Jean Renoir (1894-1979) is widely regarded as one of the most distinguished directors in the history of world cinema. In the 1930s he directed a string of films which stretched the formal, intellectual, political and aesthetic boundaries of the art form, including works such as Le Crime de Monsieur Lange, La Grande Illusion, La Bête humaine and La Règle du jeu. However, the great director’s early work from the 1920s remains almost completely unknown, even to film specialists. If it is discussed at all, it is often seen to be of interest only insofar as it anticipates themes and techniques perfected in the later masterpieces. Renoir’s films of the 1920s were sometimes unfinished, commercially unsuccessful, or unreleased at the time of their production. This book argues that to regard them merely as prefigurations of later achievements entails a failure to view them on their own terms, as searching, unsettled experiments in the meaning and potential of film art.

A Companion to Jean Renoir “An extraordinary collection of essays that more than fulfills the aims of its editors, Alastair Phillips and Ginette Vincendeau. The essays offer exciting, original work from younger scholars as well as long-established authorities, all of which offer invaluable insights into the films, writings, and life of Jean Renoir. Receiving particular attention are questions about the singularity or multiplicity of what the editors call the many ‘Renoirs’ (French, American, Indian; even transnational), especially from the early 1930s through the early 1960s. Whether mining relatively unexplored archive materials, deploying newly current methodological approaches, interrogating one of a wide range of topics and issues, or engaging in close textual analysis, the contributors construct a tantalizing series of innovative ‘road maps’ for future researchers to pursue.” Richard Abel, University of Michigan “Alastair Phillips and Ginette Vincendeau have brought together essays that bring new perspectives to both the best-known and the lesser-known of Renoir’s films. Both French cinema specialists and viewers new to Renoir’s work will find much of interest in this outstanding collection.” Judith Mayne, Ohio State University Dubbed simply “the best director”’ by François Truffaut, Jean Renoir is a towering figure in world film history. This exhaustive survey of his work and life features a comprehensive analysis of his films from the multiple critical perspectives of the world’s leading Renoir scholars. Renoir’s career spanned four decades and four countries and included an extraordinary body of films, some of which – La Grande illusion (1937) and La Règle du jeu (1939) – are universally recognized masterpieces. Fathered by the celebrated painter Pierre-Auguste Renoir, the filmmaker lived through much of the twentieth century, beginning his career in the silent era and ending it in full Technicolor. His films are notable for their paradoxical combination of strong internal coherence and thematic breadth and diversity, and they provide a rich source for today’s scholars of film history and French culture. This handbook, the largest volume on Renoir ever produced in the English language, ranges in scope from extreme close-up analysis of individual films to long-shot explorations of his aesthetics and the social and cultural contexts in which he worked. The most ambitious critical study of Renoir to date, this book will appeal to film enthusiasts as much as scholars and specialists.

Originally published in France in 2012, Pascal Mégeau's definitive biography of legendary film director Jean Renoir is a landmark work-the winner of a Prix Goncourt, France's top literary achievement. Now available in the English language for the first time, Jean Renoir: A Biography, is the definitive study of one of the most fascinating and creative artistic figures of the twentieth century. The French filmmaker made more than forty films from the silent era to the late '60s and today he is revered by filmmakers and seen by many as one of the greatest of all time. Renoir made acclaimed movies in France, America, India, and Italy and became a writer during the last part of his life. An estimated 75 percent of the book details previously unknown information about the filmmaker, including Renoir's close affiliation with Communism in the '30s (when he was the Party's official director) and his work with the fascist regimes during World War II; his previously uncredited Hollywood film, The Amazing Mrs. Holiday; and new information on the making of his most famous films. Drawing from unpublished or little known sources, this biography is a completely fresh approach to the maker of Grand Illusion and The Rules of the Game, redefining the very function of the movie director and simultaneously recounting the history of a century.

Jean Renoir is one of the most important figures in French cinema. This is an eminently accessible and original analysis of all his sound films, including those he made in Hollywood. Bringing new light on some of the director's most celebrated films, this lucid account traces his output from the silent period to the age of television, tying his work into a fast-shifting, socio-historical context. Giving an incisive and illuminating account of critical debates concerning Renoir, and focusing on hitherto neglected areas such as gender, nation and ethnicity the book asks us to rethink our understanding of Renoir's political commitment.

This is a 1990 collection of interviews and essays by the legendary filmmaker Jean Renoir.

Collected interviews with one of France's most loved and respected filmmakers

In this delightful memoir, Jean Renoir, the director of such masterpieces of the cinema as "Grand Illusion" and "The Rules of the Game," tells the life story of his father, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, the great Impressionist painter. Recounting Pierre-Auguste's extraordinary career, beginning as a painter of fans and porcelain, recording the rules of thumb by which he worked, and capturing his unpretentious and wonderfully engaging talk and personality, Jean Renoir's book is both a wonderful double portrait of father and son and, in the words of the distinguished art historian John Golding, it " remains the best account of Renoir, and, furthermore, among the most beautiful and moving biographies we have." Includes 12 pages of color plates and 18 pages of black and white images.