Jean renoir in Foreign DVDs & Videos

Description:

This collection of films from Jean Renoir spans the great director's career. Beginning with two silent films, LA FILLE DE L'EAU and NANA, the three-volume set also includes the feature LA MARSEILLAISE, as well as two shorts, SUR UN AIR DE CHARLESTON and LA PETITE MARCHANDE D'ALLUMETTES. Two later films, LE TESTAMENT DU DOCTEUR CORDELIER and LE CAPORAL EPINGLE, complete this look at one of France's most important filmmakers. Martin Scorsese and Alain Renoir appear in a documentary about the elder Renoir's contribution to cinema.

Description:

This special multi-pack contains three films from one of cinema's true masters, Jean Renoir: THE GOLDEN COACH (1953), FRENCH CANCAN (1955), and ELENA AND HER MEN (1956). See individual titles for detailed information.

Description:

Widely regarded as one of the greatest films ever made, Jean Renoir's masterpiece THE RULES OF THE GAME is a devastating satire of the pre-WWII French aristocracy. Starring Marcel Dalio as wealthy landowner Marquis Robert de la Chesnaye, it charts the shifting relationships among the guests at a weekend hunting party on his vast estate. The guest list includes Robert's mistress Genevieve (Mila Parely), from whom he's trying to part, and Andre Jurieu (Roland Toutain), a famed aviator who is in love with Robert's wife, Christine (Nora Gregor). As they begin a dizzy dance of escape and pursuit, their games are observed and echoed by the servants below the stairs. The gamekeeper Schumacher (Gaston Modot) is trying to keep the poacher, Marceau (Julien Carette), from poaching on his pretty wife, Lisette (Paulette Dubost), unaware that his boss also has his eye on her. The passionate Jurieu, the only guest incapable of the appropriate hypocrisy, finds Christine in an embrace with a random lover (Pierre Nay), and the startled woman decides to leave Robert and go away with the aviator. Renoir's subtle deployment of long tracking shots in multiplanar deep focus reveals the relations of both groups and individuals as he dismantles the rituals of hypocrisy that make this society run smoothly.

Description:

Calling on his own experiences as an aviator in WWI as well as those of his comrades, Jean Renoir's antiwar masterpiece bids farewell to the class constrictions of European society and calls for the unity of humankind across class and national boundaries. Set in the German prison camps of WWI, the film stars Jean Gabin as Marechal, and Marcel Dalio as Rosenthal. Like the charming aristocrat de Boldieu (Pierre Fresnay), these two French aviators were shot down and now spend most of their time escaping from German prison camps before inevitably being recaptured. Between escapes, they do what they can to amuse themselves, which includes running a talent show, but after a tunnel they've dug is discovered, the three are sent to Wintersborn, a forbidding fortress of a prison, which is commanded by former ace pilot von Rauffenstein (Erich von Stroheim). The humane commandant practices noblesse oblige toward de Boldieu, hoping for an alliance across national lines. But he comes to learn that this phrase has a different meaning for the Frenchman. One of the great films of all time, GRAND ILLUSION perhaps most purely embodies director Jean Renoir's characterstic humanism, manifested less here in camera technique than an instinctive ability to educe truthful performances from his cast.

Description:

Made at the height of poetic realism in the French cinema, LA BÊTE HUMAINE is an adaptation of Emile Zola's classic work, starring Jean Gabin as railroad engineer Jacques Lantier. He lusts after Severine (Simone Simon), the lovely wife of stationmaster Robaud (Fernand Ledoux), but has kept his desire in check. While riding on Lantier's train, Robaud threatens to expose Severine's wealthy and powerful godfather, Grandmorin (Jacques Berlioz), for having violated his goddaughter when she was 16. Grandmorin threatens to ruin Robaud so the stationmaster kills the older man. Although Lantier is a witness, he fails to speak up when the wrong man, Cabuche (Jean Renoir), is indicted because of his feeling for Severine. Eager to ensure the engineer's silence, Robaud insists that Severine become his lover. Lantier does not require extensive persuasion. At length, Grandmorin is exposed and the ingenuous Cabuche is freed. But over time Severine has come to love Lantier. At this point she asks him to kill her husband so they can be together. But Lantier, overwhelmed by revulsion toward all that has come before, refuses to comply with her wishes. Gabin is utterly convincing as the tormented lover in this magnificently atmospheric tale of crime and passion.

