The 14th Best Director of All-Time: Jean Renoir

Jean Renoir Rankings

Total Watched Films: 7

Total Archiveable Films: 7

Total Top 100-Worthy Films: 2

Best Film: The Rules of the Game. When I watched The Grand Illusion, I knew The Rules of the Game was going to have to do some damn heavy lifting if it was supposed to be better in any way than Renoir’s first giant masterpiece. And it certainly lifted. A lot has been written about this film and it’s importance to Renoir’s reputation as a master of camera movement and deep-focus cinematography and its influence on directors like Fellini and Bunuel (particularly The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie) and that is extremely important to this film. I’m not certain this isn’t the best film I’ve ever seen, but I’m not going to outright say it after one viewing, though I think this will land in my top 10 of all time. I think I’d specifically like to spotlight this film’s screenwriting brilliance in my short little review of it. Early on in the film, there’s a point where Christine is given a short eyeglass in order to spot a squirrel on a tree and at the same time in a different subplot her husband is on a liaison with his mistress Genevieve, and using the eyeglass she spots them; two separate subplots brilliantly colliding here creating much of the conflict for the rest of the film. Another example is how, after Octave and Lisette flirt a few times throughout the film, she eventually gives Christine her coat when she and Octave go out to the greenhouse, and her husband and lover both think Octave is out there with Lisette and resolve to kill him, but then themselves fall victim to a second case of mistaken identity and kill André instead. All of this brilliant screenwriting is breathtakingly brought to life by Renoir, and while this film is famous – and rightfully so – for its camera movement, Renoir’s incredible frames are not to be forgotten either and I’ve already mentioned the incredible screenplay and acting (Nora Gregor, Marcel Dalio and Renoir himself are especially good). One of the best films of all time and a masterpiece.

Most Overrated: The River. I really don’t get the praise for this one at all. I remember the first 25 minutes of this film getting bored out of my mind by the dull drama and lack of almost anything remotely resembling cinema, not to mention the droning voice-over (felt like a few years passed by as I listened to the narration in this or to the film), which may have partially been because I was coming off of The Rules of the Game as the last film I watched from Renoir but even without that I still would’ve felt this film was overrated. Admittedly it did get better as Renoir mostly forgot he was doing voice-over narration for the film (some might call that bad form; I call it cutting weight) and the film’s use of color (Renoir was using color here more than a decade before it caught on big in Europe) only got better and better and so did the actual frames themselves (I liked a lot of Renoir’s dissolves in this film), and I do think it’s a very solid film but I don’t think it will end up in my top 500 (if it does – and trust me, it won’t – it will only be smack-dab at #500) but TSPDT has this all the way up at #172 which is incredibly overrated, though not as much as I thought at first. I think most critics here are taking Renoir’s humanist look at India and examination of the blending of Western and Indian culture as some kind of cinematic brilliance and it isn’t. I really don’t understand why this one is ranked in masterpiece territory since after one viewing I can’t say I’m close to that. The acting is unexceptional and I’d probably recast the whole movie and again; I really struggled with that voice-over early in the movie that almost made me just turn it off outright without finishing it. I felt absolutely bogged down listening to her talking.

Most Underrated: Toni. I don’t get this one either, but in the opposite direction. This film is, as with everything else I’ve seen from Renoir, a brilliant piece of work, and while his 1930s period is generally very well-respected, this film surprisingly does not end up on the TSPDT Top 1000 (I’ll probably put this in my top 500), and I can’t figure out why. That’s particularly because this film is a predecessor of neorealism (Luchino Visconti was an assistant director on this and A Day in the Country), which would go on to become one of the most major movements in the history of cinema, and (a lot of academia is from a left-wing viewpoint) the film is a portrayal of the struggles of immigrants to France in a new society and of class differences (somewhat ties in with the neorealism). You’d also expect that the admiration the French New Wave directors held for this film would increase its critical standing somewhat but apparently not. I think this is an excellent film. There’s a great shot early on in the film of Toni talking to his hoped-to-be mistress Josefa where the camera pans from a medium-close shot of Toni to a moderate long shot of Josefa that was incredible and probably beats any one shot in La Chienne even if I think that is the overall better film. Other highlights from this film include the scene in which Josefa kills her husband (this could be Mandela effect since I generally don’t take notes when watching as they distract from the viewing experience but I think Renoir dollied or zoomed into their faces during this scene?) and the ending in which Toni is killed protecting Josefa just as his friend is about to secure his innocence in the shooting; really heartbreaking ending. The single best characteristic of this film is the bookends; it starts with a train as Toni and a bunch of other immigrants arrive in France singing songs and the like, and ends with a train as a bunch of immigrants arrive in France singing songs… the cycle repeats. I have this one as the second-weakest from Renoir that I’ve seen but you shouldn’t take that for that – it’s a really strong film.

