French Directors - Jean Renoir

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French Directors - Jean Renoir

Jean Renoir Collector's Edition La Fille de L'eau / Nana / Sur Un Aire de Charleston / La Petite Marchande d'Allumettes / La Marseillaise / Le Testament Du Docteur Cordelier / Le Caporal Epingle Jean Renoir This welcomed collection spans the entire career of the master of French poetic realism, Jean Renoir. It comprises his first lone directorial assignment, La Fille de L'eau (1925), an expressive silent melodrama with elements of surrealism; Nana (1926, 150 mins.), a stellar silent adaptation of Emile Zola's novel; Sur Un Aire de Charleston (1927, 17 mins.), a humorous, erotic dance fantasy that scandalized viewers of the time with its provocative sexuality; La Petite Marchande d'Allumettes (1927, 40 mins.), a bittersweet retelling of Hans Christian Anderson's The Little Match Girl; La Marseillaise (1938, 131 mins.), a grand, semi-documentary tribute to the glory of the French Revolution; Le Testament Du Docteur Cordelier (1959, 95 mins.), a bizarre reworking of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde made for French TV; and Le Caporal Epingle (1962, 109 mins.), a comedic updating of Renoir's 1937 masterpiece La Grand Illusion. 3-DVD set. In French with English subtitles. France, 1925-1962, 640 mins. DVD $44.95

Stage and Spectacle: Three Films by Jean Renoir The Golden Coach/French Cancan/Elena and Her Men Jean Renoir The Criterion Collection presents three jubilant masterpieces from late in Jean Renoir's career that find the director indulging his lifelong obsession with life-as-theater. One of the great works of postwar French cinema, The Golden Coach (1953, 103 mins.), charts the affairs of an 18th-century actress (Anna Magnani) as she travels through colonial Peru with a commedia dell'arte troupe. She is simultaneously pursued by a bullfighter (Ricardo Rioli), a soldier (Paul Campbell) and the Viceroy (Duncan Lamont). French Cancan (1955, 93 mins.) stars Jean Gabin as a night club owner who re-discovers the can-can. "Renoir hurls his cancan artists at the viewer, tempting us with the consuming spectacle, which is...inherently kinetic and ineffably voluptuous" (Andrew Sarris). Elena and Her Men (1956, 98 mins.), considered by Renoir "une fantasie musicale," casts Ingrid Bergman in a film about the power of love, the power of women, the folly of progress, the beauty of laziness, and the evil of dictators. This three-DVD Criterion boxed set includes introductions by Renoir on The Golden Coach and Elena and Her Men; video introductions by filmmakers Martin Scorsese and Peter Bogdanovich; Jean Renoir - Hollywood and Beyond, part two of the BBC documentary by David Thompson; a three-part interview with Renoir conducted by director Jacques Rivette; an interview with set designer Max Douy; an essay by film critic Jonathan Rosenbaum; and more. All three films in French with English subtitles. France, 1953/1955/1956. DVD $99.95

Boudu Saved from Drowning Jean Renoir A light comedy as well as a satire on bourgeois lifestyle in France. Michel Simon is Boudu, a scruffy tramp who is saved from his suicide attempt by a bookseller. Boudu insists his rescuer is now responsible for him, and creates chaos in his new home. The DVD is a Criterion Collection Edition and includes archival introduction by Jean Renoir, excerpts from Cineastes de notre temps program featuring Renoir and Michel Simon, video interview with filmmaker Jean-Pierre Gorin, archival interview with Eric Rohmer, interactive map of 1930's Paris, and essay by Renoir scholar Christopher Faulkner. French with English subtitles. France 1932 87 mins. DVD $44.95

Grand Illusion Jean Renoir A beautiful, pristine version of Jean Renoir's great masterpiece, a classic comment on war's fading glory. The print used for this release was remastered from an original camera negative discovered in the late 1990s, allowing this sublime classic to be seen, for the first time in decades, exactly as Renoir intended. Set in WW I, the film tells of two French officers captured by German forces. Interred in a prison camp, the two officers encounter Von Rauffenstein, an aristocratic career officer played by Erich von Stroheim. With Jean Gabin and Pierre Fresnay. French with English subtitles. France, 1937, 117 mins. DVD $59.95

