub
licly denounce the oppressor and his allies, to proclaim his love
for Louise, and to face death bravely, not for the crime he did
not commit. but for having pleaded the cause of liberty.
JEAN KRESS
The most scorned of Jean Renoir's American films. The ac

tion unfolds (like that of Diary of a Chambermaid) in a small
French town reconstructed in a Hollywood studio. This little
bit of France, made of plaster and stucco, is really an imaginary
country, the country of Verdoux as well, and of certain Fritz
Lang films such as Hangmen Also Die.
"With This Land Is lldine I wanted to show the Americans
a less conventional view of occupied France . . . Perhaps I
was unskillfuL perhaps I didn't understand the state of mind
that reigned in France after the Liberation. In any case, I was
inundated with insulting letters from France and was casti
gated by the Parisian press. For once, I was sincerely distressed
266
JEAN RENOIR
not to have been understood." (Jean Renoir, "My American Ex

perience," Cinemonde, 1946)
This Land Is Mine, in spite of its classical mise en scene,
which is unusually restrained for Renoir (but of course he had
to satisfy the American public at any cost), is a very beautiful
film in which we can immediately recognize the author if only
in the character and acting of Charles Laughton, who resembles
the director as much as Pierre Renoir did in La Marseillaise.
It is also, whether one likes this or not, a typically French
film, and it is not by coincidence that one thinks constantly of
Daudet in La Demiere Classe. Maurice Bardeche, who achieved
new heights of critical insouciance by giving in one of the edi
tions of his History of the Cinema an account of an American
film by Renoir which was never made-Wind, Sand, and Stars
from Saint-Exupery-redeems himself with this very accurate
analysis of This Land Is Mine:
Although it contains the same type of errors (as other American
made films depicting wartime conditions in Europe), it is less
shocking than many to the Europeans invited to watch them
selves portrayed on the screen. Laughton makes an admirable
schoolmaster who is very afraid of the bombardments, who likes
his comforts, his meals, his aging mother; who feels great re
spect for the Inspector of the Academy and the occupation au
thorities; and who at the end becomes all enraged sheep. The
sessions of the military court are conducted in public like a mu
nicipal police court; the patriotism is in flamboyant style; the
teachers cry as they tear out pages from history texts about Joan
of Arc, the public school and Jules Ferry; and the film ends with
choirs of students singing from the Declaration of the Rights of
Man as if it were the Book of Psalms. These exalted republican
displays cause one to smile a little, and the film was severely
criticized in France. It was a rather unjust reception, because,
inevitable omissions notwithstanding, Renoir had honestly tried
to come to terms with the situation of an occupied country. It is
the film of an intelligent rna':'! which fails because of conditions
under which it was made, but all in all, there is certainly less
stupidity and vulgarity in this film than there was ill the films
made in France shortly afterward on similar themes.
f
FILMOGRAPHY
267
We agree with Maurice Bardeche's judgment.

FRAN<;OIS TRUFFAUT
Salute to France (1944)

DIRECTOR: Jean Renoir, ill collaboration
SCREENPLAY: Philip Dunne, Jean Renoir, Burgess Meredith
DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY: Army Pictorial Service
EDITING: under the supervision of Helen Van Dongen
MUSIC: Kurt Weill
PRODUCTION: Office of War Information
DISTRIBUTOR: United Artists
LENGTH: 540 meters (20 min.)
FIRST SHOWING: December 1944 or January 1945 in Paris (without
credits)
ACTORS: Burgess Meredith (Tommy); Garson Kanin (Joe); Claude
Dauphin (Jacques, the narrator and multiple roles: the soldier,
the peasant, the intellectual, the guerrilla, etc.)
Presented in France in complete anonymity a year after
the end of the war, Salute to France was noL as far as I know,
honored with the slightest notice from the Parisian press. How
ever, in America it had had a handsome measure of success.
which, though not egual to that of his great previous film This
Land Is Mine, proves that Renoir, when he wants to express cer
tain elemental truths. knows how to reach a large audience.
The point was, in Renoir's words, "to explain France to the
Americans who arc going to land there."
On the bridge of a troop transport headed for the conti
nent. a little group. including a French soldier, an English sol
dier, and an American soldier, discuss the country they are
about to discover or rediscover. Claude Dauphin, naturally, is
the spokesman for the charms of the French way of life. But he
wonders. along with his interlocutors, what kind of a country
he shall return to after the terrible years of occupation. Renoir
I
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268
JEAN RENOIR
-whose participation in this unsigned collaborative work must

not he overestimated. or even more. underestimated-demon
strates once again. without fanfare hut with the straightforward
good sense of a man vvho is utterly French to the tips of his toes.
his confidence in the land of "red wine and Brie cheese." The
style of the film-simple. haphazard. close to the lmc('r('moni
ously made films which Henoir favored before the vvar-is com
pletely different from that of the usual run of propaganda films
(particularly the Anglo-Saxon ones). Even in this occasional
work. Renoir indulges once again his taste for superficially in
congruous casting. Burgess Meredith. for example. with his
overly subtle smile of the Broadway intellectual. And yet how
could one forget the shot of him hy the hridge weighed down
with all his gear?
LOUIS MAHCOHELLES

SCREENPLAY: Jean Reuoir, from the novel by George Sessions Perry,
Hold Autumn in Your Hand, adapted by Hugo Butler
DIALOGUE: Jean Renoir, advised by W. Faulkner
ASSISTANT DIRECTOR: Robert Aldrich
SETS: Eugene Louri(~
DIRECTOl~ OF PHOTOGRAPHY: I ,uciell Andriot
SOUND: Frank Webster
EDITOR: Gregg Tallas
MUSIC: Werner Jallssen
ORCHESTRA: Janssen Symphony Orchestra
PnODlJCERS: David L. Loew and Robert Hakim
ASSOCIATE PRODCCEH: Samuel Rheiner
FmsT SHOWING: April 30, 194'5, at the Four-Star Theater in Beverly
Hills
ACTORS: Zachary Scott (Sam Tucker); Betty Field (Nana Tucker);
FILMOGRAPHY
26g
.r.
Carrol Naish (Devers); Beula Bondi (the grandmother);

Percy Kilbride (Harmie); Blanche Yurka (Mom); Charles Kem
per (Tim); Norman Lloyd (Finley); Estelle Taylor (Lizzie);
Noreen Nash (Becky); Jack Norworth (the doctor); Paul Har
vey (Ruston); Nestor Paira (the hartender); Jay Gilpin (Jot);
Jean Vanderhilt (Daisy, Sam's daughter); Paul Burns (Uncle
Pete); Dorothy GraJlger (young girl at the party); Earl Odg
killS (guest at the wedding); Almira Sessions (customer at the
stan ; Rex (Zoonie)
This film, Renoir assures us. was made with complete

freedom. There is no trace in this quasi-documentary of the cus
tomary Hollywood production. The director assumes full respon
sibility for his actions, without pleading mitigating circum
stances. Thus, if the film does not remain faithful to a certain
image we have developed of Renoir. it is because he does not
want it to do so. Renoir is always Renoir; that is why he does
not need to imitate Renoir.
And for a new subject, a new style. Renoir presents these
cotton farmers of Anglo-Saxon background and Protestant up
bringing vvith entirely appropriate austerity. The solemnity of
their actions demands a treatment different from what one ac
cords a Parisian vaga hond or a provincial laborer. There is
something nohle in their meager lives. something dramatic, to
which Renoir gives an added dimension. as he has always en
riched the characters he is given to work with.
That said. it should be noted that Renoir's outlook is llO
longer exactly the same. He is no longer content to marvel: he
judges. In this rough country. this world of pioneers. the gran
deur of man resides not in abandoning himself to nature but in
defying it. dominating it. Under the sllrface-which seems
grayer than usual-the shadow of a great moral or metaphysi
cal idea takes shape. the idea of a God explicitly named. a God
with whom Renoir's work up to this point has hardly heen con
cerned at all.
This profession of spiritual faith might seem surprising.
But let us content ourselves with noticing it. as we take note of
The Riz'cr or Or net. without pretending to resolve a contradic
270 .
JEAN RENOIR
tion which Renoir likes to nourish in himself. Let us just say

that this contradiction prevents us from interpreting in a very
strict or easy fashion the materialism which is no less sincerely
proclaimed in Boudu and Paris Does Strange Thinr:;s.
EnIC nOli MEn
The Diary' of (f Chambermaid ( I 9;J,(i )

DIRECTOH: .Jcan Renoir
SCREENPLAY: Jean Rcnoir and Burgess Mcredith, from the novel by
Octave Mirbeau and the play by Andre Heuse, Andre de Lorde,
alld Thielly Nores
ASSISTANT DIHECTOR: Lamdew
SPECIAL EFFECTS: Lee Zavitz
SETS: Eugene Lourie (constructcd by.T. Hcron)
COSTUMES: Barbara Karinska
DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGHAPHY: Lucicn Alldriot
EDITOH: James Smith
MUSIC: Michel Michelet
PRODUCERS: Benedict Bogcaus alld Burgess Mcredith
FIRST SHOWING: 1948
ACTORS: Paulette Goddard (Celestinc); Burgess Mcredith (Captain
Mauger); Hurd Hatfield (George); Reginald Owen (Mr. Lan
laire); Florence Bates (Rose); Francis Lederer (Joseph); Judith
Anderson (Mrs. Lanlaire); Ircnc Ryan (Louise); Almira Ses
sions (Marianne)
The passagc of time permits us to better assess the quality

and importance of Renoir's next-to-last Amcrican film. For a
long time appreciated for its "realism," The Southerner was the
only one of the American films to be highly regarded. The
Southerner is admirable, but Diary, I think. is even purer and
more beautiful. Here Renoir attains without reserve and with a
dazzling unity of style one of his fundamental creative goals:
FILMOGRAPHY'
271
the synthesis of the comic and the serious. The Rules of the
Game is still only an amusing drama; Diary is a slapstick trag
edy. It merges burlesque and atrocity.
With Diary Renoir completely abandoned the "realism" of
his French work. It is significant that the film was shot in the
studio in a strange, nightmare light far different from that of
Sologne or even of the Georgia of Swamp VVater. Evcrything.
right up to the extraordinary. detailed accuracy of the rostumes.
is fused into a kind of cruel fantasy world. as disengaged from
reality as a theatcr set. Perhaps here is the source of the ohses
sion with the theater which will increasingly characterize Re
noir's evolution. Up to now, the theater had hardly furnished
the director of Boudu with so much as a pretext for a scenario.
But perhaps for the first time we sec in his work not the theater,
but theatricality in its purest state.
ANDRE BAZIN
The Woman on the Beach (1946)

SCREENPLAY: Jean Renoir, Franck Davis, and]. R. :l\1ichael Hogan,
from the novel None So Blind by Mitchell Wilson

DIALOGUE DIRECTOR: Paula Walling
ASSISTANT DIRECTOR: James Casey
SPECIAL EFFECTS: Russel A. Cully
SETS: Darrell Silvera and John Sturtevant
DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY: Harry Wild
CAMERAMAN: Leo Trover
SOUND: Jean L. Speak and Clem Portman
ART DIRECTORS: Albert S. d'Agostino and Walter E. Keller
TECHNICAL ADVISER: Lt. Cmdr. Charles A. Gardiner, USCGR
EDITORS: Roland Gross (Cross?), and Lyle Boyer or (according to
other sources) Harold Palmer
MUSIC: Hanns Eisler
ORCHESTRA: under the direction of C. Bakaleinikoff
ORCHESTRATION: Gill Grau
272 .. JEAN
RENOIR
PRODUCTION: R.KO.
PRODUCER: Jack J Gross
ASSOCIATE PRODUCER: Will Price
FIRST SHOWING: :l\1ay 14, 1947
ACTORS: Joan Bennett (Peggy Butler); Robert Ryan (Lieutenant
Scott); Charles Bickford (Butler); Nan Leslie (Eve); Walter
Sande (Vernecke); Irene Ryan (Mrs. Vernecke); Glenn Vernon
(Kirke); Franck Dorien (Lars); Jay Norris (Jimmy)
The first of the trilogy of great masterpieces. Hovvever mu
tilated it is in comparison with the original. it can still be as
fairly judged as, say. von Stroheim's Greed. * And if there was
ever a director. who. irrespective of the importance he attaches
to composition. perceives each part as a microcosm of the whole,
it is Renoir.
The vVoman on the Beach. more than any other of Renoir's
works. looks like i1 film made by Fritz Lang (and Lang was
soon to return the complimenti-), but it is close to Lang only in
appearance. The tragedy of The Woman on the Beach does not
stem from the inexorable movement of some force of destiny.
as in Lang's films. but on the contrary, from fixation and im
mobility: each of the three characters is frozen in a false image
of himself and his desire. Enclosed in a setting bound on one
side by the rhythmic movements of the waves, the blind painter
has lost himself in his canvasses, just as Ryan and Joan Bennett
have lost tnemselves in a purely sexual obsession. The fire
shatters the spell und brings them hack to reality.
The Woman on the Beach represents the culmination of
what might be called Renoir's second technical apprenticeship.
Technical extravagance has been completely suppressed. Cam
era movements, few and brief, neglect the top of the frame in
favor of eye-level shots edited for horizontal continuity and
classical angle-reverse angle dialogues. Henceforth Renoir puts
forth facts, one after another, and the beauty stems from the
Greed was cut from ten hours to two. For a consideration of the cuts
made in The Woman on the Beach, sec Cahiers du Cinema No. 34- Trans.
-I- By making Human Desire (1954) _Trans.
I
\
t !'
FILMOGRAPHY'
273
inexorability with which they follow each other. There is noth

ing but a raw succession of actions; each shot is an event. Al
though they seem more richly adorned, Renoir's subsequent
films use this simple structure as a framework, and in their
more intense moments they put aside their elegant ornamenta
tion and allow it to show through.
Must one prefer the great Passions to The Well-Tempered
Clavier? Perhaps. but if there is such a thing as pure cinema.
it is to be found in The 'Ill/oman on the Beach.
JACQUES RIVETTE
The RiueF
(1950)

