Jean Renoir
Encyclopedia
Jean Renoir was a French film director
, screenwriter, actor, producer and author. As a film director and actor, he made more than forty films from the silent era
to the end of the 1960s. As an author, he wrote the definitive biography of his father, the painter, Pierre-Auguste Renoir
, Renoir, My Father (1962).
district of Paris, France. He was the second son of Aline Charigot and the French painter Pierre-Auguste Renoir. He was also the brother of Pierre Renoir
, a noted French stage and film actor; the uncle of Claude Renoir
, a cinematographer
; and the father of , late professor emeritus of comparative literature
at the University of California at Berkeley
.
As a child, Renoir moved with his family to the south of France. He and the rest of the Renoir family were the subjects of many of his father's paintings. His father's financial success ensured that the young Renoir was educated at fashionable boarding school
s, which, as he later wrote, he continually ran away from.
At the outbreak of World War I Renoir was serving in the French cavalry. Later, after receiving a bullet in his leg, he served as a reconnaissance pilot. His leg injury left him with a permanent limp, but allowed him to discover the cinema, where he used to recuperate with his leg elevated while watching the films of Charlie Chaplin
and others. After the war, Renoir followed his father's suggestion and tried his hand at making ceramic
s, but he soon set that aside to make films, inspired, in particular, by Erich von Stroheim
's work.
In 1924, Renoir directed the first of his nine silent films, most of which starred his first wife, who was also his father's last model, Catherine Hessling
. At this stage his films did not produce a return, and Renoir gradually sold paintings inherited from his father to finance them.
s, On purge bébé
(Baby's Laxative) and La Chienne
(The Bitch). The following year he made Boudu Saved From Drowning
(Boudu sauvé des eaux), a farcical sendup of the pretensions of a middle-class bookseller and his family, who meet with comic, and ultimately disastrous, results when they attempt to reform a vagrant played by Michel Simon
.
By the middle of the decade Renoir was associated with the Popular Front
, and several of his films, such as The Crime of Monsieur Lange
(Le Crime de Monsieur Lange, 1935), Life Belongs to Us
(1936) and La Marseillaise
(1938), reflect the movement's politics.
In 1937 he made one of his most well-known films, Grand Illusion
(La Grande Illusion), starring Erich von Stroheim
and Jean Gabin
. A film on the theme of brotherhood about a series of escape attempts by French POWs during World War I
, it was enormously successful but was also banned in Germany, and later in Italy after having won the "Best Artistic Ensemble" award at the Venice Film Festival
. It was the first foreign language film to receive a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Picture
. This was followed by another cinematic success: The Human Beast
(La Bête Humaine) (1938), a film noir
tragedy
based on the novel by Émile Zola
and starring Simone Simon
and Jean Gabin
.
In 1939, now able to co-finance his own films, Renoir made The Rules of the Game
(La Règle du Jeu), a satire
on contemporary French society with an ensemble cast. Renoir himself played the character Octave, a sort of master of ceremonies in the film. The film was met with derision by Parisian audiences upon its premiere and was extensively reedited, but without success. It was his greatest commercial failure. A few weeks after the outbreak of World War II, the film was banned. The ban was lifted briefly in 1940, but after the fall of France it was banned again. Subsequently the original negative of the film was destroyed in an Allied bombing raid. It was not until the 1950s that French film enthusiasts Jean Gaborit and Jacques Durand, with Renoir's cooperation, were able to reconstruct a near-complete print of the film. Today The Rules of the Game appears frequently near the top of critics' polls of the best films ever made.
. This he abandoned to return to France in August 1939, to make himself available for military service. At the age of 45, he became a lieutenant in the French Army Film Service, and was sent back to Italy, to teach film at the Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia
in Rome, and resume work on Tosca
. The French government hoped this cultural exchange would help maintain friendly relations with Italy, which had not yet entered the war. As war approached, however, he returned to France and then, after Germany invaded France in May 1940, he fled to the United States with Dido.
In Hollywood, Renoir had difficulty finding projects that suited him. In 1943, he co-produced and directed an anti-Nazi film set in France, This Land Is Mine, starring Maureen O'Hara
and Charles Laughton
. Two years later, he made The Southerner
, a film about Texas
sharecroppers
that is often regarded as his best work in America and one for which he was nominated for an Academy Award for Directing
.
In 1945 he made Diary of a Chambermaid
, an adaptation of the Octave Mirbeau
novel, Le Journal d'une femme de chambre, starring Paulette Goddard
and Burgess Meredith
. The Woman on the Beach
(1947) starring Joan Bennett
and Robert Ryan
was heavily reshot and reedited after it fared poorly among preview audiences in California. Both films were poorly received and were the last films Renoir made in America. At this time, Renoir became a naturalized citizen of the United States.
, his first color film. Based on the novel of the same name by Rumer Godden
, the film is both a meditation on human beings' relationship with nature and a coming of age
story of three young girls in colonial India
. The film won the International Prize at the Venice Film Festival
in 1951.
After returning to work in Europe, Renoir made a trilogy of Technicolor
musical comedies on the subjects of theater, politics and commerce: Le Carrosse d'or
(The Golden Coach) (1953) with Anna Magnani
, French Cancan
with Jean Gabin
and María Félix
(1955) and Eléna et les hommes (Elena and Her Men) with Ingrid Bergman
and Jean Marais
(1956). During the same period, Renoir produced in Paris the Clifford Odets
play, The Big Knife
, and wrote and produced in Paris for Leslie Caron
his own play, Orvet.
Renoir's next films were made in 1959 using techniques Renoir adapted from live television at the time. Le Déjeuner sur l'herbe (Picnic on the Grass), starring Paul Meurisse and Catherine Rouvel
, was filmed on the grounds of Pierre-Auguste Renoir's home in Cagnes-sur-Mer
, and Le Testament du docteur Cordelier (The Testament of Doctor Cordelier), starring Jean-Louis Barrault
, was made in the streets of Paris and its suburbs.
In 1962 Renoir made what was to be his penultimate film, Le Caporal épinglé (The Elusive Corporal) with Jean-Pierre Cassel
and Claude Brasseur
. Set among French POWs during their internment in labor camps by the Nazis during World War II, the film explores the twin human needs for freedom, on the one hand, and emotional and economic security, on the other.
In 1962, Renoir published a loving memoir of his father, Renoir, My Father, in which he described the profound influence his father had on him and his work. As funds for his film projects were becoming harder to obtain, Renoir continued to write screenplays and then wrote a novel, The Notebooks of Captain Georges, published in 1966. Captain Georges is the nostalgic account of a wealthy young man's sentimental education and love for a peasant
girl, a theme also explored earlier in his films Diary of a Chambermaid
and Picnic on the Grass
.
