watched the rules of the game for the first time in probably three or four years last night because nancy wanted to see what my "favorite film" was like. will admit a bit of trepidation in saying it was my "favorite" when i hadn't seen it in so long and wondered if my late teens/early 20s impression of it would hold true. of course, it did; just as magnificent as the first time i saw it as a hopelessly romantic wastrel of 18 (as opposed to the embittered wastrel of 25 i have become).
what was interesting was that - although i found the film glorious and still my nominal favorite - it barely conformed to my initial impression of it (which has colored my view of it ever since.) at 18, i took renoir's octave as the "main" character, mostly because he was a. the writer/director and b. he was the character i identified with most, whereas obviously the story is a series of sattellites which pivot around a central point/axis, that being the aristrocracy but more importantly - as revealed in a short "interview" between renoir and marcel dalio 25 years after the film was made which was tacked on - unadvertised - to the copy of the tape i rented...which almost made up for the incredibly shitty transfer and age of the tape itself - dalio's marquis, the "failed man-boy" according to renoir.
also of note in the interview: renoir's assertion that "scenery" means little to nothing to him (which was why more of the chateau wasn't used) which strikes me as a bit disingenous - if not outright bullshit - when you compare the long, light-saturated, impressionistic quality of the exterior shots.
― jess (dubplatestyle), Sunday, 20 April 2003 22:15 (twenty years ago) link
― felicity (felicity), Sunday, 20 April 2003 22:38 (twenty years ago) link
― Anthony Miccio (Anthony Miccio), Sunday, 20 April 2003 22:44 (twenty years ago) link
As for search, obv. just about everything, though his work of the 1930s is no doubt the most important. It's important in part because Renoir was not just working as Jean Renoir in the accepted postwar auteur sense. The attitude and innovations of those films are inseperable from the political and cultural context of Popular Front and pre-Popular Front France. Many of Jean Renoir's collaborators, including his 2nd wife, were Leftists and many of the films--notably La vie est à nous and La Marseillaise--were made in tribute to the Popular Front vision of France. I tend to think of a group of people of which Renoir may have been the center, as the authors of those 1930s films. Some of those collaborators were Jean's relatives, from Marguerite (his wife and editor) to Claude (his nephew and producer, later cinematographer) to Alain (his brother, I believe, and an assistant cinematographer). Anyway that's how I think of those films...The Crime of M. Lange probably being the most daring--aesthetically and politically--after Rules of the Game (it justifies murder in the name of class solidarity).
It's silly to give short shrift to his postwar films. The River, French Cancan, and The Golden Coach are all brilliant. Interestingly Renoir abandoned the roving camera/long take style he pioneered in the 1930s; maybe his experience in Hollywood taught him to trust editing a bit more. Maybe he just wasn't as interested in pushing the boundaries in that sense anymore. The later films have Renoir's customary love of life and love for people, but they feel more resigned, less angry (by contast Bresson got more angry as he got older)....
Most of his 1930s, 1940s, and 1950s work is in circulation in the US but La nuit de carrefour (1932) is famously hard to see outside of France (never understood why), and the stuff from the 1920s (including Nana, and the films he made in the context of the French Impressionist Cinema movement like La fille de l'eau) is also hard to track down, although I have the wonderful Charleston on video.
― Amateurist (amateurist), Sunday, 20 April 2003 23:20 (twenty years ago) link
― A Nairn (moretap), Monday, 21 April 2003 02:26 (twenty years ago) link
― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Monday, 21 April 2003 16:15 (twenty years ago) link
― oops (Oops), Monday, 21 April 2003 16:17 (twenty years ago) link
Re. "Boudu," which I just watched again. The maid is so hott in a not-hot-but-HOTT way. The camera (or is that Boudu?) really seems interested in her ass. there are some incredible "profunder de champ" sequences here, especially utilizing the hallways and windows. the shots when the party is coming out of the water at the end look like they were shot with some kind of 1930s equiv. of a telephoto lens--the depth is squashed and the focus is really shaky.
Haha "Priapus Boudu"--this film is so DIRTY.
― amateurist (amateurist), Friday, 13 June 2003 05:37 (twenty years ago) link
― amateurist (amateurist), Friday, 13 June 2003 05:39 (twenty years ago) link
― Justyn Dillingham (Justyn Dillingham), Friday, 13 June 2003 06:16 (twenty years ago) link
― amateurist (amateurist), Friday, 13 June 2003 06:21 (twenty years ago) link
I like to think of this as Renoir's tribute to Showgirls.
