"A director makes only one movie in his life. Then he breaks it into pieces and makes it again. " - The Jean Renoir Poll

so many i haven't seen, but of the ones i have, gotta go with the obvious: la regle du jeu.

obv choice but grande illusion = favourite movie of all time so ya that

I'm having a real tough time chosing just one. So many favorites in there. This is probably the toughest director poll for me.

choose carefully. this is for keeps.

i haven't seen any of these :/

I will choose carefully, especially if I find the time to watch all of his movies that I have on DVD. I almost voted for Boudu, without giving it any thought, just because I liked Michel Simon in it. I have like 5 of his movies I could vote for depending on time of the day!

The Rules of the Game, fo sho. But Boudu, La Bete Humaine, A Day in the Country, Grand Illusion, or The River could qualify.

Will Diary of a Chambermaid finally get a DVD release? I saw it years ago -- such a strange film. It's commedia dell'arte staged for film.

outsider win contenders: la bête humaine, golden coach

Until I saw French Can-Can I'd no idea Renoir was even capable of making an average film.

he sure could-could

I voted Grand Illusion though Monsieur Lange comes a close second for me. So hard to vote on a favorite with Renoir!

Anyone here have La Chienne? Been wanting to see this for ages.

I like most of his movies so much I could hardly choose which one I wanted to see yesterday. Finally opted for La Règle du Jeu but it took me some time.

maybe The River, but I'm kind of a color whore. I was just thinking of Grande Illusion today, in the context of wanting to do a prison-escape poll, having watched A Man Escaped last night. So good.

It's Rules of the Game, but I voted Boudu.

I've seen 5 of these. They were all OK. I don't really connect with Renoir.

why not?

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

It's Rules of the Game, but I voted Nuit du carrefour.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

feel bad for monsieur lange

What I need is for someone to put these in the order they should be seen, which will not necessarily be the results from this poll.

What I need to know is who didn't vote, so I can swat them across the head with copies of Boudu and Le Regle du Jeu.

Don't think I voted, felt like bad faith having only seen 3 of them.

The Lower Depths is soooo much less suffocating than Zola, but then, how can it be, with Jean Gabin cracking jokes with a brittle baron and long dollies of dead-enders exchanging unforced banter?

The River is madly uneven but, wow, it's so beautiful.

Watched Monsieur Lange a couple months ago and noticed how the humor seemed much more like a film from the 60s than the 30s.

Would like very much to see La Marseillaise.

Not out on DVD. Never seen Lange either.

I watched it on an ancient VHS copy that was wasting away in a dusty corner of our library. Lots of treasures on those shelves. I'd guess many of them haven't been checked out in years.

Same way I watched it! It's good (Lange, that is). Or at least my impression of having once watched it back in 2004 holds up quite nicely.

Once watched the last three minutes of The River for like an hour, straight.

Could easily do that with the end of Regle and the entirety of la Partie.

I saw most of Renoir in the nineties on decaying reel to reel transfers to VHS. Bunuel too. Before DVD you had no idea how hard it was to find these things.

Diary of a Chambermaid too! When is that one coming out on DVD?!

ALSO: The ending of The Golden Coach.

xp

wasting away in a dusty corner of our library

Man, all my Mizoguchi memories are filtered through crappy VHS images.

Chambermaid has been out for a while now.

Only streaming on Netflix.

It was a Criterion release. Unless I'm missing what you're looking for.

http://www.amazon.com/Diary-Chambermaid-Collection-Jeanne-Moreau/dp/B00005B1ZK/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1304047123&sr=8-1

That's the Bunuel version, not the Renoir.

Yeah

I'm forever grateful to my university library for owning terrible, crumbling prints of Bunuel movies like Susana, Wuthering Heights, Mexican Bus Ride -- all his Mexican sudsters.

Oh, whoops. Figured I was missing something. Just skimmed the last couple posts and saw Bunuel's name. (And wondered why people were talking Bunuel on a Renoir thread)

xp - libraries.

Man, the version my library had of Kobayashi's Human Condition was UNWATCHABLE. The day I tried to watch that was a great defeat.

Just watched La Chienne ad omg@this:

In the film Michel Simon falls in love with Janie Marèse, and he did off-screen as well, while Marèze fell for Georges Flamant, who plays the pimp. Renoir and producer Pierre Braunberger had encouraged the relationship between Flamant and Marèze in order to get the fullest conviction into their performances - (Flamant was a professional criminal but an amateur actor). After the film had been completed Flamant, who could barely drive, took Marèse for a drive, crashed the car and she was killed. At the funeral Michel Simon fainted and had to be supported as he walked past the grave. He threatened Renoir with a gun, saying that the death of Marèze was all his fault. "Kill me if you like", responded Renoir, "but I have made the film"

hardcore

A Day in the Country gets Criterion DVD/Blu-Ray release. J. Hoberman: "Abandoned yet nearly perfect."

When I saw the Blu-Ray at the uni library an hour ago, I wept.

saw it once at least in the '80s. have it at home on the pile.

saw it on VHS a decade ago; the library circulation guy said, "No one's held that one since the eighties."

I find the performance style of Jacques Brunius in Partie De Campagne a little hard to take, but oh boy, those shots of Sylvia Bataille in the swing - so blissful and ecstatic. The fact that she was married to George Bataille AND Jacques Lacan only adds to the jouissance of it all.

The fact that she was married to George Bataille AND Jacques Lacan

yes, this just boggles my mind

I did not weep, because however much your era required you to marry your dad's apprentice, when he's kinda the village doofus you get less sympathy from me.

Did you watch the 90 minutes of outtakes? Renoir directing off and onscreen ("Don't start yet, we have to see the ducks"), and Jean's kid, Jacques Becker, and Cartier-Bresson doing slate duty. Also a horn at the end of some takes.

just rewatched la grande illusion and it is still as great as ever. the way it veers from hilarious to poignant so easily and without a hitch is wonderful. sadly my dvd has a scratch so the beginning of the film where maréchal and boieldieu are captured wouldn't play so it's only when reading about it that i realized they'd been captured by erich von stroheim thus explaining why they alreadyknew each other

Saw the 4K, newly translated iteration of Monsieur Lange -- first-rate humanist whimsy, even laying aside the 1936 political significance.

If Crime of Monsieur Lange is in your home town, go. The 4K restoration made the film glow. Now I'd rank it among his top five -- the film in which he discovers his method, ironically after working w/Jacques Prévert, the most auteurist of screenwriters. One of his most perfect casts; I can't imagine how Jules Berry or Florelle's performances could've been improved.

Best, the audience was whooping and clapping at the jokes.

Just got back from a screening of Lange. I still think La Grande Illusion and La Règle du Jeu are the key titles, but do not miss Lange if you have any opportunity.

Did this poll deliberately omit Le Testament du Docteur Cordelier (1959) because it was a TV production? If yes, shame shame.

Ah I couldn't really handle Barrault in that the one time I watched it years ago. Must try again.