(The Little Theatre of Jean Renoir). The film is a series of four short films made in a variety of styles and is, in many ways, one of his most challenging, avant-garde and unconventional works.
Thereafter, unable to find financing for his films and in declining health, Renoir spent the last years of his life receiving friends at his home in Beverly Hills and writing novels and his memoirs.
In 1973 Renoir was preparing a production of his stage play Carola
with Leslie Caron
and Mel Ferrer
when he fell ill and was unable to direct. The producer Norman Lloyd
, a friend and actor in The Southerner, took over the direction of the play, which was broadcast in the series program Hollywood Television Theater on WNET, Channel 13, New York on February 3, 1973.
In his memoirs My Life and My Films (1974) Renoir wrote of the influence exercised upon him by his cousin, Gabrielle Renard
, the woman seen in the portrait by his father above. Shortly before his birth, she came to live with the Renoir family, and helped raise the young boy. She introduced him to the Guignol
puppet shows in the Montmartre
of his childhood: "She taught me to see the face behind the mask and the fraud behind the flourishes", he wrote. "She taught me to detest the cliché." He concluded his memoirs with the words he had often spoken as a child, "Wait for me, Gabrielle."
In 1975 he received a lifetime Academy Award
for his contribution to the motion picture industry and that same year a retrospective of his work was shown at the National Film Theatre
in London. Also in 1975, the government of France elevated him to the rank of commander in the Légion d'honneur
.
Jean Renoir died in Beverly Hills, California
on February 12, 1979. His body was returned to France and buried beside his family in the cemetery at Essoyes
, Aube
, France.
wrote an article for the Los Angeles Times
, "Jean Renoir: The Greatest of all Directors".
Jean Renoir has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame
at 6212 Hollywood Blvd. Several of his ceramics were collected by Albert Barnes
and can be found on display beneath his father's paintings at the Barnes Foundation in Merion, Pennsylvania
.
Film director
A film director is a person who directs the actors and film crew in filmmaking. They control a film's artistic and dramatic nathan roach, while guiding the technical crew and actors.-Responsibilities:...
, screenwriter, actor, producer and author. As a film director and actor, he made more than forty films from the silent era
Silent film
A silent film is a film with no synchronized recorded sound, especially with no spoken dialogue. In silent films for entertainment the dialogue is transmitted through muted gestures, pantomime and title cards...
to the end of the 1960s. As an author, he wrote the definitive biography of his father, the painter, Pierre-Auguste Renoir
Pierre-Auguste Renoir
Pierre-Auguste Renoir was a French artist who was a leading painter in the development of the Impressionist style. As a celebrator of beauty, and especially feminine sensuality, it has been said that "Renoir is the final representative of a tradition which runs directly from Rubens to...
, Renoir, My Father (1962).
Early life and career
Renoir was born in the MontmartreMontmartre
Montmartre is a hill which is 130 metres high, giving its name to the surrounding district, in the north of Paris in the 18th arrondissement, a part of the Right Bank. Montmartre is primarily known for the white-domed Basilica of the Sacré Cœur on its summit and as a nightclub district...
district of Paris, France. He was the second son of Aline Charigot and the French painter Pierre-Auguste Renoir. He was also the brother of Pierre Renoir
Pierre Renoir
Pierre Renoir was a French stage and film actor and served briefly as the director of the Théâtre de l'Athénée in Paris, taking over after the death of Louis Jouvet in 1951....
, a noted French stage and film actor; the uncle of Claude Renoir
Claude Renoir
Claude Renoir was a French cinematographer. He was the son of actor Pierre Renoir and nephew of director Jean Renoir. He was also the grandson of painter Pierre-Auguste Renoir. He is the father of actress Sophie Renoir....
, a cinematographer
Cinematography
Cinematography is the making of lighting and camera choices when recording photographic images for cinema. It is closely related to the art of still photography...
; and the father of , late professor emeritus of comparative literature
Comparative literature
Comparative literature is an academic field dealing with the literature of two or more different linguistic, cultural or national groups...
at the University of California at Berkeley
University of California, Berkeley
The University of California, Berkeley , is a teaching and research university established in 1868 and located in Berkeley, California, USA...
.
As a child, Renoir moved with his family to the south of France. He and the rest of the Renoir family were the subjects of many of his father's paintings. His father's financial success ensured that the young Renoir was educated at fashionable boarding school
Boarding school
A boarding school is a school where some or all pupils study and live during the school year with their fellow students and possibly teachers and/or administrators. The word 'boarding' is used in the sense of "bed and board," i.e., lodging and meals...
s, which, as he later wrote, he continually ran away from.
At the outbreak of World War I Renoir was serving in the French cavalry. Later, after receiving a bullet in his leg, he served as a reconnaissance pilot. His leg injury left him with a permanent limp, but allowed him to discover the cinema, where he used to recuperate with his leg elevated while watching the films of Charlie Chaplin
Charlie Chaplin
Sir Charles Spencer "Charlie" Chaplin, KBE was an English comic actor, film director and composer best known for his work during the silent film era. He became the most famous film star in the world before the end of World War I...
and others. After the war, Renoir followed his father's suggestion and tried his hand at making ceramic
Ceramic
A ceramic is an inorganic, nonmetallic solid prepared by the action of heat and subsequent cooling. Ceramic materials may have a crystalline or partly crystalline structure, or may be amorphous...
s, but he soon set that aside to make films, inspired, in particular, by Erich von Stroheim
Erich von Stroheim
Erich von Stroheim was an Austrian-born film star of the silent era, subsequently noted as an auteur for his directorial work.-Background:...
's work.
In 1924, Renoir directed the first of his nine silent films, most of which starred his first wife, who was also his father's last model, Catherine Hessling
Catherine Hessling
Catherine Hessling was a French actress and the first wife of film director Jean Renoir...
. At this stage his films did not produce a return, and Renoir gradually sold paintings inherited from his father to finance them.
International success in the 1930s
During the 1930s Renoir enjoyed great success as a filmmaker. In 1931 he directed his first sound filmSound film
A sound film is a motion picture with synchronized sound, or sound technologically coupled to image, as opposed to a silent film. The first known public exhibition of projected sound films took place in Paris in 1900, but decades would pass before sound motion pictures were made commercially...
s, On purge bébé
On purge bébé
On purge bébé is Jean Renoir's first sound film. It is a 1931 comedy about a supposedly unbreakable chamberpot and a constipated baby. It is noted for mocking the French bourgeoisie....