SCREENPLAY: Rumer Godden and Jean Renoir, from the novel by
Rumer Godden
COMMENTARY: spoken by June Hillman
ASSISTANT DIRECTOR: Forrest Judd
SET DESIGNER: Eugene Louri~;
SETS: Ransi Chandra Gupta
CAMERAMAN: Romananda Sen Gupta
SOUND: Charles Paulton alld Charles ['lnoU
SOUND ASSISTANTS: Harishadnan J. das Gupta, Sukhano y Sen, Bansi
Ashe
COLOR: Technicolor
EDITOR: George Gale
MUSIC DIRECTOR: M. A. Parata Sarathy; music: recorded in India
SHOOTING: 1949-50 011 location near Calcutta (banks of the Ganges)
PRODUCTION: Oriental Internati01lal Film, Inc. (with the cooperation
of the Theater Guild)
PRODUCERS: Kenneth McEldowney, Kalyan Gupta, Jean Renoir
DISTRIBUTOR: Associated Artists
FIRST SHOWING: December 19, 1951, at the :Madeleine and the Bia1'
ritz in Paris; \von first prize at the Venice Film Festival, 195 1
27,1
,JEAN RENOIR
Nora SwillhurJle (the mother); Esmond llnight (the fa

ther); Arthur Shields (Mr. John); Thomils E. Breen (Captain
John); Suprova Mukerjce (Nan); Patricia Walters (Harriet);
Radha (Melanic); Adrienne Coni (Valerie); Richard Foster
(Bogey); Penel0pE~ 'Wilkinson (Elisabeth); Jane Harris (Muf
fie); Jennifer Harris (Mouse); Cecilia \Vood (Victoria); Ram
Singh (Sahjn Singh); Nimai Barik (llanu); Trililk Jetley (Anil)
ACTORS:
Every great film is th(' story of an ('xperiment. That is, it

goes from the particular to the general. It docs not sacrifice uni
versality by starting with a particular conflict, for it carries this
one destiny to its most crucial point where general truths far
heyond th(' specific case become suddenly apparent.
The voyage to India has now replaced the traditional voy
age to Greece. But it is not toward an exotic land that a Renoir
or a Rossellini embarks, but rather toward the cradle of all the
Indo-European civilizations. They ask India to give them back
the fundamental note which now seems lost in the general
cacophony.
'With Rossellini's Via{{gio in ltalia and perhaps what Ei
senstein's Que Viva Mexico.' might have been, The River is the
only example of a film which reflects rigorously on itself, in
which the narrative content, the sociological description. and
the metaphysical themes do not just respond to each other hut
are at every point interchangeable. "We are a part of the
world." Three boats, three young girls simultaneously reach
the central point where all contradictions cancel each other out,
where death and birth, giving and refusing, possessing and tak
ing away, have the same value and the same meaning. He who
forgets himself finds himself; he who gives in, triumphs. Har
riet's adventure is the story of a death which is also a birth; that
is, of a metamorphosis. of an avatar. Thus the woodcutter be
comes God; Krishna becomes the woodcutter. This film. so rich
in metaphor. is ultimately only about metaphor itself, or abso
lute knowledge.
JACQUES RIVETTE
~~
\I,I
,I
I
1I
I
I
FILMOGRAPHY' 275
Le Carrosse d'Or ( 1(52)

(The Golden Coach, 1(54)
SCREENPLAY: Jean Renoir, Renzo Avanzo, Giulio Macchi, Jack Kirk
land, and Ginette Doynel, freely adapted from the play by Pros
per Merimee, Le Carrosse elu Saint-Sacrement
ASSIST:\NT DIRECTORS: Marc Maurette and Giulio Macchi
SCRIPT GIRL: Ginette DOYllel
SETS: Mario Chiari, assisted by Giauni Polidori
COSTUMES: Mario de Matteis
DIRECTORS OF PHOTOGRAPHY: Claude Renoir and H. Ronald
CAMERAMAN: Rodolfo Lombardi
ASSISTANTS (Technicolor): Ronald Hill, Ernest Tiley, Hubert Salis
bury
STILL PHOTOGRAPHY: Studio Dial
SOUND: Joseph de Bretagne and Ovidio del Grande
RECORDER: Mario Ronchetti
COLOR: T echnicolor
MAKEUP: Romolo de Martino and Alberto de Rossi
DESIGNER: Gino Brosio
STAGE MANAGER: Franco Palagi
EDITORS: Mario Serandrei and David Hawkins
MUSIC: Antonio Vivaldi, adapted hy Gino Marinuzzi
SHOOTING: beginning February 4, 1952, at Cinecitta studios
PRODUCTION: Panaria Films, Hoche Productions
PRODUCER: Francesco Alliata
DIRECTORS OF PRODUCTION: Valentino Brosio and Giuseppe Bardogni
EXECUTIVE PRODUCER: Giovanni A. Giurgola
DISTRIBUTOR: Corolla
FIRST SHOWING: February 27,1953, at the Olympia alld the Paris
ACTORS: Anna Magnani (Camilla); Duncan Lamont (the viceroy) ;
Odoardo Spadaro (Don Antonio); Riccardo Rioli (Ramon); Paul
Campbell (Felipe); Nada Fiorelli (Isabelle); George Higgins
(Martinez); Dante (Arlequin); Rino (the doctor); Gisella
Mathews (Marquise Altamirano); Lina Marengo (the olel ac
tress); Ralph Truman (Duke of Castro); Elena Altieri (Duchess
276
.JEAN RENOIR
of Castro); Renata ChiantOlli (Captain Fracasse); Giulio Tedes

chi (Baldassare); Alfredo KaIner (Florinda); Alfredo Medini
(Polichinelle); the Medini brothers (the four children); John
Pasetti (captain of the guards); William Tubbs (the innkeeper);
Cecil Mathews (the baron); Fedo Keeling (the viscount); Jean
Debucourt (the bishop)
An American critic compared The Golden roach to those
boxes which you open to find another, smaller box inside. which
in turn contains another box, and so on. Renoir tells us: "This
critic pleased me very much by saying that. He thought that it
was a flaw and that a film should not be made that way. Per
sonally I find this box game very interesting."
The Golden Coach opens with a curtain which rises on a
second curtain which rises on a staircase leading to three levels.
The middle level is in fact the stage of a theater. At this mo
ment we are in the audience. A traveling shot takes us from
our seats onto the stage, then to the top floor, into the royal
apartments. Only then are we at the movies. One thinks of Sal
vador Dali's quip: "An expectant hush falls over the audience.
The curtain rises on a second curtain painted by Salvador Dali."
Since Prosper Merimee's Le Carrosse du Saint-Sacrement
is a play and La Pericho!c. the principal character in the play.
is an actress. it seems natural that the film inspired by this work
should take place in a dramatic climate which partakes hoth of
life and of the theater. Here again Jean Renoir's comments are
priceless: "As for the acting. I asked those who were playing
the real-life ro!cs to play with a little exaggeration so as to give
real life a theatrical tone and create confusion between the stage
and reality."
For this reason. The Golden roach is constructed like a
play in three acts. The first act ends with Camilla's curtsy to
the viceroy. At the end of the second act we come hack to the
stairway-crossroads. which leads. according to the whim of the
camera, to the court. into the town, or up on the stage. and in
frequently, in front of the screen. After having humiliated her
royal lover, Camilla is off to the bullfight. when addressing the
court-facing stage left with an eye on the audience-she says:
FILMOGRAPHY
277
"VVhen the second act ends and Colombine* is alone, having

been put out by her masters. there is a tradition of which you
seem to be ignorant: the actors form a line and bow."
At this moment the ladies and gentlemen of the court bow
to Camilla/Colombine. But the courtiers are really only film
actors. not actors of the commedia dell' arte. Thus this time it is
Jean Renoir who addresses the courtiers. through Anna Mag
nani. Just as through the courtiers we, the audience of the film,
might address the author, who asks us to applaud the actors
the real ones and the false ones-who have served him so well.
The action of The Golden Coach reaches its climax on the
stairway. After the bishop's little speech, the entire film is
turned inside out like a glove. but since the glove had already
been turned inside out in the opening minutes. it is now right
side out, and everything is in order. A curtain falls in front of
the actors and the court. A second curtain falls, leaving in front
of it Don Antonio, the head of the commedia dell'arte troupe.
"the delight of the crowned heads of old Europe."
Don Antonio greets us: "Ladies and gentlemen, to cele
brate the triumphs of Camilla over the intrigues of the Court.
I would have liked to offer you a melodrama in the Italian
style, but Camilla is late . . . Camilla . . . Camilla on stage."
Camilla arrives. Don Antonio addresses her: "You were not
made for what is called life. Your place is among us, the actors.
acrobats, mimes. clowns, jugglers. You will find your happiness
only on stage each night for the two hours in which you ply
your craft as an actress, that is, when you forget yourself.
Through the characters that you will incarnate, you will per
haps find the real Camilla."
Anyone who knows Jean Renoir cannot fail to be struck by
the extent to which these words constitute an "artistic testa
ment." Before the war Renoir acted in some of his films. He has
since given it up, but one might think he is present here as Don
Colombine is a stock character of the commedia dell'arte. Usually a
chambermaid prone to romantic misadventure, she figures in the on-stage
acting of The Golden Coach, as she did i.n many French theatricul works
of the sevpnteenth und eighteenth centuries. Trans.
278
JEAN RENOIR
Antonio. The Golden Coach is perhaps the only film to treat the
perilous subject of the theater and the craft of entertainment as
a whole from the inside. At the fall of the last curtain, the boxes
are enclosed, one inside another: the "interesting box game" is
finished. Renoir himself has given us the message of The
Golden Coach: "The desire for civilization was the force which
drove me during the making of The Coach."
As Andre Bazin often pointed out, long before it came into
general use in Hollywood, in the 1940s, depth of field was used
to the greatest extent possible in Jean Renoir's films. This is not
true in The Golden Coach. Although there are many similari
ties between The Rules of the Game and The Golden Coach-a
woman and three men, a chase, masters and servants, etc.-the
mise en scene is completely different. In Coach there are no
traveling shots, or rather only imperceptible ones, and no pans.
The camera is anchored in front of the theater stage or the
movie scene, and it records. The Golden Coach is absolutely flat.
(I mean that the mise en scene is in one plane.) It is a film in
two dimensions. Everything is located and moved by height
thanks to the stairway-and by width. However, this mise en
scene does not mark a return to the old technique, "cinema, the
art of montage," as Malraux characterized it in his Psychology
of the Cinema. On the contrary, in Coach the image is all, the
shot stands on its own. For every gesture, every attitude, a shot.
Renoir slides smoothly from one to another.
The message of The Golden Coach is also in its form. The
"box game" is not superficial. It is true of The Golden Coach
as it is for Paludes. * One can propose any interpretation with
out being wrong. Everything is in The Golden Coach. For ex
ample, it is the story of four characters in search of their mean
ing who find it through suffering and appeasement: the viceroy
will learn to suffer jealousy "like a normal man"; Felipe will
find peace in voluntary exile; Ramon will return to the arena;
Paludcs: a novel by Andre Gide. The reference here is to composition
en abime, Gide's technique of writing novels about men writing novels
about men writing novels. Trans.
FILMOGRAPHY
279
and Camilla will understand that her place is on the stage be

cause she is not made "for what is called life."
FRAN<;;OIS TRUFFAUT
The "open Sesame" of all Renoir's work. The two custom

ary poles of his work-art and nature, acting and life-take
shape in two facing mirrors, which reflect each other's images
back and forth until it is impossible to tell where one ends and
the other begins. The critical question of all the films which
precede and follow-that of sincerity-here finds its most ele
gant answer and in turn a new formulation, as in a dialogue.
This necessary work (it had to be made, and everything in it
flows from its initial hypothesis) is a commissioned project,
taken from a play in which nothing seems to suggest such a
transformation (unless it is Merimee's esoteric vein). It is a
rigorous game whose only rule is improvisation as a matter of
principle. It is an exquisite jewel box which had the good for
tune to contain the priceless gems known as commedia dell'arte,
Vivaldi, and Magnani. If an author can claim to transfer the es
sence of his message into aesthetic form, it is because this mes
sage is so compatible with the art in which he practices.
All this concerns not only Renoir but the entire cinema,
for both of them have the same unique and profound object:
spectacle, or if you prefer. appearance.
And in this case, the appearances were not inherently pro
pitious. This sort of presentation-the mime, the masquerade
usually offers the greatest resistance to screen adaptation. But
Renoir was able to shape it to the demands of the cinema and
at the same time to use it as a foil, for the artificiality of atti
tudes is only there to better set off the naturaL to make the in
terventions of the real even more striking. Once the mask is re
moved, the human figure shines in its true splendor, freed from
the mud left by the age-old processes of life and of art. This
chassd-croise* of order and freedom ultimately finds its ana
Chassd-crois(': a dance figure in which the gentleman and his lady pass
alternatdy one in front of the other; hence a reciprocal exchange of posi
tion in general. Trans.
280 JEAN RENOIR
logue on the moral plane. The beautiful irresolution of a

woman is presenterl to us as the most sublime of attitudes. If
Renoir docs not state his message bolrlly. it is not from caution.
His work is perfect like the circle; and like the circle. it cannot
be neatly framed.
Elue HOlIMEH
'1
The Golden Coach was a commercial and even a critical failure. Jean
Renoir went for two years without shooting. He planned to shoot Les
Braconniers (The Poachers) in Burgundy UJith Danielle Delorme, as
well as an adaptation of Turgenev's First Love, but finally it was a
film initially intended for Yves Allegret, French CanCan, prepared
during the summer of 1954 and shot in November and December,
which marked Renoir's return to the Paris studios after fifteen years
in Hollywood. Also, in 1uly 1954, he made his debut as a theater di
rector by staging Shakespeare's Julius Caesar in the arena at ArIes.
Julius Caesar ( 195.1.)