― amateurist (amateurist), Friday, 13 June 2003 06:28 (twenty years ago) link
http://filmsociety.wellington.net.nz/graphics/Boudu.gif
― amateurist (amateurist), Friday, 13 June 2003 08:22 (twenty years ago) link
― Jay Vee (Manon_70), Friday, 5 March 2004 04:18 (twenty years ago) link
― todd swiss (eliti), Friday, 5 March 2004 04:30 (twenty years ago) link
― Eisbär (llamasfur), Friday, 5 March 2004 04:43 (twenty years ago) link
― Eisbär (llamasfur), Friday, 5 March 2004 04:46 (twenty years ago) link
none of the reviews/critiques that i've read of the film seem to quite capture everything that's great about it. i love the way it's poised between the humanism that everyone associates with renoir and a very dark, pessimistic view of its characters. bits of it almost feel like a screwball comedy, which makes the final scene all the more shattering.
grand illusion isn't quite as good, i think - its themes are a little more straightforward and obvious. it's still a beautiful film, of course.
― J.D. (Justyn Dillingham), Friday, 5 March 2004 05:58 (twenty years ago) link
Has there ever been a greater anti-war film than La Grande Illusion?
― Japanese Giraffe (Japanese Giraffe), Friday, 5 March 2004 13:26 (twenty years ago) link
― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Friday, 5 March 2004 19:20 (twenty years ago) link
Have you seen "La Horse" with Gabin? Is it any good? I'm intrigued since I love the stuff I've heard that Gainsbourg did for the soundtrack.
― Jay Vee (Manon_70), Saturday, 6 March 2004 04:17 (twenty years ago) link
― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Saturday, 6 March 2004 10:21 (twenty years ago) link
― cozen (Cozen), Saturday, 13 March 2004 22:26 (twenty years ago) link
also the movie is on it and it is as always awesome. when lisette barks "un p'tit café avec pain, de beurre et de confiture!" to octave i always die!!
― s1ocki (slutsky), Tuesday, 11 May 2004 01:03 (nineteen years ago) link
― @d@ml (nordicskilla), Tuesday, 11 May 2004 01:11 (nineteen years ago) link
― s1ocki (slutsky), Tuesday, 11 May 2004 01:12 (nineteen years ago) link
― @d@ml (nordicskilla), Tuesday, 11 May 2004 01:13 (nineteen years ago) link
― s1ocki (slutsky), Tuesday, 11 May 2004 01:14 (nineteen years ago) link
― s1ocki (slutsky), Tuesday, 11 May 2004 01:15 (nineteen years ago) link
― Jay Vee (Manon_70), Tuesday, 11 May 2004 01:16 (nineteen years ago) link
― @d@ml (nordicskilla), Tuesday, 11 May 2004 01:17 (nineteen years ago) link
― Jay Vee (Manon_70), Tuesday, 11 May 2004 01:18 (nineteen years ago) link
― s1ocki (slutsky), Tuesday, 11 May 2004 01:19 (nineteen years ago) link
― Jay Vee (Manon_70), Tuesday, 11 May 2004 01:21 (nineteen years ago) link
― Spencer Chow (spencermfi), Tuesday, 11 May 2004 01:45 (nineteen years ago) link
― J.D. (Justyn Dillingham), Tuesday, 11 May 2004 01:56 (nineteen years ago) link
"such are the rules of the game! "
you should write a book on this film in which that is the full content of every other sentence.
― amateur!st (amateurist), Tuesday, 11 May 2004 15:12 (nineteen years ago) link
it is kind of shittily designed tho, this dvd, visually i mean
― s1ocki (slutsky), Tuesday, 11 May 2004 15:20 (nineteen years ago) link
"such are the rules of the game" sounds like a good phil ochs song too
― amateur!st (amateurist), Tuesday, 11 May 2004 15:29 (nineteen years ago) link
french cancanelena and her menthe golden coach
so thats what you have to look forward to!
― todd swiss (eliti), Tuesday, 11 May 2004 15:50 (nineteen years ago) link
― s1ocki (slutsky), Tuesday, 11 May 2004 15:55 (nineteen years ago) link
― amateur!st (amateurist), Tuesday, 11 May 2004 23:22 (nineteen years ago) link
― todd swiss (eliti), Tuesday, 11 May 2004 23:39 (nineteen years ago) link
It's strange, though -- it's an anti-war film, obviously, but it is a *muted* anti-war film, I think. It reveals its sentiments in bursts and moments (like Gabin's anguished explosion during his confinement in solitary or the halting conversation-via-mutually incomprehensible monologues between Gabin and Parlo towards the end). In ways I think this is because Renoir surely must have realized what for just about everyone was the obvious -- war is awful -- and therefore didn't want to make a simple diatribe on the fact.