(Baby's Laxative) and La Chienne
La Chienne
La Chienne is a French film by director Jean Renoir. It is the second sound film by the director and the twelfth of his career.The literal English translation of the film's title is "The Bitch", although the movie was never released under this title...
(The Bitch). The following year he made Boudu Saved From Drowning
Boudu Saved from Drowning
Boudu Saved from Drowning is a 1932 French film directed by Jean Renoir. Renoir wrote the film's screenplay, from the play by René Fauchois...
(Boudu sauvé des eaux), a farcical sendup of the pretensions of a middle-class bookseller and his family, who meet with comic, and ultimately disastrous, results when they attempt to reform a vagrant played by Michel Simon
Michel Simon
Michel Simon , was a Swiss actor. The actor François Simon is his son.-Early years:...
.
By the middle of the decade Renoir was associated with the Popular Front
Popular Front (France)
The Popular Front was an alliance of left-wing movements, including the French Communist Party , the French Section of the Workers' International and the Radical and Socialist Party, during the interwar period...
, and several of his films, such as The Crime of Monsieur Lange
The Crime of Monsieur Lange
The Crime of Monsieur Lange is a 1936 film directed by Jean Renoir about a publishing cooperative...
(Le Crime de Monsieur Lange, 1935), Life Belongs to Us
Life Belongs to Us
Life Belongs to Us is a documentary propaganda film paid for by the Communist Party of France. Parts of the film was taken from newsreels mixed with new sketches about working population, the peasants and intellectuals....
(1936) and La Marseillaise
La Marseillaise (film)
La Marseillaise is a film about the early part of the French Revolution. The film was directed by Jean Renoir. La Marseillaise is shown from the eyes of the citizens of Marseille, counts in German exile and, of course the king Louis XVI each showing their own small problems.-Cast:* Pierre Renoir ...
(1938), reflect the movement's politics.
In 1937 he made one of his most well-known films, Grand Illusion
Grand Illusion (film)
Grand Illusion is a 1937 French war film directed by Jean Renoir, who co-wrote the screenplay with Charles Spaak. The story concerns class relationships among a small group of French officers who are prisoners of war during World War I and are plotting an escape.The title of the film comes from a...
(La Grande Illusion), starring Erich von Stroheim
Erich von Stroheim
Erich von Stroheim was an Austrian-born film star of the silent era, subsequently noted as an auteur for his directorial work.-Background:...
and Jean Gabin
Jean Gabin
-Biography:Born Jean-Alexis Moncorgé in Paris, he grew up in the village of Mériel in the Seine-et-Oise département, about 22 mi north of Paris. The son of cabaret entertainers, he attended the Lycée Janson de Sailly...
. A film on the theme of brotherhood about a series of escape attempts by French POWs during World War I
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
, it was enormously successful but was also banned in Germany, and later in Italy after having won the "Best Artistic Ensemble" award at the Venice Film Festival
Venice Film Festival
The Venice International Film Festival is the oldest international film festival in the world. Founded by Count Giuseppe Volpi in 1932 as the "Esposizione Internazionale d'Arte Cinematografica", the festival has since taken place every year in late August or early September on the island of the...
. It was the first foreign language film to receive a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Picture
Academy Award for Best Picture
The Academy Award for Best Picture is one of the Academy Awards of Merit presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to artists working in the motion picture industry. The Best Picture category is the only category in which every member of the Academy is eligible not only...
. This was followed by another cinematic success: The Human Beast
La Bête Humaine (film)
La Bête Humaine is a film directed by Jean Renoir, with cinematography by Curt Courant...
(La Bête Humaine) (1938), a film noir
Film noir
Film noir is a cinematic term used primarily to describe stylish Hollywood crime dramas, particularly those that emphasize cynical attitudes and sexual motivations. Hollywood's classic film noir period is generally regarded as extending from the early 1940s to the late 1950s...
tragedy
Tragedy
Tragedy is a form of art based on human suffering that offers its audience pleasure. While most cultures have developed forms that provoke this paradoxical response, tragedy refers to a specific tradition of drama that has played a unique and important role historically in the self-definition of...
based on the novel by Émile Zola
Émile Zola
Émile François Zola was a French writer, the most important exemplar of the literary school of naturalism and an important contributor to the development of theatrical naturalism...
and starring Simone Simon
Simone Simon
Simone Thérèse Fernande Simon was a French film actress who began her film career in 1931.-Early life:Born in Béthune, Pas-de-Calais France, she was the daughter of Henri Louis Firmin Champmoynat, a French engineer, airplane pilot in World War II, who died in a concentration camp, and Erma Maria...
and Jean Gabin
Jean Gabin
-Biography:Born Jean-Alexis Moncorgé in Paris, he grew up in the village of Mériel in the Seine-et-Oise département, about 22 mi north of Paris. The son of cabaret entertainers, he attended the Lycée Janson de Sailly...
.
In 1939, now able to co-finance his own films, Renoir made The Rules of the Game
The Rules of the Game
The Rules of the Game is a 1939 French film directed by Jean Renoir about upper-class French society just before the start of World War II...
(La Règle du Jeu), a satire
Satire
Satire is primarily a literary genre or form, although in practice it can also be found in the graphic and performing arts. In satire, vices, follies, abuses, and shortcomings are held up to ridicule, ideally with the intent of shaming individuals, and society itself, into improvement...
on contemporary French society with an ensemble cast. Renoir himself played the character Octave, a sort of master of ceremonies in the film. The film was met with derision by Parisian audiences upon its premiere and was extensively reedited, but without success. It was his greatest commercial failure. A few weeks after the outbreak of World War II, the film was banned. The ban was lifted briefly in 1940, but after the fall of France it was banned again. Subsequently the original negative of the film was destroyed in an Allied bombing raid. It was not until the 1950s that French film enthusiasts Jean Gaborit and Jacques Durand, with Renoir's cooperation, were able to reconstruct a near-complete print of the film. Today The Rules of the Game appears frequently near the top of critics' polls of the best films ever made.
Hollywood years
A week after the disastrous premiere of The Rules of the Game, in July 1939, Renoir went to Rome with Karl Koch and Dido Freire, subsequently his second wife, to work on the script for a film version of ToscaTosca
Tosca is an opera in three acts by Giacomo Puccini to an Italian libretto by Luigi Illica and Giuseppe Giacosa. It premiered at the Teatro Costanzi in Rome on 14 January 1900...