TRANSLATION AND ADAPTATION OF THE PLAY BY WILLIAM SHAKE
SPEARE: Grisha and Mitsou Dabat

STAGE MANAGER: Jean Serge
ACTORS: Jean-Pierre Aumollt (Marc Antony); Loleh Bellon (Por
tia); Yves Robert (Cassius); Fraw;oise Christophe (Calpurnia);
Paul Meurisse (Brutus); Henri Vidal (Julius Caesar); Jean
Pan~des (Casca); Jean Toparl (Octavius Caesar); Fran<;ois Vi
bert (the seer); Gaston Modot (Ligarius); Henri-Jacques Huet
(Flavius); Jaque Catelain (Decius); sixteen other actors per
forming approximately thirty roles and 200 extras recruited on
site (notably the guards of Camargue)
SOLE PRODUCTION: July 10, 1954 ill the arena at Arles
FILMOGRAPHY . 281
French CanCan ( 1954)
(French CanCan, 1956)

SCHEENPLAY: Jean Renoir, from an idea of Andre-Paul Antoine
ASSISTANT DIRECTORS: Serge Vallin, Pierre Kast, .Jacques Rivette
(trainee)
SCRIPT GIRL: Gillette Doynel
CHOHEOGRAPHY: G. Grandjean
SETS: Max Douy
COSTUlVIES: Rosine Delamare, made by Coquatrix and Karinska
W AHDROBE: Paulette Tentave, Elise Servet, Mariette Chabrol
MAKEUP: Yvonne Fortuna, assisted by Georges Klein
HAIRDRESSER: Huguette Lalaurette
DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGHAPHY: JVIichel Kelber
CAMERAMAN: Henri Tiquet
_\SSISTANT CAMERAMEN: Vladimir Lang aud Georges Barsky
STILL PHOTOGRAPHER: Serge Beauvarlet
SOUND: Antoine Petitjean
RECORDER: .J can La bussieres
COLOR: Technicolor
PROPS: Daniel Lagille and Edouard Duval
STAGE MANAGER: Lucien Lippens
ASSISTANT STAGE MANAGER: Rene Forgeas
LOCATIONS lVIAN AGERS: Robert Turlure and Charles Chieusse
EDITOR: Boris Lewin
:1\1 USIC: Georges Van Parys (and an assortment of tUlles from the
"Cafes-Concert" of the turn of the century)
SHOOTING: October 4 to December 20, 19S4, at Saint-Maurice-Fran
ccpur studios
PRODUCTION: Franco-London Films, Jolly Films
PHODCCER: Louis Wipf
EXECCTIVE PRODUCEH: Georges Walon
DISTRIBUTOR: Gaumont
LENGTH: 97 minutes
FIRST SHOWING: April 27, 19S5, at the Berlitz, the Paris, and the
Gaumont-Palace
282 JEAN RENOIR
ACTORS: Jean Gabin (Danglard); Maria Felix (La Belle Abesse);

Fran<;oise Arnoul (Nini); Jean-Roger Caussimon (Baron Wal
ter); Gianni Esposito (Prince Alexandre); Philippe Clay (Casi
mir); Michel Piccoli (Valorgueil); Jean Paredes (Coudrier);
Lydia Johnson (Guibole); Max Dalban (manager of the Reine
Blanche); Jacques Jouanneau (Bidon); Jean Marc Tennberg
(Savate); Hubert Deschamps (Isidore, the waiter); Franco Pas
torino (Paulo, the baker); Valentine Tessier (Mme. Olympe,
Nini's mother); Albert Remy (Barjolin); Annik Morice (The
rese); Dora Doll (La Genisse); Anna Amendola (Esther Georges
and the voice of Cora Vaucaire); Leo Campion (the comman
dant); Mme. Paquerette (Mimi Prunelle); Sylvine Delannoy
(Titine); Anne-Marie Mersen (Paquita); Michele Nadal (Bi
goudi); Gaston Gabaroche (Oscar, the piallist); Jaque Catelain
(the minister); Pierre Moncorbier (the bailiff); Jean Mortier
(the hotel manager); Numes Fils (the neighbor); Robert Au
boynea;; (the elevator attendant); Laurence Bataille (La Pyg
mee); Pierre Olaf (Pierrot, the heckler); Jacques Ciron (first
dandy); Claude Arnay (second dandy); France Roche (Bea
trix); Michele Philippe (Eleonore); R. J. Chauffard (the police
inspector) ; Gaston Modot (Danglard's servant) ; Jacques Hilling
(the surgeon); Patachou (Yvette Guilbert); Andre Claveau
(Paul Delmet); Jean Raymond (Paulus); Edith Piaf (Eugenic
Buffet); Jedlinska (La Gigolette); Jean Sylvere (the groom);
Palmyre Levasseur (the laundry woman) ; Andre Philip, Bruno
Balp, Jacques Marin, H. R. Herce, Rene Pascal, Martine Alexis,
Corinne Jansen, Maya Jusanova, and the voice of Mario Luillard
CUT SCENES: Fran<;ois Joux (secretary to the businessman); Jean
Marie Amato (the worldly painter); Roger Saget (the business
man); Claude Berri (the hunter); Joelle Robin (the girl accom
panying the military officer) ; Jean Castanier (Bordeau, manager
of the Parvant Chinois) ; Leon I,arive (a bourgeois)
Among the recent Henoirs, French CanCan is the best liked
by the dilettantes. the least esteemed hy the purists. One WOll
ders why. Of course. it is a hastily shot, transitional film; one
upset by massive cuts, and in which the principal actors were
imposed on Renoir. But Renoir has made others under similar
conditions. Certainly the constraints of assembly-line produc
,!
FILMOGRAPHY
283
tion are different from those of the small shop; expensive sets
involve problems that tiny rooms do not; and big-name actors
might pose greater difficulties than would personal friends; but
all these impediments are swept away by the same rich current
as always, and they are inevitably made to harmonize.
The grandeur of this ode to the physical pleasures lies first
in its prodigious archaism, a vigorous, aggressive archaism. It
was surprising, after the pure music of The Golden Coach, to
hear these more popular strains; but two years later it was clear
that this film was a necessary link between The Golden Coach
and Paris Does Strange Things. And then it was only one step
from "the holy prostitution of the theater" of which Baudelaire
speaks, to the apotheosis of the bordello, and Renoir takes it
gladly. There is immodesty in every great film. Renoir is in
spired by it. He absolves the dancer as readily as he did the
actress; the one for baring her legs, the other for baring her
soul.
Like him, his heroes refuse to choose. Renoir's work con
stantly recalls these lines from "L'Apres-Midi d'un Faune" by
Mallarme:
My crime is that I, gay at conquering the treacherous
Fears, the disheveled tangled divided
Of kisses, the gods kept so well commingled.
(This will also be the crime of Elena, who will be punished for
it by ending up with a gypsy beau.) In short, a pantheism, one
which teaches not to separate the sensual from the spiritual,
nor French CanCan from The Golden Coach. All this is not
without bitterness, but neither is pleasure gay, being only a
half which tries to give the illusion of the whole.
No, Pan does not sleep. The feverish panic of the final
cancan more than makes up for the lapses in the film. In this
fury of girls and undergarments we can see the most trium
phant hymn the cinema has ever dedicated to its own soul, the
movement which by breaking the rules, creates them.
The art of life and of poetry, closely entwined, which was
284
JEAN RENOIR
in The River and The Golden Coach, is also in French CanCan.

It merely wears a different mask. For French CanCan is inti
mate theater, the supreme comedy which Renoir plays for him
self. And now everything is ready for the entrance of Elena in
Paris Does Strange Things, a melodrama in the French style,
performed to celebrate the victory of desire over the intrigues
of the heart . . . Do not worry. Elena is not far behind.
JACQUES RIVETTE
Before the release of French CanCan, which was to have great success
in 1954, Renoir staged his first play, Orvet, written for Leslie Caron
zn 1953.
Gmet (1955)
/1 Comedy in Three /lets by .lean Renoir

SETS: Georges Wakhevitch, painted by Laverdet
MUSIC: Joseph Kosma
TECHNICAL ASSISTANCE: Robert Petit
STAGE MANAGER: 1\1aurice Fraigneau
COUTURIERS: I\arinska and Givenchy
LIGHTING DIRECTOR: Albert Richard
STAGE SET: Alex Desbiolles
PREMIERE: March 12, 1955, at the Th~atre de la Renaissance
ACTORS: Leslie Caron (Orvet); Paul Meurisse (Georges); Michel
Herbault (Olivier); Catherine' Le Couey (Mme. Camus); Ray
mond Russieres (Coutant); Jacques Jouanneau (William); Mar
guerite Cassan (Clotilde); Yorick Royan (Berthe); Suzanne
Courtal (Mother Viper); Pierre Olaf (Philippe, the clubfoot);
Georges Saillard (the doctor); Georges Hubert (the first hunts
man); Henry Charrett (the second huntsman)
"Is it necessary to shout a bout nothing, and is Grvet any
thing. but the portrait of a failure?" (Guy Verdot)
,
,i
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{
\ f
FILMOGRAPHY
285
"Here we have in the purest sense of the word a piece of

childishness compounded by Pirandellism. We have seen too
much of it. It would be unjust to blame Pirandello, since he
never saw it." (Robert Kemp)
"A complex amalgam of good intentions, literary reminis
cences, familiar themes, rustic poetry, homespun philosophy,
kindness, ingenuity. clumsiness, perception, and ambition."
(Claude Baigneres)
"And there is something else: an absolutely ferocious
healthiness, a taste for life. a naIve and rather cruel joy, an ar
gumentative geniality which delighted me. a gentle drollness.
an unfeigned ingenuousness. an honest vulgarity . . . Does
not all that make a play?" (De Garambe)
Precisely, Gruel is a play. Jean Renoir's first play. mostly
defended by film people:
"This is not literary theater. It is the work of a director
who has built his play around his actors, who has been guided
on the one hand by the sincerity of his inspiration and on the
other by the surest instinct for theatrical effect." (Andre Bazin)
"The night before the premic-re, I saw Gruel, and I came
out at once conquered and overwhelmed." (Roberto Rossellini)
Let Jean Renoir conclude by means of this excerpt from a
radio interview: "M. Steve Passeur has the right to find my
playa failure. He knows the theate1. But I deny M. Pavallelli
has the right to criticize Leslie Caron. because he knows noth
ing about this. I can assure him that if my father had known
Leslie, he would not have painted one portrait of her, nor even
a hundred. He would have spent his life painting her."
CARIERS
DU
CINEMA
Elena et les Hommes (1956)
(Paris Does Strange Things, 1957)
DIRECTOR : Jean Renoir

SCREENPLAY: Jean Renoir, adapted by Jean Renoir and Jean Serge
21)6 JEAN RENOIR

ASSISTANT DIHECTOR: Serge Vallin
SCHIPT GIHL: Ginette Doynel
SETS: Jean Andre
COSTUMES: Rosine Delamare and Monique Plotin
DIHECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY: Claude Renoir
COLOR: Eastmancolor
SOUND: William Sivel
STAGE MANAGER: Lucien Lippens
EDITOR: Boris Lewin
1\1 USIC: Joseph Kosma; song "Mefiez-Vous de Paris" by Leo Marj ane,
song "0 Nuit" by Juliette Greco; with songs of the period ar
ranged by Georges Van Parys
SHOOTING: December I, 1955, to March 17, 1956
PnODUCTION: Franco-London Films, Films Gibe, Electra Compania
Cillematografica
PRODUCER: Louis Wipf
DISTRIBuTon: Cinedis
FIHST SnOWING: September 12, 19'56
ACTORS: Ingrid Bergman (EJeIHl) ; Jean Marais (Rollan); Mel Fer
rer (Henri de Chevincourt); Jean Richard (Hector, Rollan's
servant); Magali No(;j (Lolotte, Elena's waiting-maid); Juliette
Greco (Miarka); Pierre Bertin (Martin-Michaud); Jean Cas
tanier (Isnard); J eall Claudio (Lionel); Elina La bourdette
(Paulette); Frederic Duvalles (Godin); Dora Doll (Rosa la
Rose); Mirko Ellis (Marbeau); Jacques Hilling (Lisbollne);
Jacques Jouanneau (Eugene Godin); Renaud Mary (Fleury);
Gaston Modot (the leader of the gypsies); Jacques Morel (Du
chene); Michele Nadal (Denise Godin); Albert Remy (Ruchez);
Olga Valery (Olga); Lco Marjane (the street singer); Leon
Larive (Henri's domestic); Gregori Chmara (Elena's domestic) ;
Paul Demange (a spectator); Jim Gerald (cafe Owner); Robert
I.e Beal (the doctor); Claire Gcrard (the stroll ing woman); the
Zavattas, Gerard Buhr, Jean Ozenne, Rene Berthier. Hubert de
Lapparent, Pierre Duverger, Jaque Catelain, Simone Sylvestre,
Corinne J ansell, Liliane Erllout, Louisette Rousseau, Palmyre
Levasseur, LYlle Carrel
FILMOGRAPHY
Ii
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287
To say that Renoir is the most intelligent of film makers

comes down to saying that he is French to the tip of his toes.
And if Paris Does Strange Things is the French film par excel
lence, it is because it is the most intelligent film in the world.
Art and at the same time the theory of art. Beauty and at the
same time the secret of beauty. Cinema and at the same time
the analysis of cinema.
Our beautiful Elena is only a provincial muse. * But she
is a muse in search of the absolute. In filming Venus among
men, Renoir for an hour and a half superimposes the point of
view of Olympus on that of the mortals. Before our eyes the
metamorphosIs of the gods ceases to be a cheap slogan and be
comes a spectacle of searing comedy. In fact. by the most beau
tiful of paradoxes. the immortals in Paris aspire to die. To be
sure of living, one must be sure of loving. And to be sure of
loving, one must be sure of dying. This is what Elena discov
ers in the arms of men. This is the strange and hard moral of
this modern fable disguised as comic opera.