Description:

In an oeuvre permeated with ambivalence toward bourgeois life, director Jean Renoir speculates on the result of the abandonment of those values in BOUDU SAVED FROM DROWNING. Producer Michel Simon stars as Boudu, a vagabond who attempts suicide by throwing himself into the Seine, grieving over the loss of his dog. But Eduaord Lestingois (Charles Granval), a humane bookseller, rescues him and takes him into his home, hoping to reform the shaggy bum. Shortly thereafter, anarchy reigns as the household is turned upside down by the antics of this large three-year-old. Spitting in first editions, using silken sheets to polish his shoes, sleeping in the hallway, and similar breaches of etiquette do little to endear Boudu to Lestingois. However, once Boudu has had a bath and shave in order to please the maid, Mrs. Lestingois (Marcelle Hainia) becomes surprisingly responsive to his overtures. The maid (Severine Lerczinska), who is Lestingois's mistress, also seems to feel the tramp's mysterious charm. Lestingois, an exemplary bourgeois, now has more than one reason to envy the man he saved from drowning. Among Renoir's finest films, this sharp-eyed take on the paradox of bourgeois liberalism includes stunning photography of Paris in the 1930s and a legendary comic performance by Michel Simon.

Description:

This series from Janus Films and the Criterion Collection assembles benchmark works from some of cinema's greatest filmmakers. This first volume presents Jean Renoir's GRAND ILLUSION, Jean Cocteau's BEAUTY AND THE BEAST, Peter Brook's LORD OF THE FLIES, Ingmar Bergman's WILD STRAWBERRIES, Roman Polanski's KNIFE IN THE WATER, and Akira Kurosawa's RASHOMON. Please see individual titles for further information.

Description:

Calling on his own experiences as an aviator in WWI as well as those of his comrades, Jean Renoir's antiwar masterpiece bids farewell to the class constrictions of European society and calls for the unity of humankind across class and national boundaries. Set in the German prison camps of WWI, the film stars Jean Gabin as Marechal, and Marcel Dalio as Rosenthal. Like the charming aristocrat de Boldieu (Pierre Fresnay), these two French aviators were shot down and now spend most of their time escaping from German prison camps before inevitably being recaptured. Between escapes, they do what they can to amuse themselves, which includes running a talent show, but after a tunnel they've dug is discovered, the three are sent to Wintersborn, a forbidding fortress of a prison, which is commanded by former ace pilot von Rauffenstein (Erich von Stroheim). The humane commandant practices noblesse oblige toward de Boldieu, hoping for an alliance across national lines. But he comes to learn that this phrase has a different meaning for the Frenchman. One of the great films of all time, GRAND ILLUSION perhaps most purely embodies director Jean Renoir's characterstic humanism, manifested less here in camera technique than an instinctive ability to educe truthful performances from his cast.

Description:

Jean Renoir's last work before he died, THE LITTLE THEATER OF JEAN RENOIR was, ironically, made for television, in the form of an anthology consisting of three vignettes--THE LAST CHRISTMAS DINNER, THE ELECTRIC FLOOR POLISHER, and THE VIRTUE OF TOLERANCE--and a song interlude, WHEN LOVE DIES, performed by Jeanne Moreau. As one of the titles suggests, all of the episodes reflect the master's spirit of warmth and generosity, making an implicit plea for the virtue of tolerance, which seems to be more readily available in the quiet of the countryside.

Description:

Jean Renoir's last work before he died, THE LITTLE THEATER OF JEAN RENOIR was, ironically, made for television, in the form of an anthology consisting of three vignettes--THE LAST CHRISTMAS DINNER, THE ELECTRIC FLOOR POLISHER, and THE VIRTUE OF TOLERANCE--and a song interlude, WHEN LOVE DIES, performed by Jeanne Moreau. As one of the titles suggests, all of the episodes reflect the master's spirit of warmth and generosity, making an implicit plea for the virtue of tolerance, which seems to be more readily available in the quiet of the countryside.

