You’re missing something.
Don’t beat yourself up for not enjoying Renoir.
Renoir will find you when he needs you.
renoir was the first filmmaker to combine documentary techniques with staging in depth ,extreme fluidity of movement with theatricality .in other words the first great innovator of form[ignore the ostensible narrative,concentrate on the mise en scene]
How about the magnificent choreography in Rules of the Game, the unique mix of tragedy, comedy, farce, drama, satire, romance, social comment? The camerawork, movement, the love of theatre, spatial exploration. Renoir was a master of staging and visual depth, there is a wonderful fluidity but he doesn’t proclaim his own greatness in a Wellesian manner. Grand Illusion is a great anti-war statement, showing what people of different nations have in common, more so than the class chasm; artificially created international divisions. Little wonder the Nazis banned it.
Do see A Day in the Country, in which we again see Renoir’s love of nature and rivers, already evident in Boudu, which is a delight. Also the influence of impressionism, but he far surpasses his father
Toni is a huge influence on Italian neo-realism, and The River was important for Satyajit Ray and so the reputation and development of Indian Cinema.
I would certainly place Renoir in the top 3 directors, he was always interested in variety and experimenting.
That’s assuming that Renoir needs him, Rich Uncle Skelton.
There is of course a problem with canonical works. Not everyone can connect with them — and if they do rarely for the same reasons. Frankly “Rules of the Game” is far from my favorite Renoir. I much prefer "Le Crime de M. Lange, " “La Bete Humaine,” “French CanCan,” “The Golden Coach” and “Le Testament du Dr. Cordelier.”
But that’s just making an off-the-cuff checklist. What makes Renoir a great filmmaker requires the sort of attention a sit like this can’t provide.
Try to find a copy of Raymond Durgnat’s “Jean Renoir” for an in-depth discussion of his career and its importance.
a day in the country ,despite its truncated form ,might be his best film
^^
I think Renoir would welcome anyone.
I love Renoir but some of his films can fall flat. Elena and Her Men, for example, is both too stuffy and too whimsical for its own good.
I understand where you’re coming from, but I haven’t felt that way about a director for some time (I think the last one was Tinto Brass shudder). I’ve been watching some Renoir lately and have been loving him.
Maybe both. I have some of the same feelings about Rules. I suggest you watch Boudu and just enjoy.
I actually am going to check out A Day in the Country, I just forgot to add it up there. One thing I noticed between my two viewings of The Rules of the Game is that the first time I watched it, I hadn’t had much experience with the world of human relationships so prominent in the film, but by my second viewing I had been through some major changes in my life, and so I found the romantic entanglements the characters were getting themselves into to be quite humorous.
I think part of the issue was what Kenji said about how Renoir doesn’t proclaim his greatness in a Wellesian manner. When I first watched The Rules of the Game, I had gotten my introduction to world cinema through Fellini, Bergman, Kurosawa, etc… directors who for the most part like to make intense pictures where the greatness sort of oozes off screen. Perhaps that’s why I had a better second viewing, I was able to appreciate the subtlety more as well.
I think the order I want to watch some of his films in reflects some of my experiences so far:
La Chienne
The Theater Trilogy
Toni
A Day in the Country
The Crime of Monsieur Lange
Budou Saved from Drowning
Oh for me Renoir knocks Fellini (easily), Bergman and even Kurosawa for six. His vitality, fluidity and sense of
freedom, lack of pomposity, taken in the 1930s with political bite.
I second David’s recommendation of Ray Durgnat’s book on Renoir.
I hope you like La Chienne more than i do, for me his most disappointing film!
I could watch Rules of the Game over and over, it always has something new to offer. And a Day in the Country is my favourite film of under an hour, a featurette, its sense of transient pleasures, the passing of time, loss and what might have been, are ever so poignant.
I loved “Rules…” and really liked “Grand…” but was so-so on ""Can Can" and then stumbled so badly on “the River” that I stopped watching Renoir – put him on hold for another date. There is a style of acting and blocking of actors that is hard for me to take (Ford “Searchers” is another example, a film I later grew to appreciate)
Renoir’s Daddy however, never fails to make me want to quit my job and go on a two month lazy ass vacation.
I’ve only seen Rules of the Game and Grand Illusion. I’ve watched Rules of the Game twice and my comments would be near-identical to yours. I love the way he manages multiple threads simultaneously and handles all the chaos on screen. I also like the irony of the ‘Moral/cultural superiority’ of the rich. But the characters themselves leave me kind of numb.
Grand Illusion I enjoy quite a bit, but there are parts of it I take issue with. For instance, the character played by the same actor who played the poacher in Rules I found really annoying. I felt he went against the general tone of the film and was only there for flair. I really like the sense that every small victory is immediately canceled out and makes no difference in the grand scheme of things except for the human cost. The film makes a really well-fleshed out anti-war statement. But all the settings and all the action seemed a little too antiseptic for a war film.