Thirty years of on-the-set improvisation have made Re
noir the preeminent technician in the world. He docs in one
shot what others do in ten. And the others take shots to say
things which Renoir can dispense with entirely. There has
never been a more free film than Paris. But ultimately, liberty
is necessity. And neither has there ever been a more logical
film.
Paris is Renoir's most Mozartian film. Not so much in its
exterior appearance, like The Rules of the Game, but in its
philosophy. The man who finishes French CanCan and pre
pares for Paris is. morally. a little like the man who completes
the Concerto for Clarinet and launches into The Magic Flute.
In substance, the same irony and the same distaste. In form.
the same brilliant audacity of simplicity. To the question. \Vhat
is cinema? Paris replies: More than cinema.
JEAN-LUC GODARD
T}w rdprpncp is to Balzac's nove} La Muse rill ,J':partement.
II
I'
288 .
JEAN RENOIR
L'Albwll de Parnille de .lean Renoir (1956)

DIRECTOH: Roland Gritti
SCHEENPLAY: Pierre Desgraupes
DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGHAPHY: Jean Tournier
SHOOTING: Studio Paris-Television (Boulogne)
PRODUCTION: Paris Television, then Franco-London Films
DISTRIBUTOR: Cinedis
PRESENTATION: on the same program with Elrna et les Hommes
LENGTH: 711 meters
ACTORS: Jean Renoir and Pierre Desgraupes
Even before tlze opening of Paris Does Strange Things in Paris

(where its success loas modest) Jean Renoir returned to the United
States, where the American version of Paris was a failure. He wrote
a play, Carola, which was performed at tlze University of California,
as well as an adaptation of Clifford Odets' play The Big Knife, which
opened at the ThPr1tre des Rouffes-Parisipns on October 30,1957, with
Daniel Gelin, Claude Grnia, Paul Cambo, Paul Bernard, Teddy Billis,
France Delahalle, Andrea Parisy, Vera Norman, and Robert Mon
tage. During this same period Renoir wrote the story for a short ballet
on the war, "Le Feu aUI Poudres," created by Ludmilla Tcherina,
which was given as the first part of a dance program by Raymond
Rouleau and Ludmilla Tcherina, Les Amants de Term'I.
Le Testalllent du Dr. Cordelier (1959)

DIRECTOR: .leal] Renoir
SCHEENPLAY: Jean Renoir, freely adapted from R. L. Stevenson's Dr.
Jekyll and Mr. Hyde

ASSISTANT DIRECTOH: Maurice Beuchey
SCRIPT GIRLS: Andrcp Gauthey and Marinette Pasquet
FILMOGRAPHY
289
TECHNICAL CONSULTANT: Yves-Andre Hubert

ARTISTIC CONSULTANT: Jean Serge
SETS: Marcel-Louis Dieulot
DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY: Georges Leclerc
CAMERAMEN: Bernard Giraux, Jean Graglia, Pierre Gueguen, Pierre
Lebon, Gilbert Perrot-Minot, Arthur Raymond, Gilbert Sandoz
SOUND: Joseph Richard
COSTUMES: l\10nique Dunand
EDITOR: Renee Lichtig
MUSIC: Joseph Kosma
SHOOTING: January 1959 at R.T.F. (rue Darducci) studios, on loca
tion ill Paris (l\10ntmartre and Avenue Paul-Doumer) and at
Marnes-Ia-Coquette
PRODUCTION: R.T.F., Sofirad, Compagnie Jean Renoir
PRODUCER: Albert Hollebecke
DISTRIBUTOR: Consortium Pathe
ORIGINAL LENGTH: 1 hour 40 minutes, cut to 1 hour 35 minutes
FIRST SHOWING: November 16,1961, at the George Yin Paris
ACTORS: Jean-Louis Barrault (Dr. Cordelier and Opale); Teddy Bil
lis (Master Joly); Michel Vitold (Dr. Severin); Jean Topart
(Desire, the major-domo); Micheline Gary (Marguerite) ;
Jacques Dannoville (Commissaire Lardout); Andre Certes (In
spector Salbris); Jean-Pierre Granval (the owner of the hotel);
Jacqueline Morane (Alberte); Ghislaine Dumont (Suzy); Mad
elaine Marion (Juliette); Didier d'Yd (Georges); Primerose Per
ret (Mary); Gaston Modot (Blaise, the gardener); Raymond
Jourdain (the invalid); Sylvianne Margolle (the little girl);
J aq ue Ca telain (the ambassador); Regine Blaess (his wife);
Raymone (Mme. des Essarts) ; Dominique Dangan (the mother) ;
Celine Sales (a girl); Claudie Rourlon (Lise); Jacqueline Frot
(Isabelle); Fran<;oise Boyer (Fral1<~.oise); Monique Theffo
(Annie); Annick Allieres (the neighbor); Jean Bertho and
Jacques Ciron (two passers-by)
Made in the same year as Picnic on the Grass, Le Testa
ment du Dr. Cordelier is at once its double and its opposite. The
two films are complementary. To the heat, the color, the sen
sual, fleshy quality of Picnic on the Grass, Testament opposes
the icy character of its black-and-white images and its lucid,
Jean-Louis Barrault in Le Testament du Dr. Cordelier

abstract style. Either film can be seen and admired separately,
but each can be completely understood only in the presence of
the other.
While Picnic on the Grass portrays the return of a way of
life which moves with the flow of nature, Le Testament du Dr.
Cordelier describes the effects of stemming this flow. Picnic
focuses on the Greek materialist conception of nature; Testa
ment shows the Christian idealist conception and at the same
time expresses Renoir's idea on science and its relation to a cer
tain type of society.
The film is a modern version of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.
It is worth noting that in departing from the letter of Steven
FILMOGRAPHY 291
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f
son's story, Renoir once again achieves a cinematic adaptation

which is as close as one could possibly be to the spirit of the
original work.
Dr. Cordelier, an eminent psychiatrist, seeks to prove the
existence of the soul by causing it to materialize. Experiment
ing on himself, he creates the alter ego of Opale, who is bestial,
cruel, and destructive. Less and less able to control his metamor
phoses, Cordelier finally finds that suicide is the only way to
suppress his monstrous second identity.
The interest and the novelty of this version lie in Re
noir's masterful use of Jean-Louis Barrault, who was chosen
for the contrasting qualities of his dry, icy classical acting and
his light, nimble, ethereal miming. Thus the change in charac
ter is no longer the result of a change of makeup, but of a com
plete physical transformation. Barrault's abilities give Renoir
wide latitude in expressing the intellectual thrust which in
forms his film.
On the one hand, there is Cordelier, whom a rigorous edu
cation in strict bourgeois, Christian principles, inculcated by
an emasculating mother, has trapped in the rigid confines of a
moral existence. He sacrifices his spirit in the quest for an abso
lute which would allow him to fulfill himself. But his confes
sion reveals the failure of such an effort. He is nothing more
than a hypocritical actor, a small man whose affected modesty
masks an unbounded pride in his science, his privileges, his
social class.
On the other hand, there is Opale, the incarnate projection
of Cordelier's soul, whose very name evokes a substance which
is translucent but murky. This soul is merely the materializa
tion of repressed desires, of stifled tendencies, above all of the
irresistible need for liberty and life which Cordelier's con
strained existence has only exacerbated. And here is the soul
reduced to its opposite: the sexual urge which is the primal
force in the Dionysian universe. A perverted, deviant urge
which changes the gentle, innocent Opale into a raging, sa
distic satyr.
And yet, through a dialectical movement, Opale fulfills
292 .JEAN RENOIR
Cordelier's spiritual quest by inverting and destroying it. Cor

delier's quest for the soul is by its very nature an ethereal.
spiritual undertaking, an ideal enterprise which tends to deny
weighty materialism. But the only way ideal thought can prove
itself is by first taking concrete form and subjecting itself to
the laws of the physical world. Thus the contradiction arises
that the very demonstration of abstract ideas destroys them. It
is a quest for the impossible, a dream. Renoir's voice comes at
the end to tell us that "in his search for the spiritual, Cordelier
got the best of the bargain." But this does not mitigate the
film's demonstration that true freedom can only follow from
the natural movement of life toward its own fulfillment.
No adequate account of the film could omit mention of
the fact that, just as fantastic and philosophical elements of
Cordelier have their reflection in Opale, so his mundane and
social aspects arc reflccted in the notary, Master loly, and in his
enemy, the psychiatrist Severin. The notary, always anxious to
close his shutters on anything that might disturb the tranquil
ity of the wealthy and to silence scandals with money, defends
the Christian, bourgeois order. (Note that there is a crucifix
over the bed in his room, whilc there is none in Cordelier's.)
He is all the more Cordelier's friend because he is the director
of his considerable estate. He admires Cordelier as an aristocrat
who can show-his class's finest trait-a complete disinterest
in material wealth (d. the irony of the will I testament I,
which, to the profound and sad amazement of loly. Cordelier
makes in favor of Opale) .
Severin is as excitcd as Cordelier seems calm. Like Profes
sor Alexis of Picnic on the Grass, he represents rationalist, athe
ist, anti-Christian thought. Theirs is a falsely scientific system
which seeks to impose on the world a fixed a priori conception
of life with its own rules and norms. It is a doctrinal thought
which serves the interests of the wealthy. Severin is a bour
geois (he sleeps with his sccretary, but he will not marry her).
And naturally he is also a friend of the notary loly.
Although Cordelier's work disturbs .Toly and scandalizes
Severin, they are both really interested in it so far as it justifies
FILMOGRAPHY
293
their own bourgeois ideology and rationalizes the rule of the

wealthy. If Cordelier proves the materiality of the soul. he
shows at the same time that there is nothing more interes6ng
and worthwhile than making this discovery. Since only the
selfjsh pursuit of personal gain is likely to bring the soul to
fruition (the soul only being worthy of atten60n once it has
reached a certain value, unless it is accounted for as is), this
quest becomes the goal of all existence. Individualism appears
as the only solution. Unfortunately, the angel gives birth to a
beast. The soul turns out to be nothing more than the projec
tion of the most loathsome, destructive ego, the polar opposite
of the sort of force which leads to development of the individual
through creation. Even more unfortunately, when this science
of the soul is put solely at the disposition of the rich and the
powerfuL it sows misery among the poor and weak (the little
girl, the prostitutes. all of Opale's victims).
Renoir has never attacked the bourgeois ethos of profit
contained in Christian thought and in its enemy and offspring.
rationalist thought, with more rigorous logic than he has in this
film.
It is no surprise to find Le Testament du Dr. Cordelier fol
lowing such films as La Petite Marchande d'Allumettes, Night
at the Crossroads, The Rules of the Game, Diary of a Chamber
maid, The Woman on the Beach; that is, the films of Renoir's
fantastic vein. These films plunge us into a universe dominated
by idealism and its denial of reality. It is no coincidence that
some of Opale's expressions and gesticulations remind one of
Boudu. Boudu was the joyously anarchical dream of Mr. Lestin
gois, the liberal petit bourgeois brought up on Voltaire and
Anatole France. Opale is the product, or more precisely, the
pathetic residue, of the mortal conception of life, of the severe
grande bourgeoisie.
JEAN DOUCIIET
294
JEAN RENOIR
Le Dejeuner sur l'H erhe (1959)

(Picnic on the Grass, 1960)
DIRECTOR: .Jean Renoir
SCREENPLAY: Jean Renoir
ASSISTANT DIRECTORS: Maurice Beuchey, Francis Morane, Jean-Pierre
Spiero, Hedy Naka, Jean de Nesles
SCRIPT GIRLS: Andree Gauthey and Marinette Pasquet
ARTISTIC CONSULTANT: Jean Serge
TECHNICAL CONSULTANT: Yves-Andrp Hubert
SETS: Marcel-Louis Dieulot, assisted by Andrp Piltant and Pierre
Cadiou
COSTLlMES: Monique Dunall, assisted by .Josiane Landic
COLOR: Eastmancolor
CAMERAMEN: Ribaud, Jean-Louis Picavet, Andreas Winding, Piern~
Gueguen
STILL PHOTOGRAPHER: Philippe Rivier
SOUND: Joseph de Bretagne
WARDROBE MISTRESSES: Yvette Bonnay and Y. Maupas
J\1AKEUP: Yvonne Fortuna, assisted by Fernande Ugi
CHIEF MECHANIC: Marcel Jaffredo
LIGHTING: Andre Moindrat
ELECTRICIANS: Georges Gandart and Henri PI'at
EDITOR: Renee Lichtig, assisted by Fran<;oise London
MUSIC: Joseph Kosma
SHOOTING: July-August 1959 at Francceur studios and on location at
Les Colettes and surrounding Cagnes
PRODUCTION: Compagnie Jean Renoir
PRODl.JCER: Ginette Doynel
DISTRIBUTOR: Consortium Pathe
ORIGINAL LENGTH: 1 hour 32 minutes
FIRST SHOWING: November 11, 1959, at the J\1arignan and the
Fran<;ais
ACTORS: Paul Meurisse (Etienne); Catherine Rouvel (Nenette);
Fernand Sardou (Nino, Etienne's father); Jacqueline Morane
(Titine, eldest sister of Nenette); Jean-Pierre Granval (Ritou,
FILMOGRAPHY
295
Titine's husband); Robert Chandeau (Laurent); Micheline