Description:

Jean Renoir's last work before he died, THE LITTLE THEATER OF JEAN RENOIR was, ironically, made for television, in the form of an anthology consisting of three vignettes--THE LAST CHRISTMAS DINNER, THE ELECTRIC FLOOR POLISHER, and THE VIRTUE OF TOLERANCE--and a song interlude, WHEN LOVE DIES, performed by Jeanne Moreau. As one of the titles suggests, all of the episodes reflect the master's spirit of warmth and generosity, making an implicit plea for the virtue of tolerance, which seems to be more readily available in the quiet of the countryside.

Description:

Jean Renoir's last work before he died, THE LITTLE THEATER OF JEAN RENOIR was, ironically, made for television, in the form of an anthology consisting of three vignettes--THE LAST CHRISTMAS DINNER, THE ELECTRIC FLOOR POLISHER, and THE VIRTUE OF TOLERANCE--and a song interlude, WHEN LOVE DIES, performed by Jeanne Moreau. As one of the titles suggests, all of the episodes reflect the master's spirit of warmth and generosity, making an implicit plea for the virtue of tolerance, which seems to be more readily available in the quiet of the countryside.

Description:

Jean Renoir's last work before he died, THE LITTLE THEATER OF JEAN RENOIR was, ironically, made for television, in the form of an anthology consisting of three vignettes--THE LAST CHRISTMAS DINNER, THE ELECTRIC FLOOR POLISHER, and THE VIRTUE OF TOLERANCE--and a song interlude, WHEN LOVE DIES, performed by Jeanne Moreau. As one of the titles suggests, all of the episodes reflect the master's spirit of warmth and generosity, making an implicit plea for the virtue of tolerance, which seems to be more readily available in the quiet of the countryside.

Description:

Jean Renoir's last work before he died, THE LITTLE THEATER OF JEAN RENOIR was, ironically, made for television, in the form of an anthology consisting of three vignettes--THE LAST CHRISTMAS DINNER, THE ELECTRIC FLOOR POLISHER, and THE VIRTUE OF TOLERANCE--and a song interlude, WHEN LOVE DIES, performed by Jeanne Moreau. As one of the titles suggests, all of the episodes reflect the master's spirit of warmth and generosity, making an implicit plea for the virtue of tolerance, which seems to be more readily available in the quiet of the countryside.

Description:

JEAN RENOIR SHORTS consists of two short films: Catherine Hessling stars as The Little Match Girl in Renoir's adapatation by the same name of the Hans Christian Andersen fairy tale. On a snowy night, the girl vainly tries to sell her wares to passers-by. Afraid to return home she sleeps under a plank and dreams of riding on horseback across the sky. In THE CHARLESTON, a black man (Johnny Huggins) in minstrel dressing arrives in Paris in a distant future on a strange flying machine. He's quickly captured and trussed up by a savage maiden (Catherine Hessling), who performs a "primitive dance of courtship," the Charleston.

Description:

In an oeuvre permeated with ambivalence toward bourgeois life, director Jean Renoir speculates on the result of the abandonment of those values in BOUDU SAVED FROM DROWNING. Producer Michel Simon stars as Boudu, a vagabond who attempts suicide by throwing himself into the Seine, grieving over the loss of his dog. But Eduaord Lestingois (Charles Granval), a humane bookseller, rescues him and takes him into his home, hoping to reform the shaggy bum. Shortly thereafter, anarchy reigns as the household is turned upside down by the antics of this large three-year-old. Spitting in first editions, using silken sheets to polish his shoes, sleeping in the hallway, and similar breaches of etiquette do little to endear Boudu to Lestingois. However, once Boudu has had a bath and shave in order to please the maid, Mrs. Lestingois (Marcelle Hainia) becomes surprisingly responsive to his overtures. The maid (Severine Lerczinska), who is Lestingois's mistress, also seems to feel the tramp's mysterious charm. Lestingois, an exemplary bourgeois, now has more than one reason to envy the man he saved from drowning. Among Renoir's finest films, this sharp-eyed take on the paradox of bourgeois liberalism includes stunning photography of Paris in the 1930s and a legendary comic performance by Michel Simon.

