Jean Renoir: 3-Disc Collector's Edition (2007)

Everyone Has His Reasons

By Jeffrey M. Anderson

Buy Jean Renoir: 3-Disc Collector's Edition on DVD

Francois Truffaut once said that the best film by Jean Delannoy was less interesting than the worst film by Jean Renoir. He also said that "each of Renoir's films marks a moment of his thought. The whole body of his films makes up his work. That's why it's really crucial to gather them together... to appreciate them better, as a painter collects and shows his older and more recent canvases together, covering several periods, each time he holds an exhibition."

That's why Lionsgate's new Jean Renoir box set is one of the year's most exciting releases. It contains seven decidedly lesser Renoir works, but they are essential in coming to terms with one of the great artists in all of cinema. The box begins with Renoir's debut feature, La Fille de l'eau (1925) and his follow-up, the epic Nana (1926), both of which starred Renoir's wife Catherine Hessling. Despite its glories Nana is known as the movie upon which Renoir squandered the fortune left to him by his famous father, the painter Pierre Auguste Renoir. Though Renoir was perhaps a reckless amateur, both films contain some astounding moments. Next up, we get the short films Charleston Parade (1927) and The Little Match Girl (1928), the latter based on Hans Christian Andersen's story, and the feature-length war film La Marseillaise (1938).

The box winds up with two entries from the tail end of Renoir's career, both claimed as masterworks by the French New Wave critics of the time, but both underappreciated. Le Testament du Docteur Cordelier (1959) is a loose adaptation of Robert Louis Stevenson's "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde," shot more or less live on a TV studio set. Renoir appears as himself at the beginning, as a kind of TV host introducing the film. The film can seem wooden and blocky and not at all thrilling, but Renoir effectively burrows into the emotional content of the story, and Jean-Louis Barrault in the title role gives a truly astonishing performance, giving the Hyde character (here called "Opale") a kind of menacing, twitchy, sidling walk. He so completely transforms from one character to another that it's difficult to tell that it's the same man. Jean-Luc Godard added this movie to his list of the "Six Best French Films Since the Liberation."

Finally, there's The Elusive Corporal (1962), about three colleagues attempting to negotiate and/or escape WWII prison-camps. The movie inevitably draws comparisons to Renoir's masterpiece Grand Illusion (1937) and comes up short. But it's a different kind of movie, made from a different point of view and containing a measure of playfulness. It actually reminded me more of The Great Escape, which came along the following year. Jean-Pierre Cassel (The Crimson Rivers) plays the title role.

DVD Details: Lionsgate's box contains unbelievably crisp transfers on all seven films. Martin Scorsese provides insightful introductions on all the films, and makes persuasive arguments that these films are not at all "minor" Renoirs. A featurette includes interviews with many Renoir fans, including cinematographer Michel Ballhaus, and Renoir's grandson Alain (a professor at UC Berkeley).

Starring: Catherine Hessling, Werner Krauss, Jean Angelo, Pierre Renoir, Lise Delamare, Jean-Louis Barrault, Jean-Pierre Cassel
Written by: Jean Renoir, etc.
Directed by: Jean Renoir
MPAA Rating: Unrated
Language: French with English subtitles
Running Time: 580 minutes
Date: May 28, 2007