Jean Renoir

On January 31, 1857, the French writer Gustave Flaubert (1821-80) took his place in the dock for contempt of public morality and religion. The accused, the real one, is, through him, Emma Bovary, heroine with a thousand faces and a thousand desires, guilty without doubt of an unforgivable desire to live.

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The fascinating story of a man destined to be only a son of and who sought all his life to become "someone" by getting rid of the overwhelming image of his genius as a father, the painter Pierre-Auguste Renoir.

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This portrait of the world-famous French director based on his personal correspondance reveals the little known insurgent side of his personnality. Featuring interviews with close collaborators, friends and family, this definitive documentary tells his intimate story, from the streets of Paris to the filmmaking accolades and high profile marriages at the height of his career.

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Edited from 4½ hours of unused material left over from the shooting of Jean Renoir's 1936 PARTIE DE CAMPAGNE (A Day in the Country) and donated by the producer Pierre Braunberger to the Cinémathèque Française. Re-edited for a new version, much of the film is shot with synchronised sound with Renoir's voice instructing and guiding the actors.

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Part one of a BBC documentary about Jean Renoir.

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This analysis is based on an ideological commentary on Renoir's film. From the beginning, the reading, unilateral, gives keys to interpret the characters: "These are shadows returning to the castle". Renoir "paints the lie of a society that no longer believes in its own values".

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Produced for television by Claude-Jean Philippe, the « Encyclopédie audiovisuelle du cinéma », recounts the history of French cinema from its birth to the beginning of the 1960s. With commentary read by Jean Rochefort.

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Three vignettes and a musical interlude showcase acclaimed auteur Jean Renoir's eclectic range at the end of his career: the relationship between an old man and an old woman, both homeless; an opera-like story of a woman obsessed with polishing her floors; Jeanne Moreau performs 'When Love Dies'; and an elderly man and his young wife coming to terms when she has an affair with a man her own age.

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A tennis champ falls in with the Hollywood crowd, finds himself being corrupted by the life in the fast lane.

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Documentary portrait of Henri Langlois, co-founder of the Cinémathèque Française.

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Jean Renoir talks about the making of La Petite Marchande d'allumettes.

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A example of Jean Renoir's talents as a director as he works Gisèle Braunberger into the right frame of mind.

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Passers-by, those who knew him in his youth, René Barjavel, witness of his beginnings, his wife, his doctor, writers ... By questioning them Michel Polac tries to better understand the troubled personality of Louis-Ferdinand Céline, Notorious anti-Semite and genius writer.

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Eric Rohmer leads a conversation with Jean Renoir and Henri Langlois on the art of filmmaker Louis Lumière.

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In the third part of a Cinéastes triptych on Jean Renoir, the director sits alone in a cinema analyzing scenes from La Marseillaise and The Rules of the Game, and discussing his editing and storytelling techniques.

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Second in the documentary trilogy from mastermind Jacques Rivette, featuring a conversation between Jean Renoir and Michel Simon, who celebrate their reunion by discussing, among other things, La Chienne (1931) and Boudu Saved from Drowning (1932).

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The first of three documentaries by Rivette on Jean Renoir.

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Three-part interview with French film director Jean Renoir, conducted by French New Wave director Jacques Rivette.

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The family of a Parisian shop-owner spends a day in the country. The daughter falls in love with a man at the inn, where they spend the day.

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The Marquis de la Chesnaye and his wife host a weekend gala where a variety of complicated romantic and social entanglements between guests and servants lead to tragedy, all against the backdrop of a looming war.

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Returning by train to the French port of Le Havre, Jacques Lantier, a tormented railwayman, meets by chance the impulsive stationmaster Roubard and Séverine, his wife.

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Joris Ivens’s advocacy documentary for the Republican cause intercuts a besieged Madrid with a nearby village digging an irrigation canal, linking the war to bread, land, and survival. Produced by the writers’ collective Contemporary Historians, edited by Helen van Dongen, scored by Marc Blitzstein, and narrated in its U.S. version by Ernest Hemingway (after an initial Orson Welles track), it blends frontline reportage with persuasion against Franco’s forces and their German–Italian backers.

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A propaganda film of the communist party of France, showing how the comrades help the proletariat against the capitalists.

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Célestin, the organist of a convent, has written and composed a light operetta under the name of Floridor. One day, the Mother Superior asks him to chaperone one of the boarders, Denise de Flavigny, who is returning home to get married. Now, Denise, for all her goody goody looks, soon proves as saucy as can be. Things get even more complicated when Célestin starts courting Corinne, the star of his operetta, to the great displeasure of a commander of dragons, the young woman's lover. Worse, the latter is none other than the Mother Superior's brother... To say nothing of Lieutenant Fernand de Champlatreux, who happens to fall in love with Denise, his fiancée that he has never seen before...!