La Bete Humaine Jean Renoir Jean Gabin and Simone Simon star in Renoir's timeless psychological drama of murder, revenge, conscience and the eternal triangle, based on a story by Emile Zola. The director fills the film with hauntingly beautiful symbolism. "Many of the individual sequences are among the most powerful that Renoir created..." (The Oxford Companion to Film). In French with English subtitles. France, 1938, 75 mins. DVD $44.95

The Lower Depths Akira Kurosawa/Jean Renoir The Criterion Collection presents two dramatically different interpretations of Maxim Gorky's classic play by two cinematic visionaries. Akira Kurosawa's masterful reworking of The Lower Depths, Donzoko (1957, Japan, 125 mins.), uses foundations of Japanese Noh theatre and is set in Edo during the last Tokugawa period. A rare ensemble effect is achieved from the actors in this moving story of a group of destitute people living in a rooming house. "A fascinating work" (Time). In Japanese with English subtitles. Jean Renoir's adaptation of The Lower Depths, Les Bas-fonds (1936, France, 85 mins.), is a feast for the eyes and intellect. Made amidst the rise of Nazism in Germany and the Popular Front in France, Renoir transforms the play to fit the times, offering the possibility of hope to the derelicts. This two-DVD set is a Criterion Collection Edition; Kurosawa's film includes a commentary by Donald Ritchie, a behind-the-scenes documentary, the original theatrical trailer, cast bios, an essay by authors Keiko McDonald and Thomas Rimer, and more; Renoir's film includes an essay by film scholar Alexander Sesonske. Both films include optional English subtitles. Japan/France, 1957/1936, 210 mins. DVD $59.95

The River Jean Renoir Renoir's film about India, a film about British colonialism, a film which Jacques Rivette calls "the only example of a film vigorously reflecting itself (turned upon itself), and in which the narrative structure, the metaphysical themes and the sociological descriptions not only answer one another but are in every way interchangeable." The DVD is a Criterion Collection Edition, and includes introduction to the film by Jean Renoir, 2000 audio interview with producer Ken McEldowney, BBC Bookmark documentary Rumer Godden: An Indian Affair (1995), stills gallery, trailer, essays by film scholars Ian Christie and Alexander Sesonske, and English subtitles. In English. India, 1950, 99 mins. DVD $44.95

Rules of the Game Jean Renoir One of the great films of all time, a satirical anatomy of polite society, with a mixture of farce and bitterness. Set at a weekend party at the chateau of the rich Marquis de la Chayniest, the story concerns the complicated love intrigues among the aristocrats and the servants. But one guest's refusal to play by society's rules sets off a tragic chain of events. "A single scene gives us more for our senses, emotions, and intellect than most whole movies do" (The New Yorker). In French with English subtitles. The DVD is a Criterion Collection edition - a two-DVD set with an introduction by Jean Renoir; a commentary by film scholar Alexander Sesonske, read by Peter Bogdanovich; select scene commentaries by Renoir historian Christopher Faulkner; the French television program, Jean Renoir le Patron: La Regle et l'Exception (1966), featuring interviews with Renoir and actor Marcel Dalio; a video essay on the production; an interviews with Alain Renoir, Max Douhy; written tributes by Truffaut, Tavernier, Scrader, Wenders, and more; footage of Jean Gaborit and Jacques Durand discussing the film; and more. France, 1939, 106 mins. DVD $54.95

The Southerner Jean Renoir One of Renoir's best American films, The Southerner is the story of a migrant worker (Zachary Scott) and his family as they try to make a go of it on their own farm. Understated yet emotionally powerful, with fine performances all around. Based on George Sessions Perry's novel Hold Autumn in Your Hand. With Betty Field, Beulah Bondi and J. Carroll Naish. USA, 1945, 91 mins. DVD $37.95