Many different things to observe -- the presence of the black officer in the castle prison, the absolute control of body language throughout, Fresnay's impeccable correctness and lack of sentimentality. von Stroheim was my own particular revelation in that I'm more familiar with his reputation than his work as director or actor, and I suspected some kind of strutting overblown stereotype. But for all of the emotional and literal rigidity, no question of von Stroheim's subtlety and ease in the role, and he and his fellow German citizen (Parlo's character) are the two of the five major players to not find some sort of fulfillment or achieve a specific goal (the other three being Boldieu, Rosenthal and Marechal).
Beautiful film, indeed. Will definitely be searching for more.
― Ned Raggett (Ned), Tuesday, 22 June 2004 18:31 (nineteen years ago) link
― s1ocki (slutsky), Tuesday, 22 June 2004 18:41 (nineteen years ago) link
that was really well-put, ned, especially the last paragraph.
― amateur!st (amateurist), Tuesday, 22 June 2004 20:45 (nineteen years ago) link
― Ned Raggett (Ned), Tuesday, 22 June 2004 21:00 (nineteen years ago) link
― s1ocki (slutsky), Tuesday, 22 June 2004 21:01 (nineteen years ago) link
― Ned Raggett (Ned), Tuesday, 22 June 2004 21:55 (nineteen years ago) link
this is a hallmark of renoir, really. his films--with a few exceptions--feel effortless, fast-paced, engrossing, very far from self-important. although that "effortlessness" was of course painstakingly achieved.
― amateur!st (amateurist), Wednesday, 23 June 2004 01:36 (nineteen years ago) link
(btw the blooming young teen daughter is Adrienne Corri, who 20 years later met a bad fate under the ceramic penis in A Clockwork Orange)
― skateboards are the new combover (Dr Morbius), Thursday, 9 July 2015 03:29 (eight years ago) link
Hey, two connections to Black Narcissus, Esmond Knight and Rumer Godden.
― How I Wrote Matchstick Men (James Redd and the Blecchs), Thursday, 9 July 2015 03:42 (eight years ago) link
off to his late-period The Elusive Corporal shortly
― skateboards are the new combover (Dr Morbius), Sunday, 23 August 2015 17:56 (eight years ago) link
^This is quite a feat, La Grande Illusione done almost as a slapstick comedy. His last true full-length feature; Durgnat wrote about it at length in hus Renoir book. The film was in a Lionsgate box that came out several years ago, may be OOP.
― skateboards are the new combover (Dr Morbius), Monday, 24 August 2015 13:53 (eight years ago) link
Oh I still have that box and haven't watched that one.
― Norse Jung (Eric H.), Monday, 24 August 2015 13:58 (eight years ago) link
several latrine jokes too.
― skateboards are the new combover (Dr Morbius), Monday, 24 August 2015 14:03 (eight years ago) link
This Land Is Mine, anyone?
Found a used copy of the previously unknown to me Warner Archive edition on Thursday, screened last night. Charles Laughton as a timid schoolteacher alongside feisty Maureen O'Hara in Occupied France (film released in 1943). George Sanders in a fine turn as a collaborator with Walter Sleazak's Nazi officer. Laughton gets some understated yet rousing courtroom speeches near the end.
Interesting factoid from IMDB: The film opened simultaneously at 72 theaters in 50 key cities on 7 May 1943, setting a box office record for gross receipts on an opening day.
― Jesus Krist of Novoselic (C. Grisso/McCain), Monday, 16 November 2015 20:00 (eight years ago) link
Very eerie, man, I watched it last night too... The least French version of France ever, even for Hollywood. Some nice touches here and there, and Laughton is lovely with a character whose "arc" is impossible not to predict, but I can't imagine it turned out to please Jean.
Also, would have preferred anyone to Una O'Connor as Chas's clinging mom, ans Sanders was pretty bad in an undernourished role i thought. Walter Slezak did formulaic Nazis with lots of gusto.
― skateboards are the new combover (Dr Morbius), Monday, 16 November 2015 20:07 (eight years ago) link
(this was Renoir's second film in the US, after Swamp Water, which i still haven't seen)
― skateboards are the new combover (Dr Morbius), Monday, 16 November 2015 20:09 (eight years ago) link
Swamp Water is pretty good but like all American Renoirs it feels to me like the work of a man halfheartedly struggling to fit in. Lang acclimated himself to Hollywood much better - or at least pulled off the illusion.