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This is 1929: the little red riding hood is still with us and her life is more complicated than ever. She still has to go through the forest and she once again comes up against a wolf. This time around the big bad wolf has become a lecherous tramp who keeps stalking the girl trying to wolf her down ... in his own way of course.

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About the conflict between social classes through the life of the unhappy Catherine Ferrand, an orphan girl, who is a victim of the jealousy of women and the greed of men.

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La P’tite Lili is a silent short drama depicting the fate of a young orphaned girl in the working-class districts of Paris. The film follows Lili, a teenage girl marked by innocence and vulnerability, as she is drawn into the city’s underworld after encountering a man who exploits her circumstances. Told through impressionistic visual style rather than dialogue, the film presents a tragic portrait of social marginalization and moral collapse within an urban environment.

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Shot in three days, this surreal, erotic silent short shows a native white girl teaching a futuristic African airman the Charleston dance.

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With family connections to some famous French artists, writers, and musicians of the time, Sacha Guitry decided to film the individuals in action, to celebrate the greatness of his culture, threatened by Germany in the ongoing Great War.

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Three vignettes and a musical interlude showcase acclaimed auteur Jean Renoir's eclectic range at the end of his career: the relationship between an old man and an old woman, both homeless; an opera-like story of a woman obsessed with polishing her floors; Jeanne Moreau performs 'When Love Dies'; and an elderly man and his young wife coming to terms when she has an affair with a man her own age.

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Norman Lloyd directed this televised production of Jean Renoir's World War II-era play. Taking place backstage at a theatrical performance in Nazi-occupied France, Carola is a tale of passion and intrigue that involves a beautiful stage actress and her emotional and psychological struggles over a Nazi officer, whom she is entangled in an affair with, and a Resistance leader whom she is hiding. Featuring Leslie Caron as Carola, the play also stars Mel Ferrer, Albert Paulsen, Michael Sacks, Carmen Zapata, and Anthony Zerbe.

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An upper-class corporal is captured by the Germans during their 1940 invasion of France. Assisted and accompanied by characters as diverse as a morose dairy farmer, a waiter, a myopic intellectual, a working-class Parisian, and a German dental assistant, the corporal tries to escape from prison camps, sometimes making it a few yards, sometimes reaching the border.

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Dr. Cordelier, living in a suburb of Paris, withdraws from society to pursue research into the functioning of the human brain. His lifelong friend, Maître Joly, becomes concerned when Cordelier draws up a will that bequeaths his entire estate to a stranger, Monsieur Opale; he cannot understand why Cordelier defends him, considering Opale attacks women and children. After a colleague is killed, Joly confronts Cordelier and discovers the truth behind his friend's behavior.

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New Europe presidential candidate Etienne Alexis is a scientist promoting artificial insemination for social betterment and therapy to eliminate passion. To celebrate his engagement to a cousin, he hosts an aseptic picnic, where Mother Nature asserts herself. A shepherd's flute conjures a windstorm throwing Alexis together with the luscious Nénette, a farm lass who, although unimpressed with men, wants to have a baby.

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Set amid the military maneuvers and Quatorze Juillet carnivals of turn-of-the-century France, Jean Renoir’s delirious romantic comedy Elena and her Men stars a radiant Ingrid Bergman as a beautiful, but impoverished, Polish princess who drives men of all stations to fits of desperate love. When Elena elicits the fascination of a famous general, she finds herself at the center of romantic machinations and political scheming, with the hearts of several men—as well as the future of France—in her hands.

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Nineteenth-century Paris comes vibrantly alive in Jean Renoir’s exhilarating tale of the opening of the world-renowned Moulin Rouge. Jean Gabin plays the wily impresario Danglard, who makes the cancan all the rage while juggling the love of two beautiful women—an Egyptian belly-dancer and a naive working girl turned cancan star.

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A viceroy, a nobleman and a bullfighter court a comedy-troupe actress in 18th-century Peru.

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Director Jean Renoir’s entrancing first color feature—shot entirely on location in India—is a visual tour de force. Based on the novel by Rumer Godden, the film eloquently contrasts the growing pains of three young women with the immutability of the Bengal river around which their daily lives unfold. Enriched by Renoir’s subtle understanding and appreciation for India and its people, The River gracefully explores the fragile connections between transitory emotions and everlasting creation.

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A sailor suffering from post-traumatic stress becomes involved with a beautiful and enigmatic seductress married to a blind painter.

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The family of a Parisian shop-owner spends a day in the country. The daughter falls in love with a man at the inn, where they spend the day.

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Sam Tucker, a cotton picker, in search of a better future for his family, decides to grow his own cotton crop. In the first year, the Tuckers battle disease, a flood, and a jealous neighbor. Can they make it as farmers?

