When François Truffaut was asked who the world's greatest filmmaker was, he replied: "I think he's French, his name is Jean Renoir". Although there can be no standard answer to such a question, Truffaut's words do reflect the common beliefs of New Wave filmmakers.
In the view of Jean-Luc Godard, "Renoir is the smartest of all directors"; Jacques Riviette put it bluntly: "Renoir is the one who knows cinema best, even better than Rossellini and Godard, who does better than anyone else".
In addition to these French directors, the Italian Luciano Visconti also studied under Renoir and worked on several of his films. Visconti admits that the film guru taught him the values of "humanity", not "professionalism", which eventually made him a staunch Marxist.
As the British film historian James Lacey points out, the generation that entered the film industry in the 1960s and 1970s generally regarded Renoir as their forerunner, "He has made the kind of films they want to make in their hearts and rightfully called them masterpieces." ”
Jean Renoir
In fact, Jean Renoir was one of the few directors of the Golden Age of French cinema who was widely praised by New Wave filmmakers. Renoir also praised the film concept of his descendants, and at the age of 80, he dedicated his autobiography to "those 'New Wave filmmakers' in the eyes of the public" because "the focus of their attention is also what I am concerned about.".
Renoir's films offer an extensive and serious exploration of human existence and incorporate a warm and romantic sense of humor. Lacey argues that these ancient films still contain "an accurate description of the bourgeois society of our time".
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" > father and son</h1>
As the son of the great Impressionist painter Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Jean Renoir also achieved brilliant artistic achievements. It is very rare for a father and a child to become masters of two different art forms. In his memoirs, Jean Renoir wrote: "I spent my life determining how much my father had influenced me. ”
In 1920, a year after Renoir Sr.'s death, Renoir Jr. married his father's last model, Catherine Heslin, who also connected the father's and son's respective artistic careers.
Portrait of Pierre-Auguste Renoir
In the view of Sylvie Patri, director of the French Film Archive, renoir Sr.'s paintings for Heslin undoubtedly have timeless artistic value and are "very seductive". However, in Renoir Jr.'s films, she is full of avant-garde temperament, adventurous spirit, and is a modern woman.
In fact, the two distinct image temperaments presented by Heslin reflect the artistic pursuits of the two generations. The famous American radio journalist Susan Steinberg mentioned in an article that in the paintings of the elder Renoir, the female figures are pink beauties, they are plump and happy, and the little Renoir has written in a series of films such as "Nana", "La petite marchande d'allumettes", "La règle du jeu" and "La Grande" Illusion) portrays the female hero as deeper.
Despite this obvious difference, the son does benefit from his father's artistic temperament in many ways. In his later years, Jean Renoir once told American actor Norman Lloyd that early in his career, critics thought he would replicate his father's style in the film. So he tried not to imitate the old Renoir, but in the end he thought that the critics' assertions were correct.
Stills from The Great Phantom
Indeed, many of Renoir's films are set against the backdrop of his father's century — with cute long skirts and laid-back days. But he also tells more modern stories in his own way. The New Wave's generation of French directors, such as Truffaut and Godard, liked to call him "boss", and this is what a group of painters called his father.
Film critics always like to look for similar details in their work to confirm how the son was influenced by his father. But in fact, Renoir's films not only inherit his father's aesthetic taste, but also show a deep nostalgia for the bourgeois culture of the 19th century.
<h1 class = "pgc-h-arrow-right" > nostalgia coexists with pioneers</h1>
In the article "Jean Renoir: Not so simple people", Jeffrey McNabb, senior reporter for the authoritative British film magazine "International Screen" and film critic of The Independent, analyzed a famous scene in the 1936 film "Une Partie de Campagne":
Two lads were drinking in a country tavern, and after the shutters opened, the beautiful Henriette stood on the swing. Sunlight surrounded her. Dressed in white and wearing a hat, she looked like a figure from Renoir's father's painting. Gradually, Henriette's swing grew higher and higher. Her hat was blown off by the wind, her skirt was lifted by the wind, and all passers-by stopped and stared blankly at her beautiful legs. A young man poked his head out of the window, twisted his moustache, and stared at her unabashedly.
Stills from "A Day in the Country"
The scene, which lasted for several minutes, was improvised and, in McNab's words, a lyric poem that combined humor and provocation, while also reflecting the director's love of nature and his deliberate imitation of his father. But that's not the whole story.
Although Henriet on the swing had a Venusian charm of peace, McNab went on to write: "Once she returns to the city, the spell will be broken." We will soon find that what awaits us in the future will be a chore, an unhappy marriage, and a fat, gray and nosy person like her mother, Madame Dufour. ”
Essentially, such narratives are rooted in 19th-century traditions. In fact, Renoir's films benefit heavily from 19th-century literature, especially the works of Zola, Flaubert, Maupassant, and Gorky. But the nostalgia of the visual style and narrative mode is far from what Renoir has. Otherwise, he would not have been able to be embraced by New Wave filmmakers later.