. This he abandoned to return to France in August 1939, to make himself available for military service. At the age of 45, he became a lieutenant in the French Army Film Service, and was sent back to Italy, to teach film at the Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia
Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia
The Centro sperimentale di cinematografia was established in 1935 in Italy and aims to promote the art and technique of cinematography and film....
in Rome, and resume work on Tosca
Tosca
Tosca is an opera in three acts by Giacomo Puccini to an Italian libretto by Luigi Illica and Giuseppe Giacosa. It premiered at the Teatro Costanzi in Rome on 14 January 1900...
. The French government hoped this cultural exchange would help maintain friendly relations with Italy, which had not yet entered the war. As war approached, however, he returned to France and then, after Germany invaded France in May 1940, he fled to the United States with Dido.
In Hollywood, Renoir had difficulty finding projects that suited him. In 1943, he co-produced and directed an anti-Nazi film set in France, This Land Is Mine, starring Maureen O'Hara
Maureen O'Hara
Maureen O'Hara is an Irish film actress and singer. The famously red-headed O'Hara has been noted for playing fiercely passionate heroines with a highly sensible attitude. She often worked with director John Ford and longtime friend John Wayne...
and Charles Laughton
Charles Laughton
Charles Laughton was an English-American stage and film actor, screenwriter, producer and director.-Early life and career:...
. Two years later, he made The Southerner
The Southerner (1945 film)
The Southerner is a 1945 American film directed by Jean Renoir, based on the novel Hold Autumn in Your Hand by George Sessions Perry. The film received Oscar nominations for Best Director, Original Music Score and Sound. Renoir was named Best Director by the National Board of Review, which also...
, a film about Texas
Texas
Texas is the second largest U.S. state by both area and population, and the largest state by area in the contiguous United States.The name, based on the Caddo word "Tejas" meaning "friends" or "allies", was applied by the Spanish to the Caddo themselves and to the region of their settlement in...
sharecroppers
Sharecropping
Sharecropping is a system of agriculture in which a landowner allows a tenant to use the land in return for a share of the crop produced on the land . This should not be confused with a crop fixed rent contract, in which a landowner allows a tenant to use the land in return for a fixed amount of...
that is often regarded as his best work in America and one for which he was nominated for an Academy Award for Directing
Academy Award for Directing
The Academy Award for Achievement in Directing , usually known as the Best Director Oscar, is one of the Awards of Merit presented by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to directors working in the motion picture industry...
.
In 1945 he made Diary of a Chambermaid
The Diary of a Chambermaid (1946 film)
The Diary of a Chambermaid is a drama film about a newly-hired servant who severely disrupts a wealthy family. The film was based on the novel of the same name by Octave Mirbeau and the play Le journal d'une femme de Chambre by André Heuse, André de Lorde, and Thielly Nores, was directed by Jean...
, an adaptation of the Octave Mirbeau
Octave Mirbeau
Octave Mirbeau was a French journalist, art critic, travel writer, pamphleteer, novelist, and playwright, who achieved celebrity in Europe and great success among the public, while still appealing to the literary and artistic avant-garde...
novel, Le Journal d'une femme de chambre, starring Paulette Goddard
Paulette Goddard
Paulette Goddard was an American film and theatre actress. A former child fashion model and in several Broadway productions as Ziegfeld Girl, she was a major star of the Paramount Studio in the 1940s. She was married to several notable men, including Charlie Chaplin, Burgess Meredith, and Erich...
and Burgess Meredith
Burgess Meredith
Oliver Burgess Meredith , known professionally as Burgess Meredith, was an American actor in theatre, film, and television, who also worked as a director...
. The Woman on the Beach
The Woman on the Beach
The Woman on the Beach is a film noir directed by Jean Renoir, released by RKO Radio Pictures, and starring Robert Ryan, Joan Bennett, and Charles Bickford.-Overview:...
(1947) starring Joan Bennett
Joan Bennett
Joan Geraldine Bennett was an American stage, film and television actress. Besides acting on the stage, Bennett appeared in more than 70 motion pictures from the era of silent movies well into the sound era...
and Robert Ryan
Robert Ryan
Robert Bushnell Ryan was an American actor who often played hardened cops and ruthless villains.-Early life and career:...
was heavily reshot and reedited after it fared poorly among preview audiences in California. Both films were poorly received and were the last films Renoir made in America. At this time, Renoir became a naturalized citizen of the United States.
A transatlantic life
In 1949 Renoir traveled to India and made The RiverThe River (1951 film)
The River is a 1951 film directed by Jean Renoir. It was filmed in India and was seminal to the launching of the careers of Satyajit Ray , who assisted on the film, and Subrata Mitra, Ray's cinematographer whom he met during the filming of The River.A fairly faithful dramatization of an earlier...
, his first color film. Based on the novel of the same name by Rumer Godden
Rumer Godden
Margaret Rumer Godden OBE was an English author of over 60 fiction and nonfiction books written under the name of Rumer Godden. A few of her works were co-written by her sister, Jon Godden, who wrote several novels on her own...
, the film is both a meditation on human beings' relationship with nature and a coming of age
Coming of age
Coming of age is a young person's transition from childhood to adulthood. The age at which this transition takes place varies in society, as does the nature of the transition. It can be a simple legal convention or can be part of a ritual, as practiced by many societies...
story of three young girls in colonial India
Colonial India
Colonial India refers to areas of the Indian Subcontinent under the control of European colonial powers, through trade and conquest. The first European power to arrive in India was the army of Alexander the Great in 327–326 BC. The satraps he established in the north west of the subcontinent...
. The film won the International Prize at the Venice Film Festival
Venice Film Festival
The Venice International Film Festival is the oldest international film festival in the world. Founded by Count Giuseppe Volpi in 1932 as the "Esposizione Internazionale d'Arte Cinematografica", the festival has since taken place every year in late August or early September on the island of the...
in 1951.
After returning to work in Europe, Renoir made a trilogy of Technicolor
Technicolor
Technicolor is a color motion picture process invented in 1916 and improved over several decades.It was the second major process, after Britain's Kinemacolor, and the most widely used color process in Hollywood from 1922 to 1952...
musical comedies on the subjects of theater, politics and commerce: Le Carrosse d'or
The Golden Coach
The Golden Coach is a 1952 film directed by Jean Renoir that tells the story of a commedia dell'arte troupe in 18th century Peru. The screenplay was written by Renoir, Jack Kirkland, Renzo Avanzo and Giulio Macchi and is based on the play, Le Carrosse du Saint-Sacrement by Prosper Mérimée...
(The Golden Coach) (1953) with Anna Magnani
Anna Magnani
Anna Magnani was an Italian stage and film actress. She won the Academy Award for Best Actress, along with four other international awards, for her portrayal of a Sicilian widow in The Rose Tattoo....