Gary (Madeleine, Laurent's wife); Frederic O'Brady (Rudolf);
Ghislaine Dumont (Magda, Rudolf's wife); Ingrid Nordine
(Marie-Charlotte) ; Andre Brunot (the old curate); Helene Duc
(Isabelle, the secretary); Jacques Dannoville (M. Paignant);
Marguerite Cassan (Mme. Paignant); Charles Blavette (Gas
pard, the old shepherd); Jean Claudio (Rousseau, the steward);
Raymond Jourdan (Eustache, the cook); Francis Miege (Bar
thelemy, the chauffeur); Regine Blaess (Claire, the maid);
Pierre Leproux (Bailly); Michel Herbault (Montet); Jacqueline
Fontel (Mlle. Michelet, secretary); Paulette Dubost (Mlle.
Forestier, the telephone operator); M. You (Chapuis, the fore
man); and the four announcers: Dupraz, Lucas, Roland Thierry,
Michel Pericart
The year 1959. Two subjects, among others, animate the
television talk shows: artificial insemination and Europe, whose
birth (in the form of the Common Market) has been acknowl
edged by a treaty signed recently in Rome. Here are two rather
playful subjects to inspire a fantasy based on a completely
harebrained tale which invites us not to take it seriously. It is
an invitation we will not accept.
Professor Alexis, the illustrious biologist, announces his
candidacy for the Presidency of Europe. His success seems as
sured, since his crusade for a program of artificial insemination
to "genetically" elevate the human race has found such an en
thusiastic response among simple people of low station, who see
it as a sure and unexpected means of bettering their condition.
Naturally Professor Alexis is from a wealthy family. He is re
lated to the major chemical fortunes of France and Germany,
and his relatives are happily backing his candidacy in hopes
of increasing their profits when their cousin institutes his pro
gram. And to help secure the cause of European unity on a solid
economic foundation-in the same spirit which reigned at the
founding of the Common Market-the professor announces his
marriage (of both expediency and money) to a lovely German
cousin, who is an avid exponent of scouting and the outdoor
life.
Paul Meurisse and Catherine Rouvel in Picnic on the Grass

But it is summer. The world of industry is on vacation.
Employers and employees descend on Provence for their holi
days, the former to their sumptuous estates, the latter to the
camping sites.
There Antoinette, known as Nenette, a girl from the grape
country, who loves children and wants to have a baby, but
without the help of a man, rejoices at the professor's arrival.
She tries to meet him. But a man as busy as the professor is un
approachable. So Nenette has no choice but to get a job as a
servant in his house.
So here she is working at the great ceremony, the picnic
on the grass at which the professor and his cousin celebrate
their engagement before the international press, which has
FILMOGRAPHY
297
been brought here for the occasion. It is quite a stuffy ceremony.

where all contact with lowly nature is prohibited. Alas, it takes
place in the shadow of the ruins of a temple dedicated to Diana.
in which an old shepherd roams with his goat. Like a faun or
the god Pan, the shepherd plays an air on his flute and a sud
den windstorm rises up, sowing disorder and confusion into
the meticulously planned ceremony and panic among the
guests. The shepherd stops playing, and the storm subsides. It
is followed by a soothing heat which awakens the senses and
sharpens the appetites. A bacchanal is unleashed. Professor
Alexis, looking for his cousin, who is trying to calm her excite
ment by a salutary promenade, gets lost and comes upon the
spectacle of Nenette swimming in the river, in the splendor of
her nudity like a bather in a painting by Auguste Renoir or
Maillol. Happy to please the professor, Nenette gives herself to
him. The professor abandons himself to inebriated sensuality.
The professor is revolutionized. Fleeing society. he takes
refuge at the home of his young friend and there discovers the
joys of a patriarchal universe in which man, like an idle king.
leaves to woman, who is happy to have the privilege, the cares
of working and assuring his happiness. A dull life in which
time is organized and planned gives way to a savorous exist
ence marked by the leisurely and natural f1o'vving of the hours.
"Perhaps happiness just means submission to the laws of na
ture." Professor Alexis starts to think.
But the family chemical cartel has not given up its merce
nary hopes so easily. As the result of a rather vulgar bargain
accompanied by blackmail. Nenette runs away. Once again in
the hands of society. the professor gets ready to marry his
cousin. In the hotel where the marriage is to take place he runs
into Nenette working in the kitchen. She tells him that she is
expecting his bahy. The professor sweeps away all his old ideas
and prejudices and brings her to the ceremony to present her as
the future first lady of Europe.
Because of the similarity of their titles. Picnic on the
Grass has often been thought of as a sequel to A Day in the
2g8
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.JEAN RENOIR
Country. This notion is neither right nor wrong. The two films
play the same note but in different chords. They do not have the
same resonance. A Day in the Country treats the awakening
of sensitivity to nature and the emotion which comes with it.
Picnic on the Grass plunges us into the sensations which grow
out of direct contact with nature. It is a sensual film, as hot and
carnal as the other is cool and delicate. The first is sentimental
and breathtaking. The second sacrifices everything to the ethos
of pleasure and gaiety.
It is as if Renoir, annoyed or frightened by the sinister
character of technocratic society and its standardized notions of
happiness, was seeking through the healthy, vigorous reproach
of an almost farcical fantasy to restore a taste for the joys and
charms of life. It is not surprising, then, that the veneer of en
tertainment should cover the most serious of purposes.
In no other film has Renoir more openly presented (for
example, the scene of the shepherd in the temple of Diana)
the crucial idea which informs all his work: the conflict be
tween the Apollonian world and the Dionysian world, between
the fixed framework of existence and the irresistible movement
of life, between the theater set built once and for all and the
changing, forever moving production which animates it; in
short, between order and disorder.
Obviously the Dionysian universe is favored in Renoir's
work. Life is always seen as it surges and strains against the
bounds of existence. It does not rest until it destroys this frame
work to replace it with a new order which permits it to com
plete fulfillment. But once formed, the new order itself has a
tendency to become frozen and limiting. The author of La
Marseillaise and La Vie Est a Nous is the film maker of per
mament revolution (do not forget that part of his Petit Theatre
was originally called "It's Revolution"). This fundamental con
flict is the point of all Renoir's films: the theatrical representa
tion leaves the stage to invade the audience, the cyclone of dis
order explodes order so to regenerate it. Renoir thinks of life
as the dynamic of liberty, which can realize itself only by rising
up against its obstacles and overcoming them.
I
"
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I
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FILMOGRAPHY
299
When man, such as Professor Alexis, tries to force life

into a rigid, immutable frame, it is only right for nature to
rise up and defeat him (the scene of the tempest), Man is
invited to penetrate nature's secrets, And once he has done it.
she gives herself to him hoth as a lovely spectacle and as a
source of physical pleasure, (Alexis's previous inactivity under
lines the galvanizing power of nature.) Thus he discovers thilt
the fundamental conflict that rilges in his bosom, the conflict
symbolized by the tormented olive trees or the buzzing insects.
is the very basis of his harmonious unity. The permanent revo
lution produces equilibrium. He can now set himself to think
ing about the notion "that happiness is perhaps nothing more
than submission to the laws of nature."
Ten years before the subject became one of the major C011
cerns of our time, Renoir explored the relations of man and
his environment. And in the only way possible: politically. In
contrasting a cold, industrialized, efficient, technocratic north
ern Europe to a rural, underdeveloped, semicolonial Mediter
ranean Europe, he sought to portray the two great currents of
Western thought: the materialist philosophy which began with
the Greeks and Christian spiritual thought, which was over
thrown and replaced by the idealist thought of the rationalists.
This second current is illustrated by the often misunderstood
dialogue between Professor Alexis and the village priest. Smoke
from the factories has a hard time replacing the incense of the
churches; these two priests from hostile camps understand each
other very well. They serve the same interests: money and
those who have it.
It is the idealist religion of progress which Renoir ridicules.
He denounces its technocratic science which defiles nature in
the interests of men obsessed with profit (d. the film's portrayal
of the "paid vacations"). Far from leading to a better life, it
imposes a way of life which benefits only the ruling class, In
the only film to date to examine the Europe of the Common
Market, Renoir lucidly exposes the falseness of the glowing
promises of this "new society."
For Europe to find its harmonious equilibrium, science
I,
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300 JEAN RENOIR
must abandon idealism and submit to materialism. Professor

Alexis must marry Nenette because she is going to have a natu
ral child.
JEAN DOUCHET
Le Caporal Epingle (1962)

(The Elusive Corporal, 1963)
SCREENPLAY: adapted* by .Jean Renoir and Guy Lefranc from a novel
by Jacques Perret
CO-DIRECTOR: Guy Lefranc
ASSISTANT DIRECTOR: Marc Mal/rette
SCRIPT GIRL: Charlotte Lefebvre-Vuattoux
CAMERAMEN: Jean-Louis Picavet and Gilbert Chain
SOUND: Antoine Petitjean
STAGE SET: Eugene Herrly
LIGHTING: Andre Moindrot
EDITOR: Renee Lichtig
MUSIC: Joseph Kosma
SHOOTING: winter 1961-62
STUDIO: Vienna
LOCATIONS: Vienna and surrounding area, Pont de Tolbiac (Paris)
PRODUCTION: Films du Cyclope
PRODUCER: Rene G. Vuattoux
EXECUTIVE PRODUCER: Yvonne Tourmayeff
DISTRIBUTOR: Pathe
FIRST SHOWING: May 23, 1962, at the Ermitage, the Fran(ais, the
Miramar, alld the Wepler Pathe; selected for the Berlin Festival
Charles Spaak earlier collaborated with Renoir on an adaptation, but
this was abandoned. Not long ilfter the film's release, Renoir protested
cuts mack without his consent in thp newsrpp!s used in thp film to estab
lish a political context in the story of the escape. Sec FraTlcc-Soir, MilY
28,1']62. F.T.
Ii
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I
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I
FILMOGRAPHY 301
of 1962 and presented in inaugural sessions of the London Film

Festival on October 16,1962
ACTORS: Jean-Pierre Cassel (the corporal); Claude Brasseur (Pater);
Claude Rich (Ballochet); O. E. Hasse (the drunken traveler);
Jean Carmet (Emile); Jacques Jouanneau (Penchagauche);
Conny Froboess (Erika); Mario David (Caruso); Philippe Cos
telli (the electrician); Raymond Jourdan (Dupieu); Guy Bedos
(the stutterer); Gerard Darrieu (the cross-eyed man); Sacha
Briquet (the disguised escapee); Lucien Raimbourg (the railway
station worker) ; Fran<;ois Darbon (the peasant)
A Renoir film is first appreciated on the level of the senses.
Both film and characters define themselves immediately in
terms of impressions, of which the most important are of heat
and cold. The Elusive Corporal is a cold, lucid, abstract film
about characters in search of heat, of fraternity. The black-and
white photography (except for Le Testament du Dr. Cordelier,
it is Renoir's only black-and-white film since The River) and
the dreary, gray climate emphasize the point of the film: the
need for the sun and its warmth.
The Elusive Corporal recalls The Lower Depths more than
it does Grand Illusion, even though it is a story about prisoners
of war. The corporal is a young French soldier taken into cus
tody after the fall of France. He repeatedly tries to escape and
finally succeeds on his sixth attempt.
Even more than in the film of the Gorki play, the charac
ters are thrown into the lower depths, reduced to the very nadir
of existence. The film is intended as the reflection of a man in
the year 1961 facing the end of a world, ours, and the beginning
of an era of transition and combat. It confronts the collapse of
Western civilization and speaks of the necessity, in the result
ing chaos, of rethinking our attitudes about life. Liberty is its
sole subject. Renoir has never been more to the point than in
this work.
The film focuses on an existence of intolerable oppression.
The triumph of the Nazi regime, with which the film begins.
marks the devastation of the old orders: society, nation. Western
civilization and its system of values. There remains only capi
,...
302 .JEAN RENOIR
talism stripped of its justification, democracy, and reduced to

its most brutal function, the complete exploitation of man (cL
the barking of the German civilian foremen in the work
camps). It imposes a new existence from which every glimmer
of humanity is banished, as much for the masters as for the
slaves. Europe has become an immense stalag; the world (the
action takes place almost entirely outdoors) is a prison.
But in such a situation, life rebels. It thirsts for liberty,
which is every bit as much a natural need as eating, urinating,
etc. And it is an urgent need. The corporal feels it greatly, for
without any other reason, this animal impulse leads him to
make his first escape attempt with his friends Ballochet and
Pater. Naturally they fail, for in the new order which has been
imposed on Europe there is no more freedom beyond the barbed
wire than there is inside it Indeed, the character of Ballochet
suggests that there may even be less. Ballochet is the only one
to retain his belief in the idealist values of the defunct Western
civilization. And this belief, far more than his imprisonment,
has alienated him. All the other prisoners, except the corporal
and Pater, who had no profession in civilian life, cling to the
only physical, material values which they retain from their
previous lives: their crafts. But Ballochet is ashamed of his for
mer job. His post as an employee of the power company was
denigrated in the idealist culture and its illusion of chivalric,
Christian heroism which has been instilled in him.
It is the same grand illusion which Renoir has exposed in
Nana, Emma Bovary, de BOleldieu, Christine, Elena, Cordelier,
and many others. But never before has he exposed it with such
clarity. With Renoir there are no novelistic heroes any more
than there arc movie heroes. All individuals, and all characters,
have the same importance. To flourish, the individual person
ality must merge with the collective personality rather than
seek to differentiate itself. It must learn, as did Camilla and the
corporal, to give itself to others rather than to fence itself off
from them. We must be what we are, not what we are led to
think that we are. This is the basis of Renoir's cinema and of
his direction of actors.
FILMOGRAPHY
I
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303
Unhappy with the conditions of his former existence, Bal

