The Five Best Jean Renoir Films

My movie blogger friend Richard Finch recently started a Facebook Group on Foreign Film Classics. That inspired me to come up with a "Five List" list for my favorite foreign-language film director.

1. The Rules of the Game (La Règle du jeu) - Best described as a "comic tragedy," Jean Renoir’s 1939 masterpiece focuses on three themes: the relationship between and among the frivolous upper-class and their servants; the complex emotions between men and women; and the boundaries and expectations of society (the "rules of the game"). I first saw it in a college film class in the 1970s and it left a lasting impression. Although some contemporary audiences may find parts of it dated, it’s easy to see why critics often rank Rules alongside Citizen Kane as one of the greatest films ever made.

2. A Day in the Country (Partie de campagne) - Renoir began shooting this film in 1936, but bad weather delayed the production to the point that the director abandoned it. Ten years later, his film editor and lover, Marguerite Houllé-Renoir, edited the remaining footage into a 40-minute film. I'm not sure of Jean Renoir's original intentions, but I can't imagine how a longer running time could have improved this lyrical ode to fleeting love. It's probably the closest he came to capturing his father Auguste's Impressionist paintings on celluloid. The simple plot follows a working-class family's outing to the country. While the father and son fish, the mother has a carefree fling and the daughter experiences deeper emotions that will linger through the years. My only regret is that it wasn't shot in color.

3. The Crime of Monsieur Lange - When a ruthless publisher fakes his death and disappears, the company's remaining employees form a cooperative to carry on the business. A meek clerk, Amédée Lange, encounters great success with his Western pulp novels about Arizona Jim. He and the publisher's former mistress also fall in love. Life is wonderful--until then the "dead man" unexpectedly reappears. A deceptively complex film, The Crime of Monsieur Lange was considered controversial at the time because of its politics (the cooperative representing Communistism) and the ending (no spoilers here). However, my fondess for the film owes more to its charm, Renoir's use of the courtyard setting (foreshadowing Rear Window?), and the cinematography (highlighted by a stunning, for the time, camera shot at the climax).

4. French Cancan - Renoir's celebration of show business is rightfully noted for the director's brilliant use of color. The vivid images seem to burst from the screen or, as Francois Truffaut wrote more concisely: "Each shot in French Cancan is a popular poster...with beautiful blacks, marooons, and beiges." As for the story, it follows a music hall impressario named Danglard (Jean Gabin) who creates Moulin Rouge. Danglard uses people to create his vision, particularly the young impressionable women that he molds into stars. He could have been an unsavory character, but veteran actor Gabin applies his extensive charm to the part. He convinces us that Danglard loves the theater above all else and that, in the end, his motives are justified for the sake of art.

A colorful set from French Cancan (1955).

5. La Bête Humaine (The Human Beast) - Film noir had yet to defined in 1938, but Renoir's dark tale of a disturbed railway worker manipulated by a femme fatale into a murder plot certainly meets the genre's criteria. In fact, the source novel by Emile Zola also formed the basis for Fritz Lang's classic 1954 noir Human Desire. Renoir's original stars Simone Simon as Séverine, who is seduced by her godfather, forced by her husband to participate in homicide, and then sleeps with the railway worker (Gabin). It's a tour de force performance for the actress known to American audiences mostly for Cat People. However, it's the film's fatalism that makes La Bête Humaine so haunting.

Honorable Mentions:  Grand Illusion (which ranks #1 or #2 on most Renior lists); Boudu Saved from Drowning (remade in the U.S. as Down and Out in Beverly Hills); and The River.

Jean Renoir's La Chienne

This controversial 1931 French drama was director Jean Renoir’s first sound film. Filmed primarily on location in Renoir’s hometown of Montmartre, this film finally brought Renoir the recognition he was denied as a silent film director. Stark and unrelenting (and, oh, so French), this film showcases both Renoir’s visual and spatial acuity, as well as his ability to avoid oversentimentality while unflinchingly staring at human baseness. This film was the beginning of the style that is most associated with Renoir: poetic realism.

Legendary French actor Michel Simon (in his first starring role) plays a henpecked bank clerk named Legrand who falls in love with Lulu (Janie Mareze) after rescuing her from a man beating her on the street. What Lulu neglects to tell Legrand is that she’s a prostitute and that the man who was beating her, Dede (Georges Flamant), is her boyfriend/pimp. Married to a complete harpy (Magdeleine Berubet) who controls their finances and won’t allow him to paint in the house, Legrand finds comfort in Lulu’s “innocence” and sweet nature. He sets her up in an apartment that he finances by stealing from both his wife and his work. When this money doesn’t suffice, Dede begins selling Legrand’s paintings under the name Clara Wood to finance his own café and gambling habits. Unaware that the sales of his artwork are financing Lulu’s pimp, Legrand is not angry when he learns that she’s selling his paintings. It is not until Legrand disentangles himself from his wife and shows up unexpectedly to tell Lulu that he’s going to be all hers that he discovers her deceit. In the end, Lulu meets with a tragic end and Dede gets his comeuppance at the hands of an executioner.