, French Cancan
French Cancan
French Cancan is a 1954 French musical film written and directed by Jean Renoir and starring Jean Gabin and María Félix.-Plot:Set in 1890s Paris, Henri Danglard is the owner of a cafe, which features his mistress, Lola, as a belly dancer...
with Jean Gabin
Jean Gabin
-Biography:Born Jean-Alexis Moncorgé in Paris, he grew up in the village of Mériel in the Seine-et-Oise département, about 22 mi north of Paris. The son of cabaret entertainers, he attended the Lycée Janson de Sailly...
and María Félix
María Félix
María Félix was a Mexican film actress and one of the icons of the golden era of the Cinema of Mexico and also one of the myths of the Spanish language Cinema for her life style and personality...
(1955) and Eléna et les hommes (Elena and Her Men) with Ingrid Bergman
Ingrid Bergman
Ingrid Bergman was a Swedish actress who starred in a variety of European and American films. She won three Academy Awards, two Emmy Awards, and the Tony Award for Best Actress. She is ranked as the fourth greatest female star of American cinema of all time by the American Film Institute...
and Jean Marais
Jean Marais
-Biography:A native of Cherbourg, France, Marais starred in several movies directed by Jean Cocteau, for a time his lover, most famously Beauty and the Beast and Orphée ....
(1956). During the same period, Renoir produced in Paris the Clifford Odets
Clifford Odets
Clifford Odets was an American playwright, screenwriter, socialist, and social protester.-Early life:Odets was born in Philadelphia to Romanian- and Russian-Jewish immigrant parents, Louis Odets and Esther Geisinger, and raised in Philadelphia and the Bronx, New York. He dropped out of high...
play, The Big Knife
The Big Knife
The Big Knife is a film noir directed and produced by Robert Aldrich from a screenplay by James Poe based on the play by Clifford Odets. The film stars Jack Palance, Ida Lupino, Wendell Corey, Jean Hagen, Rod Steiger, Shelley Winters, Ilka Chase, and Everett Sloane.-Plot:Charlie Castle, a very...
, and wrote and produced in Paris for Leslie Caron
Leslie Caron
Leslie Claire Margaret Caron is a French film actress and dancer, who appeared in 45 films between 1951 and 2003. In 2006, her performance in Law and Order: Special Victims Unit won her an Emmy for guest actress in a drama series...
his own play, Orvet.
Renoir's next films were made in 1959 using techniques Renoir adapted from live television at the time. Le Déjeuner sur l'herbe (Picnic on the Grass), starring Paul Meurisse and Catherine Rouvel
Catherine Rouvel
Catherine Rouvel is an acclaimed French actress. Her career spans from 1959 in television to 2004....
, was filmed on the grounds of Pierre-Auguste Renoir's home in Cagnes-sur-Mer
Cagnes-sur-Mer
Cagnes-sur-Mer is a commune of the Alpes-Maritimes department in the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur region in southeastern France.-Geography:It is the largest suburb of the city of Nice and lies to the west-southwest of it, about from the center.-History:...
, and Le Testament du docteur Cordelier (The Testament of Doctor Cordelier), starring Jean-Louis Barrault
Jean-Louis Barrault
Jean-Louis Barrault was a French actor, director and mime artist, training that served him well when he portrayed the 19th-century mime Jean-Gaspard Deburau in Marcel Carné's 1945 film Les Enfants du Paradis .Jean-Louis Barrault studied with Charles Dullin in whose troupe he acted...
, was made in the streets of Paris and its suburbs.
In 1962 Renoir made what was to be his penultimate film, Le Caporal épinglé (The Elusive Corporal) with Jean-Pierre Cassel
Jean-Pierre Cassel
Jean-Pierre Cassel was a French actor.-Life and career:Cassel was born Jean-Pierre Crochon in Paris, the son of Louise-Marguerite , an opera singer, and Georges Crochon, a doctor. Cassel was discovered by Gene Kelly as he tap danced on stage, and later cast in the 1957 film The Happy Road...
and Claude Brasseur
Claude Brasseur
-Biography:He was born in Neuilly-sur-Seine as Claude Pierre Espinasse, the son of actor Pierre Brasseur and actress Odette Joyeux. He is the godson of Ernest Hemingway and the father of Alexandre Brasseur....
. Set among French POWs during their internment in labor camps by the Nazis during World War II, the film explores the twin human needs for freedom, on the one hand, and emotional and economic security, on the other.
In 1962, Renoir published a loving memoir of his father, Renoir, My Father, in which he described the profound influence his father had on him and his work. As funds for his film projects were becoming harder to obtain, Renoir continued to write screenplays and then wrote a novel, The Notebooks of Captain Georges, published in 1966. Captain Georges is the nostalgic account of a wealthy young man's sentimental education and love for a peasant
Peasant
A peasant is an agricultural worker who generally tend to be poor and homeless-Etymology:The word is derived from 15th century French païsant meaning one from the pays, or countryside, ultimately from the Latin pagus, or outlying administrative district.- Position in society :Peasants typically...
girl, a theme also explored earlier in his films Diary of a Chambermaid
The Diary of a Chambermaid (1946 film)
The Diary of a Chambermaid is a drama film about a newly-hired servant who severely disrupts a wealthy family. The film was based on the novel of the same name by Octave Mirbeau and the play Le journal d'une femme de Chambre by André Heuse, André de Lorde, and Thielly Nores, was directed by Jean...
and Picnic on the Grass
Picnic on the Grass
Picnic on the Grass is a 1959 film directed by Jean Renoir. It shares a title with the painting by Édouard Manet.- Reception :...
.
Last years
Renoir made his last film in 1969, Le Petit théâtre de Jean RenoirThe Little Theatre of Jean Renoir
The Little Theatre of Jean Renoir is a 1970 television film written and directed by Jean Renoir. The last completed work by Renoir, it consists of three short films: The Last Christmas Dinner, The Electric Floor Waxer and A Tribute to Tolerance.-Cast:Le Dernier Réveillon*Nino Formicola as Le...
(The Little Theatre of Jean Renoir). The film is a series of four short films made in a variety of styles and is, in many ways, one of his most challenging, avant-garde and unconventional works.
Thereafter, unable to find financing for his films and in declining health, Renoir spent the last years of his life receiving friends at his home in Beverly Hills and writing novels and his memoirs.