Renoir’s one of the filmmakers I most need to go deeper into the filmography of.
.
Renoir will find you when he needs you.
i.e. it’s that maturity thingy….
^Yeah, the more you play the game the more you’ll enjoy the Rules.
!!
I think Mike that the more you understand the ‘rules of the game’ the more you enjoy playing….
:)
I can’t help but LOVE Rules of the Game! In fact, Renoir’s character is my favorite. And Grande Illusion is beautifully done.
I’ve seen The River, Rules of the Game, and Grand Illusion by Renoir. River was so/so…The last two I thought were spectacular. Can anyone suggest where to go next with Renoir? (More accessable preferably)
Boudou Saved from Drowning is a whole lot of fun. Along with Grand Illusion, it’s the film I would recommend to anyone wanting to start working through his filmography.
The first time I saw The Rules of the Game, I enjoyed it, but ended up shrugging it off. The second time was something of a spiritual experience. I don’t know what happened the first time, but I suggest you keep trying, he’s one of the very best.
“There were things about it I liked, but I was restless while watching it and it failed to hold my interest”
What DOES hold your interest?
“Rules f the Game” though canonical is far from my favorite Renoir. I prefer Le crime de M. Lange, La Bete Humaine, Boudu Saved from Drowning, and Le Testament du Dr. Cordelier.
Your overrated!
When I first saw The Rules of the Game, it was almost ten years ago at the Museum of the Moving Image with my fellow film school friend and his wife. I had been wanting to see if for years but didn’t want to experience it on bad video (Criterion’s edition hadn’t come out yet). I was well aware of the ‘greatness’ of this film, but my film school friend was not aware of its reputation, having only heard of it, and his wife hadn’t heard of it at all. As we left the theater we started to talk about it. My friend and I had similar reactions. We appreciated it, but it didn’t “hit” us. His wife, however, was absolutely affected by it, in a big way. She couldn’t get over it. She went on and on and was getting annoyed that we hadn’t shared the same experience with her. I was getting annoyed because i WANTED to share that experience with her.
Here’s the thing…she’s French.
I think, with a film like this, you can’t fool yourself into thinking you are getting everything from simply reading the translation of what these extremely complex and varied (and French!) characters are saying.
I now own the dvd, have seen it a few more times, have started to love this film, But just because it is considered one of the greatest films of all time, I am not going to pretend that it reaches me like other films do. Sometimes, when that happens, it’s the fault of the film, sometimes it’s a language or cultural thing. I think in this case, it is the latter.
“Rules” is just one of those slow-burn films. Maybe the ultimate. Everyone’s experience is similar: not quite being blown away at first, but slowly being enchanted upon multiple viewings. I’m not quite at the enchanted stage yet. Maybe I need a few more screenings. Possibly even a proper big screen film print.
Zachary George Najarian-Najafi
To date I’ve seen four Renoir films; The Rules of the Game, Grand Illusion, La Bete Humaine, and The River. I plan on watching La Chienne, The Crime of Monsieur Lange, possibly Toni, Budou Saved from Drowning, and his Theater Trilogy.
The Rules of the Game I have seen twice. The first time I watched it was during the summer I began to really explore foreign cinema and it left me empty. There were things about it I liked, but I was restless while watching it and it failed to hold my interest. I didn’t understand what made it the runner-up to Citizen Kane in terms of canonical greatness. The second time I watched it, I was very much into the film, the characters, the dialogue, the feeling, it was quite an enjoyable experience. But I still failed to grasp what was so “great” about it. It feels like a really good screwball comedy with a helping of drama, but it fails to truly affect me on an emotional level.
Grand Illusion on the other hand is as close to perfection as a film can get. The script, the acting, the cinematography, it’s all so amazing. The characters as so well drawn, the blending of human comedy, drama, war, it all strikes me on such an emotional level. It’s one of the few truly PERFECT films I’ve seen, and one I’d take to a desert island.
La Bete Humaine is another story, I found it to be tedious, the narrative just didn’t grab me, and the film jumped around way too much, failing to stay foucsed for very long. The murder sequence at the end is amazing, but I saw it coming a mile away. What bothers me is that we’re not given much insight onto Lantier’s character, only snippets. But the big problem is that the film lacks atmosphere, it’s all sort of just… there, and it’s not very impressive.
The River is a film I admire for its visuals, and perhaps if it wasn’t for the visuals I wouldn’t have rated it so highly, but the story isn’t anything amazing, however I feel Renoir somehow transcends what is an average story into something a little more. Take away the visuals and the film would have been uninteresting.
The problem I have with Renoir is that while I like most of the films I’ve seen by him, I don’t understand why he’s considered one of the Top 10, or even Top 20 greatest filmmakers of all time, so I use overrated in that sense. He just seems wildly uneven in terms of quality from what I’ve seen. So is Renoir overrated, or is there something in his work that I’m missing, or is it just me failing to connect with this artist?