Description:

Jean Renoir's charming billet-doux to the commedia dell'arte, THE GOLDEN COACH stars Anna Magnani as Camilla, the magnetic leading actress of a troupe touring colonial Peru in the early 19th century. Three distinguished men vie for her attention. Ramon (Ricardo Rioli), a bullfighter, wishes her to share in his glory. Felipe (Paul Campbell), a young nobleman, wants to have her join him and live among the Indians. Ferdinand (Duncan Lamont) offers a golden coach as proof of his love. How will she choose?

Description:

Jean Renoir's charming billet-doux to the commedia dell'arte, THE GOLDEN COACH stars Anna Magnani as Camilla, the magnetic leading actress of a troupe touring colonial Peru in the early 19th century. Three distinguished men vie for her attention. Ramon (Ricardo Rioli), a bullfighter, wishes her to share in his glory. Felipe (Paul Campbell), a young nobleman, wants to have her join him and live among the Indians. Ferdinand (Duncan Lamont) offers a golden coach as proof of his love. How will she choose?

Description:

Adapted from a Maupassant story, A DAY IN THE COUNTRY is suffused with such an overpowering sense of reality that watching it can make one feel a bit like a voyeur. It stars Sylvia Bataille as Henriette Dufour and Georges Darnoux as Henri. They meet by chance when Henriette's father (Andre Gabriello), a Parisian ironmonger, borrows a cart for a trip into the countyside. He's joined by his wife, Juliette (Jane Marken); his daughter; her fiancé, Anatole (Paul Temps); and his mother-in-law. Stopping at a small riverside restaurant, they are charmed by a pair of local young men: Henri and Rodolphe (Jacques Brunius). The two locals offer to row the women down the river to see more of the countryside while their men rest and go fishing. Rodolphe, who has been lusting after Henriette since he first saw her, now has her in his boat and is prepared for action. Henri, concerned about what might happen to the girl, makes a deft switch, giving Madame Dufour to his friend and taking Henriette in his own boat. The two spend an unforgettable afternoon together. This deceptively simple masterpiece is the director's most lyrical evocation of lost love.

Description:

Adapted from a Maupassant story, A DAY IN THE COUNTRY is suffused with such an overpowering sense of reality that watching it can make one feel a bit like a voyeur. It stars Sylvia Bataille as Henriette Dufour and Georges Darnoux as Henri. They meet by chance when Henriette's father (Andre Gabriello), a Parisian ironmonger, borrows a cart for a trip into the countyside. He's joined by his wife, Juliette (Jane Marken); his daughter; her fiancé, Anatole (Paul Temps); and his mother-in-law. Stopping at a small riverside restaurant, they are charmed by a pair of local young men: Henri and Rodolphe (Jacques Brunius). The two locals offer to row the women down the river to see more of the countryside while their men rest and go fishing. Rodolphe, who has been lusting after Henriette since he first saw her, now has her in his boat and is prepared for action. Henri, concerned about what might happen to the girl, makes a deft switch, giving Madame Dufour to his friend and taking Henriette in his own boat. The two spend an unforgettable afternoon together. This deceptively simple masterpiece is the director's most lyrical evocation of lost love.

Description:

In an oeuvre permeated with ambivalence toward bourgeois life, director Jean Renoir speculates on the result of the abandonment of those values in BOUDU SAVED FROM DROWNING. Producer Michel Simon stars as Boudu, a vagabond who attempts suicide by throwing himself into the Seine, grieving over the loss of his dog. But Eduaord Lestingois (Charles Granval), a humane bookseller, rescues him and takes him into his home, hoping to reform the shaggy bum. Shortly thereafter, anarchy reigns as the household is turned upside down by the antics of this large three-year-old. Spitting in first editions, using silken sheets to polish his shoes, sleeping in the hallway, and similar breaches of etiquette do little to endear Boudu to Lestingois. However, once Boudu has had a bath and shave in order to please the maid, Mrs. Lestingois (Marcelle Hainia) becomes surprisingly responsive to his overtures. The maid (Severine Lerczinska), who is Lestingois's mistress, also seems to feel the tramp's mysterious charm. Lestingois, an exemplary bourgeois, now has more than one reason to envy the man he saved from drowning. Among Renoir's finest films, this sharp-eyed take on the paradox of bourgeois liberalism includes stunning photography of Paris in the 1930s and a legendary comic performance by Michel Simon.