In 1973 Renoir was preparing a production of his stage play Carola
Carola
Carola is a female given name, the Latinized form of the Germanic given names Caroline or Carol.Famous people named Carola include:* Carola Dunn, British-American writer...
with Leslie Caron
Leslie Caron
Leslie Claire Margaret Caron is a French film actress and dancer, who appeared in 45 films between 1951 and 2003. In 2006, her performance in Law and Order: Special Victims Unit won her an Emmy for guest actress in a drama series...
and Mel Ferrer
Mel Ferrer
Mel Ferrer was an American actor, film director and film producer.-Early life:Ferrer was born Melchor Gastón Ferrer in Elberon, New Jersey, of Catalan and Irish descent. His father, Dr. José María Ferrer , was born in Cuba, was an authority on pneumonia and served as chief of staff of St....
when he fell ill and was unable to direct. The producer Norman Lloyd
Norman Lloyd
Norman Lloyd is an American actor, producer, and director with a career in entertainment spanning more than seven decades. Lloyd, who currently resides in Los Angeles, has appeared in over sixty films and television shows....
, a friend and actor in The Southerner, took over the direction of the play, which was broadcast in the series program Hollywood Television Theater on WNET, Channel 13, New York on February 3, 1973.
In his memoirs My Life and My Films (1974) Renoir wrote of the influence exercised upon him by his cousin, Gabrielle Renard
Gabrielle Renard
Gabrielle Renard was a French woman who became an important member of the family of the painter, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, first becoming a nanny and subsequently, a frequent model for the artist. She is recognized as the mentor to Jean Renoir, creating and encouraging his interest in filmmaking...
, the woman seen in the portrait by his father above. Shortly before his birth, she came to live with the Renoir family, and helped raise the young boy. She introduced him to the Guignol
Guignol
Guignol is the main character in a French puppet show which has come to bear his name.Although often thought of as children's entertainment, Guignol's sharp wit and linguistic verve have always been appreciated by adults as well, as shown by the motto of a prominent Lyon troupe: "Guignol amuses...
puppet shows in the Montmartre
Montmartre
Montmartre is a hill which is 130 metres high, giving its name to the surrounding district, in the north of Paris in the 18th arrondissement, a part of the Right Bank. Montmartre is primarily known for the white-domed Basilica of the Sacré Cœur on its summit and as a nightclub district...
of his childhood: "She taught me to see the face behind the mask and the fraud behind the flourishes", he wrote. "She taught me to detest the cliché." He concluded his memoirs with the words he had often spoken as a child, "Wait for me, Gabrielle."
In 1975 he received a lifetime Academy Award
Academy Awards
An Academy Award, also known as an Oscar, is an accolade bestowed by the American Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to recognize excellence of professionals in the film industry, including directors, actors, and writers...
for his contribution to the motion picture industry and that same year a retrospective of his work was shown at the National Film Theatre
BFI Southbank
BFI Southbank is the leading repertory cinema in the UK specialising in seasons of classic, independent and non-English language films and is operated by the British Film Institute.-History:...
in London. Also in 1975, the government of France elevated him to the rank of commander in the Légion d'honneur
Légion d'honneur
The Legion of Honour, or in full the National Order of the Legion of Honour is a French order established by Napoleon Bonaparte, First Consul of the Consulat which succeeded to the First Republic, on 19 May 1802...
.
Jean Renoir died in Beverly Hills, California
Beverly Hills, California
Beverly Hills is an affluent city located in Los Angeles County, California, United States. With a population of 34,109 at the 2010 census, up from 33,784 as of the 2000 census, it is home to numerous Hollywood celebrities. Beverly Hills and the neighboring city of West Hollywood are together...
on February 12, 1979. His body was returned to France and buried beside his family in the cemetery at Essoyes
Essoyes
Essoyes is a commune in the Aube department in north-central France.Impressionist artist Auguste Renoir had a house in the town. The village, hometown of his wife Aline and model and governess of his children Gabrielle Renard, is represented in many of his paintings.-Geography:Essoyes is a quiet...
, Aube
Aube
Aube is a department in the northeastern part of France named after the Aube River. In 1995, its population was 293,100 inhabitants.- History :Aube is one of the original 83 departments created during the French Revolution on 4 March 1790...
, France.
Legacy
On his death, fellow director and friend Orson WellesOrson Welles
George Orson Welles , best known as Orson Welles, was an American film director, actor, theatre director, screenwriter, and producer, who worked extensively in film, theatre, television and radio...
wrote an article for the Los Angeles Times
Los Angeles Times
The Los Angeles Times is a daily newspaper published in Los Angeles, California, since 1881. It was the second-largest metropolitan newspaper in circulation in the United States in 2008 and the fourth most widely distributed newspaper in the country....
, "Jean Renoir: The Greatest of all Directors".
Jean Renoir has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame
Hollywood Walk of Fame
The Hollywood Walk of Fame consists of more than 2,400 five-pointed terrazzo and brass stars embedded in the sidewalks along fifteen blocks of Hollywood Boulevard and three blocks of Vine Street in Hollywood, California...
at 6212 Hollywood Blvd. Several of his ceramics were collected by Albert Barnes
Albert C. Barnes
Albert Coombs Barnes was an American chemist and art collector. With the fortune made from the development of the antiseptic, anti-blindness drug Argyrol, he founded the Barnes Foundation, an educational institution based on his private collection of art...
and can be found on display beneath his father's paintings at the Barnes Foundation in Merion, Pennsylvania
Merion, Pennsylvania
Merion Station is an unincorporated community in Lower Merion Township, Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, United States. It is contiguous to Philadelphia and is also bordered by Wynnewood, Narberth, and Bala Cynwyd...
.
Filmography
- 1924 : Backbiters (Catherine ou Une vie sans Joie, also acted)
- 1925 : La Fille de l'eauLa Fille de l'eauLa Fille de l'eau , also known by the English title The Whirlpool of Fate , is a silent film that was shot by Jean Renoir and featured Catherine Hessling for its heroine....
- 1926 : NanaNana (1926 film)Nana is Jean Renoir's second full-length silent film and is based on the novel by Émile Zola.-Plot:A government official, Count Muffat, falls under the spell of Nana, a young actress. She becomes his mistress, living in the sumptuous apartment which he provides for her...
- 1927 : Charleston Parade (Sur un air de charleston)
- 1927 : Une vie sans joie (second version of Backbiters)
- 1927 : Marquitta
- 1928 : The Sad Sack (Tire-au-flanc)
- 1928 : The Tournament (Le Tournoi dans la cité)
- 1928 : The Little Match Girl (La Petite Marchande d'allumettes)
- 1929 : Le Bled
- 1931 : On purge bébéOn purge bébéOn purge bébé is Jean Renoir's first sound film. It is a 1931 comedy about a supposedly unbreakable chamberpot and a constipated baby. It is noted for mocking the French bourgeoisie....