Based on a novel by Fouchardiere, this film was banned in the United States for forty years due to its sexual theme, crude language, and unpunished crime. After watching the scene where Lulu’s true nature is revealed to Legrand, I can see why some people were shocked by the film’s content. As Legrand is proclaiming his love for her and forgiving her indiscretions, Lulu sadistically belittles and laughs at him. This sets up the moment where you figure out why the film’s title is La Chienne. Having had enough of her deceit, he declares: “You’re no woman—you’re a bitch!” And, then some unpleasant things happen with a letter opener. It was 1931, so you have to admit that’s pretty daring. While this film wasn’t shown in the United States until 1975, American audiences did get to see a remake of it, Scarlet Street (1945). Directed by Fritz Lang and starring Edward G. Robinson and Joan Bennett, this film was a MUCH more toned down version.

Overall, the story is interesting to watch. Michel Simon does a nice job of playing an unhappy man who comes to life after falling for a much younger woman and then mentally cracks after he realizes it was all an illusion of happiness. Not my favorite Renoir film, but it serves as a good example of how his style developed and allowed him to go on to make masterpieces like Grand Illusion and The Rules of the Game (http://classic-film-tv.blogspot.com/2010/11/rules-of-game-everyone-has-their.html).

The Rules of the Game: Everyone Has Their Reasons

Entire books have been devoted to analyzing Jean Renoir's 1939 masterpiece, so it's impossible to do justice to this French classic in a single film review. However, I am constantly surprised by the number of film buffs who haven't seen it, so I feel compelled to promote it as part of the Cafe's Foreign Film Festival--well that, plus it's been a personal favorite since I watched it in college long ago.

Best described as a "comic tragedy," The Rules of the Game focuses on three themes: the relationship between and among the frivilous upper-class and their servants; the complex emotions between men and women; and the boundaries and expectations of society (the "rules of the game").

The film opens with the arrival of Andre Jurieux, a courageous aviator who has just completed a 23-hour solo flight across the Atlantic. As the public stands ready to hear about his heroic exploits, Andre uses the opportunity to whine that he did it all for a woman who didn't bother to be there and greet him. It doesn't matter to Andre that Christine, the woman in question, is married.

Octave explains the "rules" to Andre.

Andre's best friend, Octave (Renoir), has a long-standing friendship with Christine (Nora Gregor). He uses his influence to secure Andre an invitation to La Coliniere, a country estate owned by Christine and her husband Robert (Marcel Dalio). Robert is hesitant to agree at first, but Octave convinces him by agreeing to find a husband for Robert's mistress Geneviève (Mila Parely).

At the country gathering of friends, relationships change amidst an avalanche of mixed messages and misunderstandings. A confused Christine contemplates an affair with a stranger, then confesses her love for Andre before realizing that her friendship with Octave may be much more. Meanwhile, her maid Lisette ignores her husband, the gamekeeper, and flirts with both Octave and a poacher-turned-servant named Marceau. It's a classical French farce on the surface, but it's undercut by a condemnation of the bourgeois and concludes with an unexpected tragedy.

Geneviève participates in the hunt.

Clearly, Renoir wants to expose the emptiness and thoughtless cruelty of the upper classes, the latter conveyed in the film's most famous scene: a hunting party that slaughters dozens of rabbits and pheasants. As if this sequence (which is difficult to watch) needed more conviction, Renoir forsakes his typical long takes for cramming in 51 shots in less than four minutes. The violence is shocking and the analogy--that the bourgeois are indifferently destroying an unsuspecting society--is all the more potent.

It's no coincidence that the only likable members of Renoir's bourgeois are "outsiders." Several of Robert and Christine's "friends" feel sorry for Christine because she's Austrian. Later, we learn that Robert's father was a "Rosenthal from Frankfort"--meaning that he was Jewish. This allows us to feel empathy for them while still accepting that their vacuous life of luxury is no different from their guests.

Renoir's trademark use of deep focus--
Andre and Robert chat as Lisette watches
in the background.

In Renoir's world, both upper-class and servant classes understand the conventions of society, even though they break them. Octave stresses to Andre that "society has rules." And one of the house maids, upon learning Christine allowed Andre to sit next to her at dinner, expresses concern because "etiquette is etiquette."

It's ironic that the two most pathetic characters--Andre and Geneviève--are the ones who follow the rules at the risk of their own unhappiness. Andre may come across as a lovestruck fool, but he truly loves Christine and knows what he wants. Likewise, Geneviève understands that she doesn't want to lose Robert, although she confesses that "I don't know if it's love or force of habit." In contrast, Christine, Octave, and Robert struggle with trying to figure out what they really want. In the end, their actions seem foolish and perhaps even tragic, but as Octave explains to Robert at one point: "Everyone has their reasons."

Robert apologizes to his guests
after the tragedy.

The history of The Rules of the Game is almost as fascinating as the film itself. Two of Renoir's previous two films--La bête humaine and Grand Illusion--were big commercial and critical successes (Illusion even earned an Oscar nomintaion as Best Film...not Best Foreign-Language Film). So, it was a tremendous disappointment when Rules of the Games flopped miserably. Renoir even re-edited the film, trimming its running time from 96 minutes to 81. During World War II, the Nazis destroyed all known negatives. Then, in 1959, a restored 109-minute version of the film was released. Renoir approved this version, although it's important to note that he was not involved in the restoration.

Based on shooting scripts, film historians have compared the 81-minute and 109-minute versions. They contend that the shorter film was a harsher indictment of the upper classes, since it reduced or eliminated scenes that fleshed out the characters of Octave and Robert.

Since 1952, Sight and Sound magazine has done a poll of the 100 Greatest Films every decade. The Rules of the Game entered the 1952 poll as #10 and has been  #2 or #3 in every decade since then. The only film to rank above it: Citizen Kane.