Description:

Starring Jean-Pierre Cassell as the Corporal, THE ELUSIVE CORPORAL is a more farcical treatment of the themes of freedom and solidarity that the director had dealt with in GRAND ILLUSION. Pinned down in a German POW camp, the Corporal makes a series of what seem to be amusingly Sisyphean attempts at escape, interspersed with a brief fling with Erika (Cornelia Froboess), the daughter of his German dentist. Will the ill-starred Corporal break out before the war ends?

Description:

Widely regarded as one of the greatest films ever made, Jean Renoir's masterpiece THE RULES OF THE GAME is a devastating satire of the pre-WWII French aristocracy. Starring Marcel Dalio as wealthy landowner Marquis Robert de la Chesnaye, it charts the shifting relationships among the guests at a weekend hunting party on his vast estate. The guest list includes Robert's mistress Genevieve (Mila Parely), from whom he's trying to part, and Andre Jurieu (Roland Toutain), a famed aviator who is in love with Robert's wife, Christine (Nora Gregor). As they begin a dizzy dance of escape and pursuit, their games are observed and echoed by the servants below the stairs. The gamekeeper Schumacher (Gaston Modot) is trying to keep the poacher, Marceau (Julien Carette), from poaching on his pretty wife, Lisette (Paulette Dubost), unaware that his boss also has his eye on her. The passionate Jurieu, the only guest incapable of the appropriate hypocrisy, finds Christine in an embrace with a random lover (Pierre Nay), and the startled woman decides to leave Robert and go away with the aviator. Renoir's subtle deployment of long tracking shots in multiplanar deep focus reveals the relations of both groups and individuals as he dismantles the rituals of hypocrisy that make this society run smoothly.

Description:

Widely regarded as one of the greatest films ever made, Jean Renoir's masterpiece THE RULES OF THE GAME is a devastating satire of the pre-WWII French aristocracy. Starring Marcel Dalio as wealthy landowner Marquis Robert de la Chesnaye, it charts the shifting relationships among the guests at a weekend hunting party on his vast estate. The guest list includes Robert's mistress Genevieve (Mila Parely), from whom he's trying to part, and Andre Jurieu (Roland Toutain), a famed aviator who is in love with Robert's wife, Christine (Nora Gregor). As they begin a dizzy dance of escape and pursuit, their games are observed and echoed by the servants below the stairs. The gamekeeper Schumacher (Gaston Modot) is trying to keep the poacher, Marceau (Julien Carette), from poaching on his pretty wife, Lisette (Paulette Dubost), unaware that his boss also has his eye on her. The passionate Jurieu, the only guest incapable of the appropriate hypocrisy, finds Christine in an embrace with a random lover (Pierre Nay), and the startled woman decides to leave Robert and go away with the aviator. Renoir's subtle deployment of long tracking shots in multiplanar deep focus reveals the relations of both groups and individuals as he dismantles the rituals of hypocrisy that make this society run smoothly.

Description:

Widely regarded as one of the greatest films ever made, Jean Renoir's masterpiece THE RULES OF THE GAME is a devastating satire of the pre-WWII French aristocracy. Starring Marcel Dalio as wealthy landowner Marquis Robert de la Chesnaye, it charts the shifting relationships among the guests at a weekend hunting party on his vast estate. The guest list includes Robert's mistress Genevieve (Mila Parely), from whom he's trying to part, and Andre Jurieu (Roland Toutain), a famed aviator who is in love with Robert's wife, Christine (Nora Gregor). As they begin a dizzy dance of escape and pursuit, their games are observed and echoed by the servants below the stairs. The gamekeeper Schumacher (Gaston Modot) is trying to keep the poacher, Marceau (Julien Carette), from poaching on his pretty wife, Lisette (Paulette Dubost), unaware that his boss also has his eye on her. The passionate Jurieu, the only guest incapable of the appropriate hypocrisy, finds Christine in an embrace with a random lover (Pierre Nay), and the startled woman decides to leave Robert and go away with the aviator. Renoir's subtle deployment of long tracking shots in multiplanar deep focus reveals the relations of both groups and individuals as he dismantles the rituals of hypocrisy that make this society run smoothly.