- 1931 : Isn't Life a Bitch? (La Chienne)
- 1932 : Night at the CrossroadsNight at the CrossroadsNight at the Crossroads is a 1932 film by Jean Renoir based on the novel of the same title by Georges Simenon and starring Renoir's brother Pierre Renoir as Simenon's popular detective, Inspector Maigret....
(La Nuit du carrefour) - 1932 : Boudu Saved from DrowningBoudu Saved from DrowningBoudu Saved from Drowning is a 1932 French film directed by Jean Renoir. Renoir wrote the film's screenplay, from the play by René Fauchois...
(Boudu sauvé des eaux) - 1932 : Chotard and Company (Chotard et Cie)
- 1933 : Madame Bovary
- 1935 : ToniToni (film)Toni is a 1935 film by Jean Renoir. It is notable for its use of non-professional actors and location shooting. It is also generally considered the major precursor to the Italian neorealist movement. Luchino Visconti, one of the founding members of the neorealist movement, was assistant director on...
- 1936 : A Day in the Country (Une partie de campagne, also acted)
- 1936 : Life Belongs to UsLife Belongs to UsLife Belongs to Us is a documentary propaganda film paid for by the Communist Party of France. Parts of the film was taken from newsreels mixed with new sketches about working population, the peasants and intellectuals....
(La vie est à nous, also acted) - 1936 : The Lower DepthsThe Lower Depths (1936 film)The Lower Depths is a 1936 French drama film directed by Jean Renoir, based on a play of the same title by Maxim Gorky. The film is an example of the poetic realism.Akira Kurosawa also directed a Japanese film version of Gorky's play, Donzoko...
(Les Bas-fonds)
- 1936 : The Crime of Monsieur LangeThe Crime of Monsieur LangeThe Crime of Monsieur Lange is a 1936 film directed by Jean Renoir about a publishing cooperative...
(Le Crime de Monsieur Lange) - 1937 : Grand IllusionGrand Illusion (film)Grand Illusion is a 1937 French war film directed by Jean Renoir, who co-wrote the screenplay with Charles Spaak. The story concerns class relationships among a small group of French officers who are prisoners of war during World War I and are plotting an escape.The title of the film comes from a...
(La Grande illusion) - 1938 : La MarseillaiseLa Marseillaise (film)La Marseillaise is a film about the early part of the French Revolution. The film was directed by Jean Renoir. La Marseillaise is shown from the eyes of the citizens of Marseille, counts in German exile and, of course the king Louis XVI each showing their own small problems.-Cast:* Pierre Renoir ...
- 1938 : The Human BeastLa Bête Humaine (film)La Bête Humaine is a film directed by Jean Renoir, with cinematography by Curt Courant...
(La Bête humaine, also acted) - 1939 : The Rules of the GameThe Rules of the GameThe Rules of the Game is a 1939 French film directed by Jean Renoir about upper-class French society just before the start of World War II...
(La Règle du jeu, also acted) - 1941 : Swamp WaterSwamp WaterSwamp Water is a 1941 film directed by Jean Renoir, starring Walter Brennan, produced at 20th Century Fox, and based on the novel by Vereen Bell. The drama was shot on location at Okefenokee Swamp, Waycross, Georgia, USA. This was Renoir's first American film...
(L'Étang tragique) - 1943 : This Land Is Mine (Vivre libre)
- 1944 : Salute to France (Salut à la France)
- 1945 : The SouthernerThe Southerner (1945 film)The Southerner is a 1945 American film directed by Jean Renoir, based on the novel Hold Autumn in Your Hand by George Sessions Perry. The film received Oscar nominations for Best Director, Original Music Score and Sound. Renoir was named Best Director by the National Board of Review, which also...
(L'Homme du sud) - 1945 : The Diary of a ChambermaidThe Diary of a Chambermaid (1946 film)The Diary of a Chambermaid is a drama film about a newly-hired servant who severely disrupts a wealthy family. The film was based on the novel of the same name by Octave Mirbeau and the play Le journal d'une femme de Chambre by André Heuse, André de Lorde, and Thielly Nores, was directed by Jean...
(Le Journal d'une femme de chambre) - 1947 : The Woman on the Beach (La Femme sur la plage)
- 1951 : The RiverThe River (1951 film)The River is a 1951 film directed by Jean Renoir. It was filmed in India and was seminal to the launching of the careers of Satyajit Ray , who assisted on the film, and Subrata Mitra, Ray's cinematographer whom he met during the filming of The River.A fairly faithful dramatization of an earlier...
(Le Fleuve) - 1953 : The Golden CoachThe Golden CoachThe Golden Coach is a 1952 film directed by Jean Renoir that tells the story of a commedia dell'arte troupe in 18th century Peru. The screenplay was written by Renoir, Jack Kirkland, Renzo Avanzo and Giulio Macchi and is based on the play, Le Carrosse du Saint-Sacrement by Prosper Mérimée...
(Le Carrosse d'or) - 1955 : French CancanFrench CancanFrench Cancan is a 1954 French musical film written and directed by Jean Renoir and starring Jean Gabin and María Félix.-Plot:Set in 1890s Paris, Henri Danglard is the owner of a cafe, which features his mistress, Lola, as a belly dancer...
- 1956 : Elena and Her MenElena and Her MenElena and Her Men is a 1956 film directed by Jean Renoir and starring Ingrid Bergman, and was her first film after leaving husband Roberto Rossellini. The film's original French title was Elena et les Hommes and in English-speaking countries, the title was Paris Does Strange Things.-External links:*...
(Elena et les hommes) - 1959 : The Testament of Doctor Cordelier (Le Testament du docteur Cordelier)
- 1959 : Picnic on the GrassPicnic on the GrassPicnic on the Grass is a 1959 film directed by Jean Renoir. It shares a title with the painting by Édouard Manet.- Reception :...
(Le Déjeuner sur l'herbe) - 1962 : The Elusive CorporalThe Elusive CorporalThe Elusive Corporal is a 1962 French film directed by Jean Renoir and starring Jean-Pierre Cassel. It was entered into the 12th Berlin International Film Festival.Renoir shot his film in Austria in 1961 from Jacques Perret's book based on his own prisoner of war experiences...
(Le Caporal épinglé) - 1969 : The Little Theatre of Jean RenoirThe Little Theatre of Jean RenoirThe Little Theatre of Jean Renoir is a 1970 television film written and directed by Jean Renoir. The last completed work by Renoir, it consists of three short films: The Last Christmas Dinner, The Electric Floor Waxer and A Tribute to Tolerance.-Cast:Le Dernier Réveillon*Nino Formicola as Le...