lochet adapts easily to his new one. The rigor of the new order
becomes easier to accept as it becomes a habit. Captivity, by
ensuring a life without problems or strife, allows Ballochet to
escape reality, to "shut himself up in his dungeon," to con
struct an ideal universe in which he is master. He has taken
advantage of the situation to procure himself a comfortable
setup. He satisfies his desire to escape by imagination. It is
there that he finds his freedom.
In a disciplinary camp after his third escape attempt,
physically exhausted and spiritually empty, the corporal lets
himself be tempted by Ballochet's easy, selfish, and cowardly
solution. But a fortuitous toothache results in his falling in love
with the dentist's daughter. After reading him Ronsard's epi
curean poem on the rose, the young German girl tells him that
she loves him for attempting to escape, for refusing to be a
slave. It is a revelation. His need for liberty finds its expression:
live fully lovingly every instant to fully enjoy life.
Thus in the course of his six escape attempts the corporal
learns the reason for freedom and the way to acquire it, which
involves getting rid of every shackle, of opening oneself to life,
of coping with its problems as they arise; but always the ulti
mate goal is to fight without surrender to vanquish oppression
and establish an order in which no man is exploited and every
one can freely fulfill himself. Is it any surprise that the film
should end in Paris with an idea which a slogan would make
famous a few years later: "It's only a beginning . . . "?*
The film's lesson goes beyond the social and the political.
It reaches what might well be called a cosmic dimension. Re
noir's vision is founded on a materialist conception. and what
he treats here above all is the relation of man and the universe
in terms of matter. Matter plays a vital and omnipresent role,
both through the oppressive weight of its inertia and the liberat
ing force of its energy. On the one hand. necessity. On the
other, chance-chance which the corporal meets continually in
his escape attempts and with which he can deal only when he
* A slogan of the student rebels during the uprisings of May 1968. Trans.
30/1< .JEAN
RENOIR
has stored IIp enough internal energy to throw off the oppres
sion which weighs on his body and accede to freedom and
grace. From this perspective, freedom is no longer considered
as a natural need but rather as a physical element of the ener
getic dynamics of matter.
This materialist conception affects Renoir's direction. Since
The Rules of the (;amc, TIenoir's mise en sdne has obeyed ill('
laws of gravity. It rcflccts tIle strange ballet of attraction and
repulsion danced by the particles of <111 <!tom or tIle celestial
bodies of a galaxy. Just as The Rules of the Game can be see'll
as the light of a dead star, its journey to earth like the dance
of a ghost striving to maintain a last illusion of life, so The
Elu.sive Corporal might be se'en as the symbolic portrayaL ac
cording to the theories current in 1960, of a galactic system.
This might explain the fascination created by the' film's move
ment, which seems to be controlled hy a principle' completely
independent of the story. It might also explain the scenes in
which the camera suddenly and violently pulls back from the
characte'rs, as if to re-situate them in the' general lllovement of
which they arc both agents and ohjPcts. Certainly this interprc
tation is not inconceivable. Nfany artists have sought to ell
close the form of their work within the scientifi(' theories of
their time.
Without further insisting on this hypothesis, let us take
note, toward the end of the film, of the appearance of the drunk
in the train, a sort of incarnatioJl of DioJlysius himself, sowing
disorder throughout the compartment; then the panic in the
train (the hombardment), the ultimate' revolt of life, com
pletely intoxicated hy itsel1'. against the absurdity of existence.
And the camera, from far 01'1'. contemplates the chaos before
the coming of the new dawn and the soft, warm light of the
sun.
.JEAN DOUCHET
FILMOGRAPHY
305
In the years following the making of The Elusive Corporal, Renoir

wrote two books, a biographical study of his father and a novel, Les
Cahiers du Capitaine Georges. In 1968 Renoir was filmed directing
the French actress Gisele Bmwlberger in an extmet from Rumer
Godden's novel Breakfast with Nicolaldes, which Renoir translated
from the English. In 1969 he played himself in a film called The
Christian Licorice Store by James Frawley, before making Le Petit
Theatre for French television.
hI Dirertion d'Arteur par .lean R(Jnoir (1 q(8)

DIRECTOR: jeall Renoir
DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY: Edmolld Richard
SOUND: Rene Forget
EDITOR: Mireille 1\ilauberllil
PRODUCER: Roger Fleytoux
PRODUCTION AND DISTRIBlTTOR: Films de la Pleiade
LENGTH: 27 millutes
ACTORS: Gisele Braunberger and .leal! Renoir
In this improvised film, shot in half a day, Renoir directs
GisCle Braunberger through a text chosen and translated hy
him, an extract from Breakfast with Nicolaides, a novel by Ru
mer Godden (author of The Riz'er).
JEAN KRESS
The
ell rist ian Ucorice ,,,'tore ( 1969 )
DIRECTOR: James Frawley

Renoir plays himself in this film shot by a young Ameri
can film maker in 1969. commercially released in 1971. Trans.
306 .
JEAN RENOIR
Le Petit Theatre par Jean Renoir (1969)

SCREENPLAY: Jean Renoir
MUSIC: Joseph Kosma (for "The Electric Polisher") and Jean Wiener
SHOOTING: June, August, and September 1969 at the Saint-Maurice
studios and on location in Versailles (Grand Siecle housing
project) and in the South of France (around Aix-en-Provence
and St-Remy)
PRODUCTION: R.A.I., Son et Lumiere, O.R.T.F.
PRODUCER: Pierre Long
ACTORS: FIRST SKETCH, "Le Dernier Reveillon" ("The Last New Year's
Eve"): Nicholas (or Nino) Fornicola (the bum); Minny Monti
(the female bum); Roger Trapp (Max Vialle); Roland Martin,
Frederic Santaya, Pierre GuIda
SECOND SKETCH, "La Cireuse Electrique" ("The Electric Pol
isher"): Pierre Olaf (the husband); Marguerite Cassan (Isa
belle); Jacques Dynam (the second husband); Jean-Louis Tris
tan (agent); Claude Guillaume and Denis de Gunsburg (the
young couple)
THIRD SKETCH, "Qual1d l'Anlour sc nleurt" ("When Love
Dies"): Jeanne Moreau (the singer)
FOURTH SKETCH, "Le Roi d'Yvetot" ("The King of Yvetot"):
Fernand Sardou (M. Duvallier); Franc;oise Arnoul (his wife,
Isabelle); Jean Carmet (Feraud); Andrex (Blanc); Dominique
Labourier (Colette i or Paulette?], the maid); Roger Fregois
(Jolly); Edmond Ardisson (Cesar, the tramp)
This film, as a title in which every word counts indicates.

is a work which brings into play Jean Renoir himself. racon
teur of the theater and of life, each reflecting the other. Intro
ducing the four tales, a Renoir as big as life speaks to us through
a miniature theater amI assesses the moral of each fable at its
conclusion.
"Le Dernier Reveillon" ("The Last New Year's Eve") is
played aga-inst a set and at a time of the year which are both
FILMOGRAPHY
307
naturally and artificially theatricaL since Christmas is the

time when society paints itself as a picture of happiness. VVe
see how the poor (the old couple), once only spectators, become
participants. Having watched the spectacle of the rich ban
queters on the other side of the windows, they inherit the left
overs and have their own final celebration under the bridges.
Finally, disappearing into the snow and death, they will leave
the stage forever. Again Renoir is paying homage to Andersen,
as he did in La Petite Marchande d' Allumettes.
"La Cireuse Electrique" ("The Electric Polisher") is an
adaptation of an earlier Renoir project entitled "C'est la Revo
lution" ("It's Revolution"). The idea is to show us first-hand
the rise of the spirit of rebellion through a series of situations
of the most concrete and trivial, and therefore the most laugh
able, sort. The theater here is the conjugal stage throughout
the life of a woman who, obsessed with taking care of her floor,
subjugates her successive husbands to the tyranny of the wax
polisher. The last husband rebels, throwing the electric polisher
out the window only to see his wife leap out herself to rejoin
her machine. This tale is treated as a drama and sung as an
opera, i.e., it is hypertheatrified. Thus Renoir contradicts the
deliberate modesty of his case. It is as if he were blowing every
thing a little out of proportion to bring the revolution home to
the people who are in the midst of it but don't know it, just
as he introduced minutiae into La !I1arseillaise to point up the
importance of banal daily life to those whom we always con
sider to have been consciously living and leading the Revolu
tion of 1789.
Renoir presents "Quand l' Amour Se Meurt" which falls
somewhere between the previous two stories, a little more force
fully than the others. It is about a past age which Renoir liked:
the beginning of the twentieth century, fa belle epoque. Yet the
episode opens and closes abruptly with the simple appearance
on stage of the actress and singer Jeanne Moreau, who inter
prets (a la Marlene Dietrich in Morocco) Oscar Cremieux's
song, "Quand l'Amour Se Meurt" ("When Love Dies"). VVith
this approach Renoir has gone far beyond any possibilities that
308 .
JEAN RENOIR
a simple narrative would have offered him to present his tale in

a manner which is at once modest and grandiose.
"Le Roi d'Yvetot" ("The King of Yvetot") concludes the
film. The little steel marble which Renoir tosses onto the stage
of his Little Theatre becomes the heavy ball of a game of pc
tanque, and we find ourselves in the midst of a great social
game with all its rules and norms. This last story, of all of them
the most moral, could have been called "A Tale of Good Man
ners." In it Renoir shows us how the customs of a society, rather
than being blindly denied or respected, can be compromised,
circumvented, flexed, and varied if we want the rules of life to
embrace the art of living. This accounts for the variations
which Renoir contrives on the theme of the eternal triangle.
How can the couple consisting of the old man and the young
girl adapt to the arrival of a younger lover without clashes?
How can the arts of living, of loving, and of growing old en
compass the insouciance of youth? We are gripped by these
questions up until the moment when the actors come out to
greet the audience and we are brought back to the reality of the
spectacle and the unreality of the life we have imagined to be
taking place there. Unless of course it is the spectacle which is
right: art for life's sake. But that was the question in the first
place.
Jean Renoir is as little contemporary as usual in this film,
since, as usuaL he is well ahead of his time. His modernity is
all the more extraordinary in that it owes nothing to styles;
the styles eventually catch up to him to prove him right. Re
noir begins the film with a sketch that is very carefully "dated,"
in which he calls the poor "poor" (a name they have lost) and
restores them to the elevated position on the margins of society
which the "disadvantaged" are clamoring for today. To con
clude the quartet (after a sketch on a theme which has since
become vulgarized under the catchall term "alienation") he
advances toward another sort of marginal existence which is
not without current repercussions.
Further developing his reflections on entertainment and
illusion (The Golden Coach) and the art of living (Picnic on
FILMOGRAPHY
309
the Grass), multiplying one by the other, Renoir is always

blithely cross-checking and surpassing the aestheticians preoc
cupied with the theory of the artistic packaging (the placing in
a succession of boxes) of the various dimensions of spectacle
and life.
The most curious thing about Le Petit The/itre is that it
seems to have been made in the spirit of a first work, establish
ing the foundations for the next. Jean Renoir is our greatest
debutant.
MICHEL DELAHAYE
Jean Renoir during the filming of Le Testament du Dr. Cordelier
INDEX
Barrault, Jean-Louis, 291
Bas-Fonds, Les (The Lower
Depths), 49, 53-55, 74, 102,
109, 14 1, 14 2, 157, 237, 239,
243, 248 , 3 1
direction of, 55
filmography, 246-47
synopsis of, 53
Batai11e, Sylvia, 52, 74, 78-79, 24 1
Bataille du Rail, La, 249
37
Army Film Service, 260
Baudelaire, Charles Pierre, 90, 283
Baxter, Anne, 125
Arnoul, Franr,oise, 135
Bazin, Andre, 7, 8, 9, 11, 12, 29,
Astor, June, 55, 247
Aubf'rt-Palace,24
30n, 70, 80-81n, 116n, 12on,
Au-dela des Grilles, 55n
134n, 202, 203, 206, 211, 213,
215, 218, 220, 223, 271, 278,
Aurenche, Jean, 39, 39n
28 5
Autant-Lara, Claude, 39n, 208
first meeting with Renoir, 100

avant-garde, 17, 18, 110, 116, 118
119, 128, 212n, 214, 215
13
Aventures d'Auto-Maboul, Les
Qu'est-ce que Ie cinema?, 30n,

(The Adventures of Auto
81n
BazilJ, Janine, 8
Nut), Lt9-50
Beaumarchais, Pierre Augustin de,
BachI'let, Jean, 155, 184, 215, 217
73, 83, 84, 14'5
Baigneres, Claude, 285
Becker, Jacques, 49, 244
Balzac, Honore de, 231, 287n
belle epoque, 129, 307
Baquet, Maurice, 46
Bennett, Joan, 98, 272
Bardechf'. Maurief', 266-67
Bergman, Ingrid, 142, 228
acting, 21,46-48, 78-81
importance of, 125-26
Aes, Eric, 213
Alba tross Films, 151
Albums Diapositives, 211
A11egrt't, Yves, 280
Altman, Georges, 60, 249
Amants de Teruel, Les, 288
Andersen, Hans Christian, 18, 2q,
3 11
312
INDEX
Bernard, Paul, 288
Berry, Jules, 46, 88,1')9,241
Bprtlwau, Julien, 49, 244
Best Years of Ol1r Lives, The, 73
Bete Humaine, La (The Human
Beast), 8, 55 n , 67-70, 74, 77,
81, 82, 97, 102, 106, 108, 157,
183, 18~, 18~.n, 239, 25V1, 255,
257
filrno~raphy, 252 -5t
scpnario versus novel, 67--70
synopsis of, 253
Bpylie, Claude, 8, 187, 201, 202,
211, 214, 216, 227, 232, 234.
2,)2
Bickford, Charll's, 98
Bieyr/e Thief, The, 119
Billis, Teddy, 288
Bled, Le, 21,215
filmography, 220-23
synopsis of, 221-23
Blin, Roger, 244
Bogart, Humphrey, 251,
Bondi, Beulah, 92
DonnaI'd, Andre, 108
Bost, Pierre, 39, 39n
Boudu Sauve des Eaux (Boudu
Saved from Drowning), 21, 27,
)O-B, 3t, 4 2, 82, 85-86, 95, 96,
23 2, 23~244,270,271
dirpction of, 75,234
filmography, 233-34
music in, 33
synopsis of, 2)3-31
Bowlu Saved from Drowning, see

Boudu Sauve des Eaur
Bougalisme, 138, 138n
Boyer, Charles, 125
Braronniers, Les (The Poachers),

280
Brasier Ardent, Le, 1'5, 151
Braunbprgpr, Gisele, 305
Brpcht, Bertolt, 159
Bresson, Robert, 7, 106
Bretagne, Joseph de, 184
Brunius, Jacques, ,~6, 51, 74, 77, 2t-1
Brunoy, BlanchettI', 69
Bm-luel, Luis, 7
Burch, Niiel, 30n
Praxis du cinema, 30n