Description:

Another project inspired by the success of the brief Popular Front government, LA MARSEILLAISE stars Pierre Renoir as Louis XVI. Told from the point of view of the common people, Jean Renoir's film traces the progress of the French Revolution from the fall of the Bastille to the king's abandonment of his palace in 1792. As news of the storming of the Bastille ripples into the countryside, the peasantry gain the courage to resist injustice. Outlawed by the regime, Jean-Joseph Bomier (Edmond Ardisson) realizes that he may now be able to return to society. Angry that town forts are still commanded by aristocrats, revolutionaries use the Trojan Horse technique to seize the fort at Marseilles. On the Austrian border, the revolutionaries try to raise troops to face the formidable Prussian army outside Paris, and Bomier joins the ragged army as it heads north. While on leave in Paris, he falls in love with Louison (Nadia Sibirskaia), and the couple is able to envision the political satire that widens the gulf between the king and his people. This stirring, realistic film is beautfiully photographed and wonderfully acted.

Description:

Another project inspired by the success of the brief Popular Front government, LA MARSEILLAISE stars Pierre Renoir as Louis XVI. Told from the point of view of the common people, Jean Renoir's film traces the progress of the French Revolution from the fall of the Bastille to the king's abandonment of his palace in 1792. As news of the storming of the Bastille ripples into the countryside, the peasantry gain the courage to resist injustice. Outlawed by the regime, Jean-Joseph Bomier (Edmond Ardisson) realizes that he may now be able to return to society. Angry that town forts are still commanded by aristocrats, revolutionaries use the Trojan Horse technique to seize the fort at Marseilles. On the Austrian border, the revolutionaries try to raise troops to face the formidable Prussian army outside Paris, and Bomier joins the ragged army as it heads north. While on leave in Paris, he falls in love with Louison (Nadia Sibirskaia), and the couple is able to envision the political satire that widens the gulf between the king and his people. This stirring, realistic film is beautfiully photographed and wonderfully acted.

Description:

Calling on his own experiences as an aviator in WWI as well as those of his comrades, Jean Renoir's antiwar masterpiece bids farewell to the class constrictions of European society and calls for the unity of humankind across class and national boundaries. Set in the German prison camps of WWI, the film stars Jean Gabin as Marechal, and Marcel Dalio as Rosenthal. Like the charming aristocrat de Boldieu (Pierre Fresnay), these two French aviators were shot down and now spend most of their time escaping from German prison camps before inevitably being recaptured. Between escapes, they do what they can to amuse themselves, which includes running a talent show, but after a tunnel they've dug is discovered, the three are sent to Wintersborn, a forbidding fortress of a prison, which is commanded by former ace pilot von Rauffenstein (Erich von Stroheim). The humane commandant practices noblesse oblige toward de Boldieu, hoping for an alliance across national lines. But he comes to learn that this phrase has a different meaning for the Frenchman. One of the great films of all time, GRAND ILLUSION perhaps most purely embodies director Jean Renoir's characterstic humanism, manifested less here in camera technique than an instinctive ability to educe truthful performances from his cast.

Description:

A nostalgic dramedy about the origins of the cancan at the storied Moulin Rouge in 1880s Paris, FRENCH CAN-CAN stars Jean Gabin as impresario Henri Danglard. When Nini (Francoise Arnoul), a beautiful laundress, catches his eye, the promoter begins to formulate a plan to build a theater that would feature a more elaborate version of the primitive "cancan" which is begining to stir considerable interest among the haute monde. And, of course, Nini will be the star of this new show. That is, unless her many admirers have anything to say about it.

Description:

A nostalgic dramedy about the origins of the cancan at the storied Moulin Rouge in 1880s Paris, FRENCH CAN-CAN stars Jean Gabin as impresario Henri Danglard. When Nini (Francoise Arnoul), a beautiful laundress, catches his eye, the promoter begins to formulate a plan to build a theater that would feature a more elaborate version of the primitive "cancan" which is begining to stir considerable interest among the haute monde. And, of course, Nini will be the star of this new show. That is, unless her many admirers have anything to say about it.