― Acid Hose (Capitaine Jay Vee), Monday, 16 November 2015 22:39 (eight years ago) link
last night i was reading the titular essay of James Baldwin's "Notes of a Native Son" and he described having to run for his life after being refused service in a New Jersey restaurant... he had just come from seeing This Land Is Mine, which he thought ironical.
― skateboards are the new combover (Dr Morbius), Tuesday, 17 November 2015 15:36 (eight years ago) link
― Acid Hose (Capitaine Jay Vee),
Have you seen The Southerner? Beulah Bondi is a bit much, but the flood scenes are extraordinary. So are the ones with the sick kid.
― The burrito of ennui (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Tuesday, 17 November 2015 16:10 (eight years ago) link
Yes, I have. Great film - my favorite of his US ones along with "The Woman On The Beach".
― Acid Hose (Capitaine Jay Vee), Tuesday, 17 November 2015 17:34 (eight years ago) link
The Southerner out on Blu from Kino Lorber today.
― we can be heroes just for about 3.6 seconds (Dr Morbius), Tuesday, 9 February 2016 20:36 (eight years ago) link
and now La Chienne on CC Blu
Peter Cowie on Renoir and my fave dead French actor (well along w/ Gabin) Michel Simon
https://www.criterion.com/current/posts/4104-flashback-jean-renoir-and-michel-simon
― we can be heroes just for about 3.6 seconds (Dr Morbius), Tuesday, 14 June 2016 18:31 (seven years ago) link
Gabin is rawr-rawr (especially young) but i imagine he smells like the inside of a 75-year-old box of Gitanes.
― The burrito of ennui (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Tuesday, 14 June 2016 18:36 (seven years ago) link
we don't have to smell him! (his ashes were scattered)
― we can be heroes just for about 3.6 seconds (Dr Morbius), Tuesday, 14 June 2016 18:49 (seven years ago) link
Watching the Criterion La Chienne tonight, which I haven't seen in any form.
― The burrito of ennui (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Thursday, 7 July 2016 21:14 (seven years ago) link
it's great; i have it out of the library right now meself.
― helpless before THRILLARY (Dr Morbius), Thursday, 7 July 2016 21:16 (seven years ago) link
You are in for a treat. Great star and great director at their best. Remade at least once as what- Scarlet Street, maybe?
― Hare in the Gated Snare (James Redd and the Blecchs), Thursday, 7 July 2016 22:30 (seven years ago) link
I think so. The plot's familiar.
― The burrito of ennui (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Thursday, 7 July 2016 22:33 (seven years ago) link
See you both on the other side!
Looking forward to your review!
― Hare in the Gated Snare (James Redd and the Blecchs), Thursday, 7 July 2016 22:34 (seven years ago) link
Scarlet Street it was.
― Acid Hose (Capitaine Jay Vee), Thursday, 7 July 2016 23:10 (seven years ago) link
With, um, Sylvia Sidney and Edward G. Robinson? ( The G. stands for what? Whose last role was what?)
― Hare in the Gated Snare (James Redd and the Blecchs), Thursday, 7 July 2016 23:23 (seven years ago) link
No, not Sylvia Sidney.
― Hare in the Gated Snare (James Redd and the Blecchs), Thursday, 7 July 2016 23:25 (seven years ago) link
Joan Bennett, same as The Woman in the Window
― Hare in the Gated Snare (James Redd and the Blecchs), Thursday, 7 July 2016 23:26 (seven years ago) link
Must have been City Streets I was thinking of.
― Hare in the Gated Snare (James Redd and the Blecchs), Thursday, 7 July 2016 23:29 (seven years ago) link
tone btwn the two is very different
― helpless before THRILLARY (Dr Morbius), Friday, 8 July 2016 04:18 (seven years ago) link
Don't think I ever saw
― Hare in the Gated Snare (James Redd and the Blecchs), Friday, 8 July 2016 12:37 (seven years ago) link
Such a smart, acidic film. Also, Michel Simon and the actor who played the antagonist were both in love with the leading lady. She died in a car crash 4 days after shooting.
The 51-minute film that preceded La Chienne is included on the CC -- an adap of a Feydeau farce about parents flummoxed by their kid, who refuses to take a laxative! Renoir was possibly coerced into making it to prove to his producer that he could do a talkie on budget.