Cabarpt dp la Reine Blanche, 12l)
Cachin, MarcPl, ,~9, 243
Cafe de Flore, ,12
Cahicrs du Capitaine Ganges, Les,
305
Cahiers du Cinhrza, 7, 202, 2pn,

28 5
Caillaux, Roland, 213
Caldwell, Erskinl" 93
Cambo, Paul, 288
Caporal Epinglc, Le (The Elusive
('orporal), 305
filmography, 300-01,
tlH'me of, 301-O,t
CareW', Julipn, 63, 69,253
Carn!>, Marcd, 38, 10 ~
('arnet de Bal, 60, 219
larola, 288
Caron, Leslie, 12'5-26, 127-28, 228,
254, 284, 28 5
Carrosse d'Or, Le (The Golden
Coach), 70, 1 20n, 131, 1.p,
141, 228, 236, 253, 283, 28t,
308
filmography, 275-80
larrGsse du Saint-Sar'Temcnt, Lc,

101
Castamier, Jean, ,p
Catherine (Une Vie Sans loic)

filmo~raphy, 202--03
synopsis of, 203
Cava lcanti, Alberto, 212n, 2:q
Celine, Louis-Fprdinand, 2t9
Cerf, Andre, 77
Chaplin, Charles, 7, 75, 78-79, 117,
136,150,215,217
influencp on Renoir, 2t6--,t7
Charleston (Sur un Air de Charles

ton),17,22,t
INDEX'
313
mise en scene of, 45-46
filmography, 208-09
original title of, 41, 45
synopsis of, 209
Chasse a la Fortune, La (La Chasse

scenario of, 159-71,241
au Bonheur)
style of, 96
synopsis of, 40-41, 240-41
filmography, 225
Crime of M. Lange, The, see Crime

chassL;-croisd, 279, 27971
de M. Lange, Le
Chienne, La, 24-29, 70, ih, 96, 102,
108, 124, Lp, 142, 156, 226,
Dalhan, Max, 239
229, 236, 239
Dali, Salvador, 276
filmography, 22 7-28
synopsis of, 2'1--27, 228
Dalio, Marcel, 36, 37, -3 6 . 79, 10 7,
Chotard et CiL~, 33-H
172, 18 5
Dantp (Dante Alighieri), 62
filmography, 231-32
Darne 11, Linda, 125
synopsis of, 33-34
Christian Licorice Store, 305
Darnoux, Georges, 51,78
Daste, Jean, 46,241
filmography, 305
Daudet, Alphonse, 266
Cim; LibertL', 243
La Derni<~re Classe, 266
Cinda-Cim', 203
cinematography, 21, 27, )8, 43-46,

Dauphin, Claude, 267
da Vinci, Leonardo, 158
6)-64, 73, 86-90, 10 5-06 , 107
108, I 18, 134-35, 151-55, 208,

Day in the Countr,', A, see Une
Partie de Campagne
21 7. 234, 243-44, 27 2-73, 27 8
Dearly, Max, 236
ri71dmondc, 25,1-, 266
riti::en Kane, 73, 83
d<'coupage, 30, 371, 107
sec also editing
Clair, R<'nl" 22, 104, 140, 144
Classic Film Script Series, 187
Degas, Edgar, 102, 108, 132, 13,t
Dd;euner sur L'Herbe, Le (Picnic
Clement, Rene, 3971
Cocteau, Jean, 213
on the Grass), 289, 290, 292,
commedia dell' arte, 75, 81, 277,
308-3 0 9
filmography, 291--300
277 71 , 279
Communist Party, 239
synopsis of, 295-97
Confpdpration Generale de Travail,
theme of, 298-300
Delahalle, Francp, 288
65, 239
Delahaye, Michel, 8, 202, 309
Cornpille, Pierre, 39
Delannoy, Jean, 116
Carat, Camille, 132
Delorme, Danielle, 280
Coutard, Raoul, 217
Derniere Chance, La. 62, 249
Cremieux, Oscar, 307
Crime de M, Lange, Le (The Crime

Deux-Magots, 42
of M, Lange), 8, 28, 39, 40-48,

Deux Timides, Les, 22
,t9, 55, 70, 95, 102, 108, 130,

Diable all Corps, Le, 3971
Diary of a Chambermaid, 71, 93

tp, 112,145-,157,263
acting in, ,+6-,1-8, 79
97, ql, 14 2, 208, 23-J., 265, 293
filmography, 270-71
direction of, 46-48, 77
as ti'lm a th<~se, 41
synopsis of, 96-97
theme of, 95
filmography, 239-42
314
INDEX
Diary of a Country Priest, 106, 116,

"Feu au Poudres, Le," 288
Feydeau, Georges, 23, 156
119,254
Dietrich, Marlene, 307
Field, Betty, 9 2, 93
Dieu A Besoin des Hommes, 116
Fille de l'Eau, La, 17,82
Dieudonne, Albert, 17, 203 .
filmography, 204-06
DIner de Tete, 41
synopsis of, 204-06
Direction d'Acteur par Jean Re
theme of, 206
noir, La
film a these, 41
"film nair," 116, 116n
filmography, 305
Doniol-Valcrow, Jacques, 8, 202,
Filmography, 201-309
see also individual film titles
245
films (Renoir)
Dostoevsky, Fedor Mikhailovich,
American, 8n, 92-99, 103, 145,
23 1
26 5,27
Doucet, Clement, 209
color, 104
Douchet, Jean, 8, 202, 293, 300, 304
filmography, 201-309
drame gai, 19, 31, 55, 73, 96, 109,
French, 15-91, 108, 113, 145, 146
24 1,27 1
Dubost, Paulette, 74, 186n
silent, 15-22, 104-05
Duclos, Jacques, 49,243
sound, 21, 22ff, 156
titles of, in United States, 8n
Duhamel, Marcel, 46, 77, 241
see also Renoir, Jean
Durbin, Deanna, 263
Flaherty, Robert, 260
editing, 21, 23, 28, 30, 30n, 105,

Flaubert, Gustave, 236
Fleuve, Le, 223
118,278
Eisenstein, Sergei Mikhailovich,
Florelle, 46
Forbidden Games, 39n

274
Elena et les Hommes (Paris Does

Ford, Charles, 19
Strange Things), 70, 7 1, 95,

Foolish Wives, 15, 152, 208, 247
136-142, 144, 208, 218, 228,

Fox Films, 260
234, 237, 263, 270, 28 3, 28 4,

France, Anatole, 293
288
Frawley, James, 305
direction of, 137-40
Freire, Dido, 213, 260
filmography, 285-87
French CanCan, 70, 129-36, 140,
theme of, 140
142, 144, 146, 263, 280, 287
Elusive Corporal, The, see Le Capo

ral Epingle
filmography, 281-84
En Rade, 212n
and impressionist painting, 130
13 2, 134-3 6
Fairbanks, Douglas, 223
French school (films), 38
Fellini, Federico, 7
Fresnay, Pierre, 56, 62, 74,172
Ferdinand, Roger, 31
Fernandel, 23
Gabin, Jean, 53, 55, 56, 62, 69, 74,
Ferrand, Guy, 213
82, 106, 172, 253
Ferrer, Mel, 142
Gaborit, Jean, 70
Festival of Baden-Baden, 212n
Gabriello, 53
INDEX
Gance, Abel, 21 1
Garambe, de, 285
Gehret, Jean, 26
Gelin, Daniel, 288
Genia, Claude, 288
Gide, Andre, 278n
Giraudoux, Jean, 127, 128
Givray, Claude, 8, 202, 217, 228,
247, 254
Glipse, Rochus, 225
Godard, Jean-Luc, 8, 29, 92n, 202,
2~1, 263, 287
Goddard, Paulette, 247
Godden, Rumer, 111, 114, 116, 305
Goebbels, Joseph, 248n, 249
Golden Coach, The, sec Carrosse
d'Or, Le
Gorki, Maxim, 30, 55, 74, 247, 301
Grande Illusion, La, 39, 55, 56-66,
7 1, 74, 77, 102, 14 2, 14 6 , 157,
18~, 239,257,301
bannpd, 60, 248n, 249
controversial aspects of, 60
dirpction of, 63-64
filmography, 247-49
origin of, 60-61
"political film," 65, 248-49
rpalism in, 62-63
scenarios of, 61n, 62, 172-82
synopsis of, 56-59
theme of, 65
titlp, meaning of, 64-65
versions of, 59-60
Greco, Juliette, 142
Greed, 272, 272n
Gregor, Nora, 87, 185, 189n
GrimauIt, Paul, 46, 77, 241
Guisol, Henri, 241
Guitry, Sacha, 228
Haedens, Kleber, 117
France Dimanche, 117
Hakim, Raymond, 184n
Hakim, Robert, 184n, 263
Hangmen Also Die, 265
Hessling, Catherine 17, 151,203,
209, 213, 215, 224, 225,

260
influence on Renoir, 17
Histoire du Cinema, 19, 266
Hollywood, 61, 92, 96, 99, 101,

110, 113, 116, 125, 141,
263,265,269,278,280
HoIt, Jany, 53, 55
Huggins, Johnny, 209
Human Beast, The, see Bete

maine, La
Human Desire, 272n
Huston, John, 130, 187
lmprpssionism, )2, 84, 130,

135-36, 144, 146
and rpalism, 108
In a Lonely Place, 254
Italian school (films), 38
Italian Straw Hat, The, 22
Itkinp, Sylvain, 244
315
254,
102,
201,
Hu
13 2,
J' Accuse, 249
Japanese cinema, 135
.lazz Singer, The, 155
.leanne, Rene, 19
.I eanson, Henri, 1 L'j,
films of, 1 14n
.leux Sont Faits, Les, 116
.lour se Leve, Le, 104
.Iouvet, Louis, 49, 53, 55, 243
.lulius Caesar, 120-23
filmography, 280
performance at ArIes, 121-2.3
Kamenka, Alexander, 151
Kameradschaft, 62
Kana!; 249
Kemp, Robert, 285
Koch, CarI, 225, 260
Kress, Jean, 8, 202, 225, 230, 262,
265,3 0 5
L'Album de Famille de .lean Re

nair, 234
filmography, 288
316 INDEX
L'AfJaire Est dans lc Sac, 42
La FOllchardilTf', Gf'orges df', 108
Lang, Fritz, 261), 272
Larivf', Lf'o, t9
Larodll', Pierre, 1 q
fil ms () f, 1 Ltn
Laughton, Charles, 266
Lavoisif'r, Antoinp Laurent, 11
L1Vdu, C [alldp, 254
L'EcTan FTaru;aisc, 7, 94
Ledoux, Fprnand, 69, 8t, 106, 186n
Leenhardt, Roger, 'tol, ,n
Lefevre, Rene, ,16, 79, 88, 14 1
Lpslie, Nan, 98
L'Esprit, 7, ~P
Lestringupz, PipIT(' (Pierre Phi

lippe), 77, 23, 210-11
Lpvpsque, Marcel, 2.11
Lp Vigan, Robert, 55
Liberation, thf', 60, 62, 262, 265
Lichtig, Rencp, 2,t8n
L'Obscruateur, 7
Loris, Fabian, 2.1t
Lourie, Eugl'np, 94, 184
Lower Depths, The, sec Bas-Fonds,

Les
Lyp, Len, 132
MacLarpn, NOrJnan, '32

Madame Bouary, V5, 7l, 102,229
filmography, 23')-37
stylI' of, 236-37
Magnani, Anna, 277, 279
M'l11arme, Stephane, 283
Malraux, Andre, lOt, 263,278
MaIlf't, Edouarel, 108, 134
Man's Hope, 10\,2,19
Marais, Jean, l.p
Marcon'llps, Louis, 8, 202, 268
Man;chal, Jacques, 70
Marivaux, Pierrp Carlet de, Lt5
lVlarkpn, Jeanne, 7.1
Jl,larqllitta, 77, 96, 208, 21 t
filmography, 210-11
synopsis of, 210-11
Marseillaise, La, 65, 66-67, 157,
225,239,266,29 8 ,30 7
dirpction of, 66-67, 251-52
filmography, 249-52
n'alism of, 66
style of, 66
Mathil'u, Marguerite, 260
Maupassant, Guy ell', 8, 50, 102,
108, 2et5
Meredith, Burgess, 9+, 268
Merimee, Prospf'r, 276, 279
Milhaud, Darius, 212n
Million, Le, 14
Miracle in Milan, 116
Mirbeau, Andre, 97
mise en scdne, 29, 73, 86, 89-90,
106, 10 7,108,23 8-39,21 1,266,
27 8 ,3 0 ,t
definition of, 29'1
Mitry, Jean, 231
Modern Times, '3OT1. 2H
Modot, Gaston, 74, 186n, 24\
MoliiTP, 55n, 62, 140
Monpt, Claud(', 132
montage, 30n
sec also editing
Montagl', Norman. 288
Morpall, Jeanne, 37
Morisot, Bprthe, 9 t
Morocco, 37
Mosjoukinp, Ivan, 15n, 1"5 I
MOIl{,zy-Eon, A., '9,75,217
f1.1olllin Rou{!;c, 129, 130, 1Vi
Movieola,23
Mozart, Wolfgang Amadl'us. 287
Munich Pact, TIll', 73
:\1'urneau, F. IV., 88
Murski, Alexander, 225
Mussf't, Alfrpd dl', 73,83,8-+, 1,\5
"Mussolini Cup-, (Grand Prix), 50,
219
"My Anll'rican Experience," 266
Jl,Jrstcrics of New York, UiO
Nana, 17, 21, 70, 77,97, 102, 108,
INDEX'
11;2-53, 157, 203, 209, 21 5,
247
filmography, 206-08
synopsis of, 207
theme of, 208
neorealism, 62, 238, 251
Italian, Renoir influence on, 38,
237
"New Wave," 7
Nichols, Dudley, 260
Night at the Crossroads, see Nuit du
Carre/our, La
Night in the Show, A, 217
Normun, Veru, 288
Nouvelle Edition Fran<;aise, La,
(N. E. F.), 184
Nuit du Carre/our, La (Night at
the Crossroads), 29, 293
filmography, 229-31
synopsis of, 230
o Canto do Mar,
212n
Odets, Cli fford, 288
Ohnet, Georges, 150
On Purge B('bc, 23-24, 156, 2p
fi Imop;ra phy, 226-27
synopsis of, 226-27
Open City, 249
Orson Welles, 7n
On'et, 97, 123n, 123-28, 206, 269
critiques of, 284-8;;
filmography, 284-85
Ossessione, 38, 201
Pabst, G. W., 62
Pap;nol, J\-IarcPl, 157,237
Paisan, 62
Paludes, 278, 278n
Paris Cinematheque, 217
Paris Docs Strange Things, sec
Elhw clles Hommes
Parisien Libcre, Le, 7
Pa risy, Andn'a, 288
Parlo, Dita, ')9, 61n, 172
Pascal, Blaise, 12, 12n, 15
317
Passeur, Steve, 285
Pather Panchali, 113n
People 0/ France, see Vie Est 11
Nous, La
Petit Chaperon Rouge, Le, 77, 212n
filmography, 224
Petit Theatre par Jean Renoir, Le,