Gem I Want to Spotlight: La Chienne. This film is largely famous for having been remade by Lang in 1945 as Scarlet Street, which Renoir hated with a burning passion, but in its own right, this was Renoir’s first major sound film, first film in the archives, first film on the TSPDT top 1000, and first film that I watched for this study. It’s a brilliant work of art, and I think the most important aspect of this film is how it influenced the Nouvelle Vague three decades later. This is clear from the very opening of the film; Renoir introduces his characters very playfully and very much like how a Truffaut especially or a Godard would do so; our protagonist (Michel Simon) is introduced (again; this is all of memory as I didn’t take notes so some of this could be inaccurate) as something of a pathetic loser desperate for a woman’s love, then there’s the traditional femme fatale role (Janie Marèse) who takes advantage of our loser main character, and finally Dédé (Georges Flamant)… who is just plain Dédé, no questions asked. They’re presented to us through a puppet show and it’s so Vague-y and I love it to death; told me from the outset that this would be a great study. From that point on the film continues in its excellence; there’s a great bit here about Simon’s character, Maurice and his wife who hates him and his “plebeian” interest in painting; he is her second husband as her first was killed in World War I, and it is her hatred of him that causes him to seek solace in Marèse’s character during the events of the film. His wife’s first husband eventually comes back (he had himself pretended to be dead and taken another soldier’s name during the war since he hated his wife as well) and meets with Maurice in a bar and I believe (again based on memory) he offers to let Maurice and his wife alone in exchange for money to be found in their apartment, and Maurice maneuvers him into revealing himself to be alive in front of the police and his wife in order to get rid of her for good through an annulled marriage and it’s pretty funny. Another darkly funny bit is when Maurice eventually finds out Lulu (Marèse) has been with Dédé, who is a pimp, all along, he gets really angry and when she tells him how much of a loser he is and always has been, he goes up to her apartment one day and kills her, and through sheer misfortune the crime manages to get pinned on Dédé since he’s such a disliked nuisance to the people on the street and he goes to jail and gets executed after a disastrous trial. Finally, the film ends with Maurice meeting I believe the first husband on the street years later; both have become vagabonds and laugh about the experiences of their lives and how they’re somehow still around through it all and the film ends. I really enjoyed this one and I’m very close to a masterpiece on it; I certainly expect to put it in the top 300 when I finally make a list.

Top 10:

1. The Rules of the Game – MP
2. The Grand Illusion – MP
3. A Day in the Country – MS/MP
4. The Crime of Monsieur Lange – MS (leaning MS/MP)
5. La Chienne – MS
6. Toni – MS
7. The River – HR/MS

Renoir’s strength is his top 2 films and the fact that he has great depth (lowest-ranked film is a HR/MS), that he is unchallengeable for dominance in the 1930s decade (his top 2 films currently stand as my top 2 for the 1930s), and that he is very much a style-plus director. His weaknesses include that I just haven’t been able to catch enough of his films despite the depth and he only has two top 100-worthy films: compare him to Bergman or Hitchcock with 5, Fellini and Tarkovsky with 4 (I should add I don’t actually have Juliet of the Spirits as one of those currently but I hope I’m wrong as I hope to rewatch it relatively soon) fellow Frenchmen Truffaut (did I mention I saw Shoot the Piano Player again?) and Godard with 3. In fact, he doesn’t have another film that I expect will land in the top 250 (but A Day in the Country and The Crime of Monsieur Lange just might), and you’d expect more from a director of Renoir’s stature, but again, I should mention that his best film, The Rules of the Game, may well be better than any one film from any of these directors, and his second best film, La Grande Illusion, is also probably better than most of those directors’ second-best films (it might even be better than Bergman’s best which is Fanny and Alexander), and those are certainly some strengths indeed.

I was extremely disappointed when I could not find Boudu Saved From Drowning, La Bête Humaine (I was especially looking forward to more Gabin after The Grand Illusion) or French Cancan for this study, but I won’t lose sleep over it and I’ll just have to move on to the next director.

La Chienne HR

Boudu Saved From Drowning HR

Toni —

A Day in the Country MS

The Crime of Monsieur Lange MS

The Lower Depths —

Grand Illusion MP

La Bete Humaine MS

The Rules of the Game MP

The Southerner R

The River HR

The Golden Coach R

French Cancan HR

Elena and Her Men —