― helpless before THRILLARY (Dr Morbius), Monday, 11 July 2016 15:11 (seven years ago) link
recent biography has arrived in English translation:
http://www.rogerebert.com/interviews/a-supreme-artist-pascal-m%C3%A9rigeau-on-jean-renoir-a-biography
― Supercreditor (Dr Morbius), Monday, 6 February 2017 19:13 (seven years ago) link
whoo
― The burrito of ennui (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Monday, 6 February 2017 19:15 (seven years ago) link
What were Jean Renoir’s politics? They depend on whom he was talking or writing to, I’m afraid. He was some kind of a chameleon. We must never forget that two Jean Renoirs, at least, did live in the same skin. My feeling about “The River” is that the film is less pro-colonial than the book. Rumer Godden’s first reaction after discovering the film was extremely bad. What she regretted the most was the impression that the emphasis on India, to some extent, “swamped the story” and produced a picture that was “overloaded with color,” so much so that what she had seen was “not a story set in India, but India hung on a not very strong story.”
I do not downgrade the film, but to me, “The River” is not a progressive picture. There is a share of indifference to the fate reserved for the Indians, expressed all the more freely because they are presented as accepting the principle of it "naturally." As André Bazin, who loved the film, wrote such a vision is “not false, but a bit superficial, spontaneously optimistic, and implicitly imperial.”
― The burrito of ennui (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Monday, 6 February 2017 19:21 (seven years ago) link
I bought the (800-page!) bio last week; on occasion the translation is not, er, felicitous. I'll see you on the other side.
― the Rain Man of nationalism. (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Monday, 1 May 2017 11:59 (six years ago) link
don't remember seeing this one
Thrilled to be releasing Jean Renoir's LA MARSEILLAISE on @KinoLorber DVD and Blu-ray October 29th. Comes with archival Jean Renoir interview, @NickPinkerton audio commentary, and Dudley Andrew booklet essay. pic.twitter.com/XsxV1M1IMG— R. Emmet Sweeney (@r_emmet) August 8, 2019
― a Mets fan who gave up on everything in the mid '80s (Dr Morbius), Friday, 9 August 2019 14:26 (four years ago) link
Filmstruck hosted it for a while. Great news.
― TikTok to the (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Friday, 9 August 2019 14:32 (four years ago) link
it's also on Kanopy for those who still have access
― Dan S, Friday, 9 August 2019 14:43 (four years ago) link
really? Don't see it here.
― TikTok to the (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Friday, 9 August 2019 14:43 (four years ago) link
when I go to Renoir in Filmmakers it gives me three films, Rules of the Game, The Southerner, and Le Marseillaise. I've always wondered if different institutions buy different subscriptions, though
― Dan S, Friday, 9 August 2019 15:02 (four years ago) link
that's it.
― TikTok to the (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Friday, 9 August 2019 15:04 (four years ago) link
Saw Toni (1935) last weekend, a tragic romance made on location in the country rather in the style of producer Marcel Pagnol. It's very sexy and rather brutal.
― brooklyn suicide cult (Dr Morbius), Tuesday, 14 April 2020 15:59 (three years ago) link
I liked it too. He triumphs whenever his characters go outdoors.
― TikTok to the (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Tuesday, 14 April 2020 16:05 (three years ago) link
Direct deposits, I'd imagine.
― TikTok to the (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Tuesday, 14 April 2020 16:15 (three years ago) link
The Toni commenary by Philip Lopate and Kent Jones is a model of is kind. Lopate is excellent at pointing out how this or that composition exploits topography and local color.
― meticulously crafted, socially responsible, morally upsta (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Sunday, 14 February 2021 14:30 (three years ago) link
Vacillating from comedy of manners to low comedy, La Marseillaise is an unsatisfying hybrid with a couple remarkable battle sequences and as ever his use of deep focus.
― So who you gonna call? The martini police (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Tuesday, 29 March 2022 20:59 (two years ago) link
All I remember from that is people breaking into "La Marseillaise" the song over and over.
― Halfway there but for you, Tuesday, 29 March 2022 21:01 (two years ago) link
That this revive would be about The Grand Illusion showing up on MUBI US.
― The Central Rockaliser (James Redd and the Blecchs), Tuesday, 29 March 2022 21:04 (two years ago) link
― Halfway there but for you
The 12-inch version blasts after the Tuileries massacre.
― So who you gonna call? The martini police (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Tuesday, 29 March 2022 21:09 (two years ago) link
Vacillating from comedy of manners to low comedy, La Marseillaise is an unsatisfying hybrid with a couple remarkable battle sequences and as ever his use of deep focus. Would like to see this! Graceless pitching from epigrams and certain looks to fart jokes and eyepokes---and back and forth and back and forth--is a good idea. Ditto a couple remarkable battle sequences and as ever his use of deep focus. Also, somebody start a thread for blurbs with unconventional appeal (or something like that).
― dow, Tuesday, 29 March 2022 22:21 (two years ago) link