The 10 Best Jean Renoir Films - Page 2 of 3

The Lower Depths“The Lower Depths” (1936)
Truth be told, Renoir’s version of Maxim Gorky‘s “The Lower Depths” squeezed in only by a hair onto this list. But even if Akira Kurosawa‘s version from a few decades later would prove superior (an opinion that Renoir himself held), there are a couple of important reasons why it’s essential viewing for any Renoir fan. It was the first time Renoir worked with Jean Gabin, who would go on to make three more films with Renoir and solidify one of cinema’s greatest actor-director collaborations. It provided a role for one of the most memorable supporting performances in any Renoir film, that of the Baron, played by the irrepressibly magnetic Louis Jouvet. It’s also significant in the way Renoir adapted the play —just like how he tweaked Fauchois via his personalized version of ‘Boudu,’ he refashions Gorky and expands the limits of the setting to show more of the world surrounding the flophouse at its centre. Gabin’s iconic portrayal of the thief Pepel, who dreams of escaping the flophouse and taking his lady love (Junie Astor) with him, is countered by Jouvet’s gambling Baron who goes from riches to rags and finds that the flophouse suits his proclivities just fine. “The Lower Depths” is also one of the greatest examples of how much attention Renoir devoted to marginal characters, so that viewer gets to relive the film’s vitality through the doomed actor or the blonde Nastia (Jany Holt). And even though Renoir infamously hated Astor’s wooden performance (seriously, she’s like a plank next to Gabin), the same film gives us iconic scenes like the one with Gabin, Jouvet and a snail on the riverbank. Scenes like this, not found in the original source but imaginatively concocted by Renoir’s spontaneous genius, make this version of “The Lower Depths” indelible.

A Day in the COuntry“A Day In The Country” (1936)
Bad weather thwarted the completion of Renoir’s following film “A Day In The Country,” and in doing so stopped short what could’ve been his magnum opus. Luckily, no one dared to encroach on Renoir’s vision, and the film was released as is about a decade later. This featurette is a testament to what Renoir can do in 40 minutes, capturing a bucolic world full of affections with such immense warmth that transcends the screen and dives straight into your heart. Only a handful of directors have ever had this capacity, and even then they’d usually need at least a full hour and a half running time. Adapted from a short story written by Guy de Maupassant (who was friends with Pierre-Augustine Renoir, btw), “A Day in the Country” follows a group of Parisians as they spend a Sunday afternoon in the country. Daughter Henriette (Sylvia Bataille, who for my money delivers the greatest female performance in any Renoir film) and mother (Jane Marken) are consequently wooed and amused by two country boys. And in one fateful moment, encapsulated by a hauntingly piercing closeup, Henriette’s life is changed forever. The film is resplendent with bucolic imagery, with its glorious shots of the sky and surrounding nature that Henriette is so moved by, and a final tracking shot that ominously glides on the surface of a river disturbed by raindrops representing the passing of time and symbolizing the end of Henriette’s innocence. “A Day in the Country” is the most impressionistic of Renoir’s work: it’s a visual poem pitting the idyllic world of the country against the banalities of urban society, and while short, it’s in many ways the longest breath of fresh air in Renoir’s filmography.

LA GRAND ILLUSION“La Grande Illusion” (1937)
Now comes one of Renoir’s most readily recognized and fondly remembered films —a masterpiece with the kind of magnitude and far-reaching vibrancy that brought his first taste of international fame. Adored by Orson Welleswho picked it as his desert-island movie, and the first foreign film to be nominated for a Best Picture Oscar, “The Grand Illusion” is one of the greatest POW films ever and probably the greatest film about international and interclass brotherhood. Renoir reunites with his biggest star player Gabin and conducts themes so close to his heart and anti-war persuasion that the legacy of the film is hardly surprising. French Aviators Marechal (Gabin) and Boeldieu (a fabulously posh Pierre Fresnay) go from one prison camp to another, mixing with fellow inmates, plotting escapes and running into aristocratic German captain von Rauffenstein (a fantastically rigid Erich Von Stroheim). The way Renoir films these interactions —be it a discussion about the preference of restaurants between prison inmates, or the honor behind upholding one’s nobility between two aristocratic generals— is where magic dwells in “The Grand Illusion.” And whenever one of the three actors mentioned is featured, the film’s legacy is reinforced that much more. Its three-part structure has been endlessly analyzed by film scholars, its overarching theme of compassion amid the senselessness of war has influenced countless anti-war films to come, and its graceful rhythm (such as the dramatic tonal shift when Gabin interrupts the vaudeville show) remains unmatched. You’d think a film with so much testosterone would strong-arm any female performance, but “L’Atalante“’s Dita Parlo makes a late appearance, and in a few short scenes wrings out whatever is left of your heart.

La Bete Humaine“La Bête Humaine” (1938)
Anxious to continue their successful collaboration after ‘Illusion,’ Jean Gabin brought the idea of adapting Emile Zola‘s celebrated novel “La Bête Humaine” to Renoir. It’s a unique Renoir picture because it’s his darkest (“Toni” is a close second), featuring a macabre storyline involving murder, the unhappy marriage between Severine (Simone Simon) and Roubaud (Fernand Ledoux), and an unlikely anti-hero in train engineer Jacque Lantier (Gabin), a man plagued by violent outbursts due to a corrupted bloodline. With the exhilarated rush evoked in the opening moments that follow a speeding train arriving at a station, “La Bête Humaine” simultaneously bridges the stark poetic realism permeating the pre-WWII cinematic milieu with the incoming wave of film noir pictures in the ’40s and ’50s. This film sees Renoir working with an atmosphere of unaccustomed and irregular intensity, all gloom and pessimism amplified even further by Curt Couran‘s austere cinematography and the omnipresent locomotive fumes that never seem to entirely dissipate (the train is often a sinister presence, an unstoppable machine cutting through the frame and invading the otherwise peaceful serenity). Despite its subject matter and the impending dark cloud that will cover much of Europe looming closer, Renoir still manages to sprinkle the picture with his signature pathos, through characters like Pecqueux (Julien Carette) who takes life as it comes, or the dance towards the end which no other director would spend as much time on. Nevertheless, the three tragic characters at the centre of “La Bête Humaine” are doomed from the start, and all three actors (especially Gabin, delivering perhaps his career-best performance) do an impeccable job of evoking their innermost fears and demons, thus helping Renoir carve yet another unforgettable celluloid gem.