(Le Petit Théâtre de Jean Renoir)
Selected writings
- 1955: Orvet, Paris: Gallimard, play.
- 1962: Renoir, Paris: Hachette (Renoir, My Father), biography.
- 1966: Les Cahiers du Capitaine Georges, Paris: Gallimard (The Notebooks of Captain Georges), novel.
- 1974: Ma Vie et mes Films, Paris: Flammarion (My Life and My Films), autobiography.
- 1974: Écrits 1926-1971 (Claude Gauteur, ed.), Paris: Pierre Belfond, writings.
- 1976: Carola, in "L'Avant-Scène du Théâtre" no. 597, November 1, 1976, screenplay.
- 1978: Le Coeur à l'aise, Paris: Flammarion, novel.
- 1978 Julienne et son amour; suivi d'En avant Rosalie!, Paris: Henri Veyrier, screenplays.
- 1979: Jean Renoir: Entretiens et propos (Jean Narboni, ed.), Paris: Éditions de l'étoile/Cahiers du Cinéma, interviews and remarks.
- 1979: Le crime de l'Anglais, Paris: Flammarion, novel.
- 1980: Geneviève, Paris: Flammarion, novel.
- 1981: Œuvres de cinéma inédités (Claude Gauteur, ed.), Paris: Gallimard, synopses and treatments.
- 1984: Lettres d'Amérique (Dido Renoir & Alexander Sesonske, eds.), Paris: Presses de la Renaissance ISBN 2856162878, correspondence.
- 1989: Renoir on Renoir: Interviews, Essays, and Remarks (Carol Volk, tr.), Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
- 1994: Jean Renoir: Letters (David Thompson and Lorraine LoBianco, eds.), London: Faber & Faber, correspondence.
Awards
- Prix Louis Delluc, for Les Bas-Fonds (The Lower DepthsThe Lower DepthsThe Lower Depths is perhaps Maxim Gorky's best-known play. It was written during the winter of 1901 and the spring of 1902. Subtitled "Scenes from Russian Life," it depicted a group of impoverished Russians living in a shelter near the Volga. Produced by the Moscow Arts Theatre on December 18,...
), 1936 - Chevalier de Légion d'honneur, 1936
- National Board of Review, Top Ten Foreign Film, for The Lower DepthsThe Lower DepthsThe Lower Depths is perhaps Maxim Gorky's best-known play. It was written during the winter of 1901 and the spring of 1902. Subtitled "Scenes from Russian Life," it depicted a group of impoverished Russians living in a shelter near the Volga. Produced by the Moscow Arts Theatre on December 18,...
, 1937 - International Jury Cup, Venice Film FestivalVenice Film FestivalThe Venice International Film Festival is the oldest international film festival in the world. Founded by Count Giuseppe Volpi in 1932 as the "Esposizione Internazionale d'Arte Cinematografica", the festival has since taken place every year in late August or early September on the island of the...
, for La Grande Illusion, 1937 - National Board of Review, Best Foreign Language Film, for La Grande Illusion, 1938
- National Board of Review, Top Ten Film and Best Director, for The SouthernerThe Southerner (1945 film)The Southerner is a 1945 American film directed by Jean Renoir, based on the novel Hold Autumn in Your Hand by George Sessions Perry. The film received Oscar nominations for Best Director, Original Music Score and Sound. Renoir was named Best Director by the National Board of Review, which also...
, 1945 - Best Film, Venice Festival, for The SouthernerThe Southerner (1945 film)The Southerner is a 1945 American film directed by Jean Renoir, based on the novel Hold Autumn in Your Hand by George Sessions Perry. The film received Oscar nominations for Best Director, Original Music Score and Sound. Renoir was named Best Director by the National Board of Review, which also...
, 1946 - National Board of Review, Top Ten Film, for The Diary of a ChambermaidThe Diary of a Chambermaid (1946 film)The Diary of a Chambermaid is a drama film about a newly-hired servant who severely disrupts a wealthy family. The film was based on the novel of the same name by Octave Mirbeau and the play Le journal d'une femme de Chambre by André Heuse, André de Lorde, and Thielly Nores, was directed by Jean...
, 1946 - Venice Film Festival: International Award The RiverThe River (1951 film)The River is a 1951 film directed by Jean Renoir. It was filmed in India and was seminal to the launching of the careers of Satyajit Ray , who assisted on the film, and Subrata Mitra, Ray's cinematographer whom he met during the filming of The River.A fairly faithful dramatization of an earlier...
, 1951 - National Board of Review, Top Five Foreign Films, for The RiverThe River (1951 film)The River is a 1951 film directed by Jean Renoir. It was filmed in India and was seminal to the launching of the careers of Satyajit Ray , who assisted on the film, and Subrata Mitra, Ray's cinematographer whom he met during the filming of The River.A fairly faithful dramatization of an earlier...
, 1951 - Grand Prix de l'Academie du Cinéma for French CancanFrench CancanFrench Cancan is a 1954 French musical film written and directed by Jean Renoir and starring Jean Gabin and María Félix.-Plot:Set in 1890s Paris, Henri Danglard is the owner of a cafe, which features his mistress, Lola, as a belly dancer...
, 1956 - Selznick Golden Laurel Award for lifetime work, Brazilian Film Festival, Rio de Janeiro, 1958
- Prix Charles Blanc, Académie française, for Renoir, My Father, biography of father, 1963
- Honorary Doctorate in Fine Arts, University of California, Berkeley, 1963
- Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, 1964
- Best European Film (Bedste europæiske film), Bodil Awards, for The Rules of the GameThe Rules of the GameThe Rules of the Game is a 1939 French film directed by Jean Renoir about upper-class French society just before the start of World War II...
(Spillets regler), 1966 - Osella d'Oro as a master of the cinema, Venice Festival, 1968
- Honorary Doctorate of Fine Arts, Royal College of Art, London, 1971
- Honorary Academy Award for Career Accomplishment, 1974
- Commandeur de la Légion d'honneur, 1975
External links
- Jean Renoir: A Bibliography of Materials in the University of California at Berkeley Library.
- Interview conducted in 1960 with Columbia University's Oral History Research Office.
- Je m’appelle Jean Renoir. Site at the University of Nancy, France. (In French)
- Faulkner, Christopher. "An Archive of the (Political) Unconscious" Canadian Journal of Communication [Online], 26 1 Jan 2001 — analysis of Renoir's FBI files.