As early as the 1930s, Renoir began to use a large number of techniques in his films that seemed unorthodox and even experimental at the time, such as deep focus lenses, long lenses, location shooting, improvisation, temporary hiring of non-professional actors, and so on. It is these bold explorations that give his films a complex and fascinating temperament.
Jean Renoir is talking to the famous actor Marcel Dario
Regarding the art of cinema, Renoir once said: "I can't imagine a film without water." There is an unavoidable quality in the motion of cinema, which is associated with the ripples of streams and the movement of rivers. In this regard, the famous American film critic Andrew Sarris believes that Renoir's career is like a river of personal expression, with undulating and meandering situations in different sections of the river, and the flow of personality ultimately points to the outlet of life.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" > everyone has their own Renoir</h1>
Partly because of these bold technical attempts, Renoir's films were always underrated at the beginning of their releases, and as James Lacey put it, almost no one noticed their complex structure. These films "are often considered crude and not fully artistically displayed".
The movie "Rules of the Game" is now considered one of Renoir's most important works. In just a few minutes of the film's opening minutes, Renoir expresses the human condition differently from other filmmakers, bringing the audience into it in a unique way, reaching what Israeli film director and screenwriter Adam Barthes calls "the level of affection."
However, when the film was released in 1939, it was condemned by the authorities for its humorous portrayal of French high society. Even the average audience didn't buy it, and people couldn't understand why Renoir had to make an anachronistic country film at a time when Europe was about to enter the war.
Stills from "Rules of the Game"
But as McNab puts it: "They didn't realize that by showing the decadence and depression of French high society, the film accurately reflected why war was inevitable." In Renoir's own words: "I want to portray a society dancing on a volcano." ”
In any case, the film did not reappear until 20 years later and was re-evaluated with the success of the New Wave movement. And, thanks to the high esteem of The New Wave filmmakers, Renoir's films began to receive more respect academically and intellectually.
And this universal reverence actually stems from the strong humanism revealed in Renoir's works, as well as the approachable narrative style. Compared with other big French directors, his films appear to be very friendly, never testing the patience or understanding of the audience.
At the same time, his ability to control different subjects is also amazing. As richard Rude, co-founder and film critic of the New York Film Festival, put it: "Everyone has their own Renoir; indeed, if Renoir is, as I believe, the greatest of all filmmakers, one of the reasons is that his work is so diverse, rich and complex." ”
It is this diversity that makes it difficult to unify his artistic career in some way—they eventually merge into the ocean of life. However, in terms of artistic creation, Renoir himself has another expression: "A director only makes one film in his lifetime, then breaks it into pieces and recreates it." ”
<h1 class= "pgc-h-arrow-right" > approachable art</h1>
The general respect from the industry has also produced collateral results. James Lacey points out: "Renoir's films were eventually regarded as classics, objects of academic study, but no longer important sources of emotional and intellectual experience. This situation is not intrinsically related to the sense of age of the film itself. Rather, it stems from its unique approach to expression and artistic style.
Lacey believes that the humor and richness of the characters in the film mainly come from the interaction between dialogue and visual imagery, including many fleeting gestures and movements. For audiences in non-french-speaking countries, even if the dubbing accurately conveys the content of the dialogue, it will lose the rhythm of communication and perfect expression time due to the problem of lip-syncing; subtitles distract the audience, making it impossible to fully notice every detail.
In Renoir's art, every line of dialogue, every action, dress, gesture, gesture, and background needs to be taken into account in order to accurately understand the story, theme, and character. This feature is vividly expressed in Boudusauvédes eaux (Boudusauvédes eaux).
A Parisian bookseller jumped into the Seine to rescue the homeless Boudeu who had fallen into the water, and took the bearded clown with him to live with him. The bookseller's sentimental lifestyle, including his affair with the maid, was transformed by Boudu's refusal to accept bourgeois rules and etiquette.
Stills from "Budu's Rescue in the Water"
There is no doubt that this is an approachable comedy. Not only that, but in the eyes of Guardian columnist Jonathan Jones, it is even as deep, ambiguous and rich as a great novel, and its thematic meaning is not directly expressed. It is difficult for the audience to make an absolute judgment on the behavior of the characters in it.
As Andrei Bazin, the father of the New Wave, said, "Boudu's charm lies in the celebration of the vulgar." The film "expresses the most brazen cunning in a civilized and indifferent way".
In fact, the reason why Renoir's films are so difficult to classify is that, in addition to the diversity of subject matter, is that he refuses to make moral judgments about the characters in many works. Many stories have few clear heroes or villains. "The scary thing is that everyone has their own reasons." In "The Rules of the Game", this line, played by the character Octave played by Renoir himself, has almost become the most frequently quoted sentence for posterity when introducing the French master's film art.
Like many of the characters in the story, Renoir is a contradictory and rich character: he has a sense of humor, and he can't get rid of his elegant and noble father, while also adapting the old Renoir's artistic style to the needs of modern media.