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Commissioned to prepare Allied troops for the liberation of Europe, the film uses a blend of staged narratives and historical footage to promote solidarity and dispel the myth that France was a nation of willing collaborators.

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Somewhere in Europe, in a city occupied by the Nazis, a gentle school teacher finds himself torn between collaboration and resistance, cowardice and courage.

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The Marquis de la Chesnaye and his wife host a weekend gala where a variety of complicated romantic and social entanglements between guests and servants lead to tragedy, all against the backdrop of a looming war.

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Returning by train to the French port of Le Havre, Jacques Lantier, a tormented railwayman, meets by chance the impulsive stationmaster Roubard and Séverine, his wife.

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The early days of the French Revolution, as seen through the eyes of the ordinary citizens in Marseille and the royal court, including King Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette.

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A group of French soldiers, including the patrician Captain de Boeldieu and the working-class Lieutenant Maréchal, grapple with their own class differences after being captured and held in a World War I German prison camp. When the men are transferred to a high-security fortress, they must concoct a plan to escape beneath the watchful eye of aristocratic German officer von Rauffenstein, who has formed an unexpected bond with de Boeldieu.

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Inhabitants of a flophouse struggle to survive under the harsh treatment imposed by the landlord, Kostyleva. One resident, young thief Wasska Pepel, ends his affair with the landlord's wife, Vassilissa, and takes up with her sister, Natacha. Pepel also befriends the baron, a former nobleman fallen on hard times, but Pepel's attempts at happiness are complicated when he's accused of murder by a spiteful Vassilissa.

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A propaganda film of the communist party of France, showing how the comrades help the proletariat against the capitalists.

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Mild-mannered novelist of Western fiction, Amédée Lange, and his colleagues take over a publishing house after their exploitative boss disappears, only for the superior to return and try to reclaim the profits from their successful cooperative.

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In the 1920s, the Provence is a magnet for immigrants seeking work in the quarries or in the agriculture. Many mingle with locals and settle down for good — like Toni, an Italian who has moved in with Marie, a Frenchwoman. Even a well-ordered existence is not immune from boredom, friendship, romance, or enmity, and Toni becomes entangled in a web of increasingly passionate relationships. For there is his best pal Fernand, but also Albert, his overbearing foreman; there is Sebastian, a steady Spanish peasant, but also Gabi, his young rogue relative; there is Marie, but there is also Josefa.

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In 19th-century France, doctor's wife Emma Bovary seeks to escape her dull provincial life through various extramarital affairs and extravagant spending, leading to tragic consequences.

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François Chotard, wholesale grocer, gives his daughter in marriage to Julien Collinet, a writer who prefers dreaming to working, a situation conducive to quarrels between the son and the father- in-law. Until the day when Julien receives the Prix Goncourt, prestigious literary award. Chotard has a sudden change of heart.

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Michel Simon gives one of the most memorable performances in screen history as Boudu, a Parisian tramp who takes a suicidal plunge into the Seine and is rescued by a well-to-do bookseller, Edouard Lestingois. The Lestingois family decides to take in the irrepressible bum, and he shows his gratitude by shaking the household to its foundations. With Boudu Saved from Drowning, legendary director Jean Renoir takes advantage of a host of Parisian locations and the anarchic charms of his lead actor to create an effervescent satire of the bourgeoisie.

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Inspector Maigret investigates the mysterious murder of a Dutch diamond dealer, found dead in a stolen car. The car belongs to an insurance agent, Michonnet, and has been abandoned in the garage belonging to Carl Andersen.

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Cashier Maurice Legrand is married to the wretched Adele. By chance, he meets Lucienne, 'Lulu', and makes her his mistress. He thinks he has finally found love, but Lulu is a streetwalker, still in love with her pimp.

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A chamber pot manufacturer tries to impress a military official while his wife desperately tries to force their constipated young son to take a laxative, leading to chaos.

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This is 1929: the little red riding hood is still with us and her life is more complicated than ever. She still has to go through the forest and she once again comes up against a wolf. This time around the big bad wolf has become a lecherous tramp who keeps stalking the girl trying to wolf her down ... in his own way of course.

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The tale of a rich, flaky poet and his servant who both join the army and wind up in the same barracks.

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An impoverished girl tries to sell matches on New Year's Eve. Shivering with cold and unable to sell her wares, she sits in a sheltered nook. Striking a match to keep warm, the flame shows her what's beyond.

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About the conflict between social classes through the life of the unhappy Catherine Ferrand, an orphan girl, who is a victim of the jealousy of women and the greed of men.

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Count Moffat becomes infatuated with Nana, a presumptuous stage actress, vulgar, hypocritical and promiscuous, willing to do anything to succeed.

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Orphan Virginia is left destitute following her father's death and her uncle's alcoholism; she finds refuge with bohemians but is forced to flee, eventually finding romance and a life-altering experience that triggers surreal dreams.

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