29 8 ,3 0 5
filmography, 306--09
themes of, 307-09
Petite Marehande d'Allumettes, La,

17-19, 21-22, 153, 205, 212,
224,293,3 0 7
dirpction of, 18-19
filmography, 213-15
style of, 215
synopsis of, 211

Philips Company, 215
Picasso, Pablo, 158
Picnic on the Grass, see D('jeuner

sur L'Herbe, Le
Pirandello, Luigi, 128,285
Point, Le, 15, Isn, 17,90,149
Poin;' EmmanllPl (Caran d'Ache),
140n
Pomil>s, Georges, 19, 34, 153, 155,
218,23 2
Popular Front, The', 36-'32, 65, LtS,
239
Postman AIU'lqs Rings Twice, The,

201
POlljadism, 2p
Pour Vous, 183, 187,237
Pn"v(>rt, Jacques, 38,41,42,43, 1:;9,
239, 24 1
Prevert, PiPrre, 77
Prim, Suzy, 53, SS
Psychology 0/ the Cinema, 27H
p'tite Lili, La
filmop;ra phv, 2 I 2-1 .3
Que Viva Mexico, 274
Que/que Part ell Europe, 249
Racine', Jean Baptiste" 140
Radio-Cinema-Tdevisioll, '5511, 100
318 .
INDEX
Raphael, 108
affinity with painting, 130-32,
realism, 22, 29, 31, 38, 39, 52, 62
134,135-3 6
American work of, 92-99, 110
63, 66, 74, 78 , 84, 85-86 , 90, 93,
approach to film-making, 156--58
94-96, 102, 104-06, 107, 108,
art of, 71-72, 111, 12,}-25, 135,
113, 118,206,270-71
"black," 38
lP-44,14 6 ,
and fantasy, 18, 28
and casting, 74-7'5, 79, 93
description of, 100-01, 110-11
French, 15,73, 15 2
of rnannprs, 28
as director, ,}6-48, 71-72, 75-81,
photographic, )2
83, 84, 90-91, 95, 102-03, 10'h
p(wti c, 104
Il7, 120-21, 124, 126, 127,
psychological, 2l), 38-3l)
144-,'j.5, 21 7, 234, 27 6--77, 3 2 ,
social, 145-46
34
Red Badge of Courage, The, 187
first efforts in films, 151-53
R(;gle dll Jeu, La (The Rules of the
first interest in films, 149-51
first meeting with Andre Bazin,
Game),9, 19,21,3,36-37,39,
100-0 3
43, ,t9, '5'5, 70-73, 74, 75, 78 ,
French work of, 7.'j.-91, 102, 109,
f12-83, 84, 87, 89, 97, 100, 102,
llq, 106, 107, 109-14,120, 123,
110, 145,271
and Hollyood, 92-99, 101, 110,
137, 139, 144, 145, 146, 18 3,
12 5
184-85, 186, 208, 239, 2,t9, 260,
influence of Auguste Renoir on,
263,278,287,293,34
cinematography of, 73
84, 1)2, 136, 146
comparison with The River, 109

iniluence of Eric yon Stroheim
114, 118
on, 80-81, 152
direction of, 77-78
influence of literature on, 102,
108
filmography, 2'5'5-'59
mise en SCl;nc of, 46, 73
marriages of, 260
and til!' Middle Ages, 11,101
scenarios of, 184-86, 187-97
synopsis of, 256-57
originality of, 163-64
theme of, 109-11
pictorial sense of, 84, 102, 132,
Reinig<'r, LottI', 225
134-35
Renoir, Auguste, 130-31, 132, 134,
as playwright, 126-27
as producpr, 184
13 6 , 146, 245, 305
"Bal du Moulin de la Galette,"
and the Renaissance, 12
12 9, 13
as stagp director, 121-22, 126-27
'"La Balaw:;oire," 245
and thpater, 120-28
"Le Dejeuner des Canotiers," 2,'j.5
see also films (Renoir), Film
"La Gn>nouillere," 245
ography
influpnce of, on Jean Renoir, 84,

Renoir, Pierrp, 66, 206, 231, 236,
266
102, 108, 146
Renoir, Claude, 102
Rey, Satyajit, 113n
Rpnoir, Jean, 7ff
Richard, Albert, 15t
as actor, 9, 50n, 70, 123, 212n,

Rien que lcs H cures, 21 2n
225
River, The, 55, 70, 72,82, 100, 101,
INDEX
102, 104-19, 120, 124, 142, 144,
234,253,269,284,31,35
cinematography of, 118
comparison with The Rules of
the Game, 109-14, 118
editing of, 118
filmography, 273-74
realism of, 118
spirituality of, 113-14
theme of, 111-17,274
Rivero, Enrique, 223
Rivette, Jacques, 8, 135, 2U2, 223,
224, 260, 273, 274, 28 4
Rogers, 213
Rohmer, Eric, 8, y;, 120n, 202, 234,
237, 270, 280
Roosevelt, Franklin D., 60, 21-9
Ross, Li11ian, 187
Rosselini, Ruberto, 7, 274, 285
Rouleau, Raymond, 288
Rules of the Game, The, see RegIe

du leu, La
Russot, Margu8rit8, 183
Ryan, Rob8rt, 98, 272
Sadoul, Georges, 73
Saint-Exupery, Antoin8 de, 263,
266
Salute to France, 263
filmography, 267-68
Sardou, Victorien, 150
Saures, Andre, 117
scenarios, 39, 43, ~t5, 61, 62, 73, 74,
75,81-82, 84, 102, 106-7, 109,
160-71, 172-82, 187 97,245
Scott, Zachary, 92, 93, 206
Sennett, Mack, 19,224
"serie noire," 116, 116n
Shakespeare, Wi11iam, 62, 121, 2110
Shoulder Arms, 217
Sibirskala, Nadia, 46, 49, 79, 14 1,
159,24 1
Simao 0 Caolho, 212n

Simenon, G8orges, 231
319
Simon, Michel, 19, 33, 85, 153, 155,
21 7,228,234
Simon, Simone, 74, 254
Sokolov, Vladimir, 53, 55
Sologne, Madeleine, 244
sound, 28, 93
effect on industry, 155-56
Southerner, The, 71, 82, 92-93, 103,
142, 206, 248, 263
filmography, 268-70
synopsis of, 92
Soviet Cinema, 116
Spaak, Charles, 59, 61, 172
Spaak, Henri, 249
Stalag 17,249
Stev8nson, Robert Louis, 290-91
Stroheim, Erich von, 7, 15, 19, 56,
61, 61n, 74, 80-81, 172, 206,
218,27 2
approach to film-making, 81n
influence of, on Jean Renoir, 80
81, 152,246-47
and realism, 105
style, 28, 32, 46, 66, 74, 84-85, 9u,
95-96, 103, 106, 117, 134,215,
220, 236-37
Swamp Water, 82, 92n, CJ3, 102,
12 5,27 1
filmography, 260-63
synopsis of, 261-62
Sylvane, A., 217
Tcherina, Ludmilla, 288
T8chnicolor, 117
T8desco, Jean, 153, 154,211
Tclerama (Radio-Cinema-
Television), 7
Tessier, Valentine, 74- 75, 23 6
Testament du Dr. Cordelicr, Le,

31
filmography, 288-93
synopsis of, 291
theme of, 291-93
"The French Renoir," 35
theatre de salon, 78
320
INDEX
themes, 82-83, 106-9, 117, 206,
208,218,274,3 08- 09
moral, 36, 38, )9,82, 111-13, 124,
137-3 8 , 139, 145
spiritual, 109, 113-16,269-70,
water, 82,85-86,137, Lt6,206
This Land Is l'vline, 92n, 263, 267
filmography, 264-67
synopsis of, 26t-65
Thorez, Maurin" 49, 243
Tire au Flanc ("Goldbrick"), 17,
19,21,75,81,96, Lp, 153, 155,
23 2
filmography, 215-18
synopsis of, 21 (j
theme of, 218
Toni, 36-39, 93, 102, LB, 157, 201,
205, 248, 263
filmography, 237-39
synopsis of, 238
Tasca, La
filmography, 259-60
TOlllollse-Lautrec, Henri dl', 132,
13 6, 14 6
Tournai, Le (Le Tournai dans la
Cit(;), 66,223
filmography, 218-20
stylp of, 220
svnopsis of, 2 L9-20
Tontain, Roland, 37, 78, 83, 107,
186
Truffaut, Franr,ois, 8, 12, 92n, 120n,
159, 172, 187, 202, 208, 209,
211,217,238, 2_p, 244, 2,t9,
2;;2, 259, 267, 279
Turgpnpv, Ivan Sprgpevich, 280
Un Condamne a jHort S'cst

Echapp/,219
llnanismc, 1-5n., 24 1
Une FiliI' sans 10ie, 17
Une Partie de Campagne (A Day

in the Country), 9, 39,13,50
S2, 5'), 74, 82, 84, 102, 108, 1 )0,
14 2, 144, 201, 203, 239, 247,
297-9 8
acting in, 78
filmography, 244-45
synopsis of, 50
versions of, 24S
Une Ten(;brcusc Affaire, 231
United Artists, 263
Univprsal Pictures, 26)
Vpdot, Guy, 28t
Venice Film Festival, 60, 70, 249
Vpnw, Julps, 95
Viaggio in Italia, 274
Vic d'un Honnete Homme, La. 228
Vic Est a Nous, La (Pcople of
France), ,18-49, IS7, 239. 298
filmography, 212-44
synopsis of, ,18-1-9
VieLlx-Colom bier Theater. 15), 1 S I.

211
Vigo, Jpan,217
Visconti, Luchino, ')8, 201
Vivaldi, Antonio, 279
Viure en Paix, 2-19

Voltaire, Franr,ois Marip Anmet,
293
WI' Ups, Orson, 7,8),90, !O!

\'V('l1s, Amy, 22S
Went the Day Vo/ell?, 212n
Winfried, Wilma,2')1
lVmnan on the Reach. The. 98-99,
Win, 102-03, 1 12, 29)
editing of, 99
filmographY 271 -7)
synopsis of, 98
Zanuck, Darryl, 2(j)
Zh'o de Conduite, 217
Zola, Emile. 8. 67, (j9, 106, 108, 152.
2,), 2;)1.. 2'34n
Zwoboda. Andre, 181
i'

Jean Renoir

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C;OIS TRUFFAlIT INTRODUOION BY JEAN RENOIR

Edited with an Introduction by

Translated from the French by

ANDRE BAZIN'S LITTLE BERET

The Silent Films

The First Talking Films

3. The Era of the Popular Front

4. The War Approaches

5. The French Renoir

g. Renoir and the Theater

Renoir's Third Period

"Memories" by Jean Renoir

The First Version of The Crime of M. Lange

An Early Treatment of Grand Illusion

Before The Rules of the Game: An Interview with Jean Renoir

An Early Scenario for The Rules of the Game (extracts)

No one should expect me to introduce this book with caution,

Jacques Doniol-Valcroze, Claude de Givray, Jean-Luc Godard,

in the history of the cinema, films which still breathe forty

Andre Bazin's Little Beret

The more I travel through life, the more I am convinced that

Renaissance. That movement, which laid the foundations of in

Catherine Hessling and Werner Krauss in N ana

THE SILENT FILMS

In a remarkable article published in Le Point in 1938 Jean Re

t The famous Le Point article is reproduced in e.rtenso in Part II.

THE SILENT FILMS

actors. "I was beginning to realize," he said, "that the move

Catherine Hessling in La Petite M archande d' Allumettes

ll4archande d'Allumettes represents an intrusion of Renoir's

THE SILENT FILMS

ficer, and the Hussar of Death-are not simply caricatures

THE SILENT FILMS 21

not only in N ana, La Petite IHarchande d' Allumettes, and Tire

tite IHarchande d'Allumettes the creator of The Rules of the

THE FIRST TALKING FILMS

The film opens with a prologue introducing the work and

place in response to his wife's nagging) and makes the rounds

THE FIRST TALKING FILMS'

The cutting in th{' great scene where Legrand discovers

THE FIRST TALKING FILMS

psychology. Psychological realism is never complete realism.

Night at the Crossroads

Andre Bazin left no writings on this film. See the note by

Pierre Renoir (standing with glass) as Inspector Maigret in Night at

Boudu Saved from Drowning

One of the most paradoxically appeaEng aspects of Jean

Severine Lezinska, Graudval, Michel Simon, and Marcelle Raina in

Boudu. Some of the spectators turn around to get a better look

THE FIRST TALKING FILMS

seems to be made of match sticks and which sags under the

1. Function of music in Boudu. Essentially an

Chotard is a wealthy grocer in a small town in the South of

Chotard et Cie. has the appearance of a rough draft for

THE FIRST TALKING FILMS'

Madame Bovary (1934)

Valentine Tessier and Robert Le Vigan in Madame Bovary

THE ERA OF THE POPULAR FRONT

Pierre Renoir during the shooting of Toni.

sequent development of cinematic realism. In a piece written