Jean Renoir (French:[ʁənwaʁ]; 15 September 1894 – 12 February 1979) was a French film director, screenwriter, actor, producer and author. HisLa Grande Illusion (1937) andThe Rules of the Game (1939) are often cited by critics as among the greatest films ever made.^[1] In 2002, he was ranked fourth on theBFI'sSight & Sound poll of the greatest directors. Among numerous honours accrued during his lifetime, he received a Lifetime AchievementAcademy Award in 1975. Renoir was the son of the painterPierre-Auguste Renoir and the uncle of the cinematographerClaude Renoir. With Claude, he madeThe River (1951), the first color film shot inIndia. A lifelong lover of theater, Renoir turned to the stage forThe Golden Coach (1952) andFrench Cancan (1955). He was one of the first filmmakers to be known as anauteur; the criticPenelope Gilliatt said a Renoir shot could be identified "in a thousand miles of film."^[2][3][4][5]

Jean Renoir
Renoir in 1959
Born	(1894-09-15)15 September 1894 Paris, France
Died	12 February 1979(1979-02-12) (aged 84) Beverly Hills, California, U.S.
Occupation(s)	Film director, screenwriter, actor, producer, author
Years active	1924–1978
Notable work	La Grande Illusion,La règle du jeu,The Southerner,The River,The Golden Coach,French Cancan
Spouses	Catherine Hessling ​ ​ (m. 1920;div. 1943)​ Dido Freire ​ (m. 1944)​
Partner	Marguerite Renoir (1932–1939)
Relatives	Pierre-Auguste Renoir (father) Alain Renoir (Son) Pierre Renoir (brother) Claude Renoir (nephew) Sophie Renoir (grand-niece)

Pauline Kael wrote that "At his greatest, Jean Renoir expresses the beauty in our common humanity—the desires and hopes, the absurdities and follies, that we all, to one degree or another, share."^[6] PerThe New York Times: "The style that ran through Mr. Renoir's films — a mixture of tenderness, irony and Gallic insouciance‐was caught in a famous line from his 1939 masterpiece,The Rules of the Game. It was spoken by Octave, played by the director himself: 'You see, in this world, there is one awful thing, and that is that everyone has his reasons.'”^[5]

Renoir was born in theMontmartre district ofParis,France. He was the second son ofAline (née Charigot) Renoir andPierre-Auguste Renoir, theImpressionist painter. His elder brother wasPierre Renoir, a French stage and film actor, and his younger brother Claude Renoir (1901–1969) had a brief career in the film industry, mostly assisting on a few of Jean's films.^{[citation needed]} Jean Renoir was also the uncle ofClaude Renoir (1913–1993), the son of Pierre, acinematographer who worked with Jean Renoir on several of his films. He recalls that "I discoveredAlexandre Dumas when I was about ten. I am still discovering him."^[7]

Renoir was largely raised byGabrielle Renard, his nanny and his mother's cousin, with whom he developed a strong bond. Shortly before his birth, she had come to live with the Renoir family.^[8] She introduced the young boy to theGuignol puppet shows in Montmartre, which influenced his later film career. He wrote in his 1974 memoirsMy Life and My Films, "She taught me to see the face behind the mask and the fraud behind the flourishes. She taught me to detest the cliché."^[9] Gabrielle was also fascinated by the newearly motion pictures, and when Renoir was only a few years old she took him to see his first film.

As a child, Renoir moved to the south of France with his family. He and the rest of the Renoir family were the subjects of many of his father's paintings. His father's financial success ensured that the young Renoir was educated at fashionableboarding schools, from which, as he later wrote, he frequently ran away.^[10]

At the outbreak ofWorld War I, Renoir was serving in the French cavalry. Later, after receiving a bullet in his leg, he served as areconnaissance pilot.^[11] His leg injury left him with a permanent limp, but allowed him to develop his interest in the cinema, since he recuperated with his leg elevated while watching films, including the works ofCharlie Chaplin,D.W. Griffith and others.^[12][13] After the war, Renoir followed his father's suggestion and tried makingceramic art, but he soon set that aside to make films in the attempt, he would later claim, to make his wife, Hessling, a star.^[14] He was particularly inspired byErich von Stroheim's work.^[15][16]

In 1924, Renoir directedUne Vie Sans Joie orCatherine, the first of his nine silent films, most of which starred his first wife,Catherine Hessling, who was also his father's last model.^[17] At this stage, his films did not produce a return. Renoir gradually sold paintings inherited from his father to finance them.^[18]

During the 1930s Renoir enjoyed great success as a filmmaker. In 1931 he directed his firstsound films,On purge bébé (Baby's Laxative) andLa Chienne (The Bitch).^[19] The following year he madeBoudu Saved from Drowning (Boudu sauvé des eaux), a farcical sendup of the pretensions of a middle-class bookseller and his family, who meet with comic, and ultimately disastrous, results when they attempt to reform a vagrant played byMichel Simon.^[20] In 1934, he filmed an adaptation ofGustave Flaubert'sMadame Bovary (1857). His 1935 filmToni, shot on locations with a nonprofessional cast, was later an influence on theFrench New Wave.^[5]

By the middle of the decade, Renoir was associated with thePopular Front. Several of his films, such asThe Crime of Monsieur Lange (Le Crime de Monsieur Lange, 1935),Life Belongs to Us (1936) andLa Marseillaise (1938), reflect the movement's politics.^[21][22]

In 1937, he madeLa Grande Illusion, one of his best-known films, starringErich von Stroheim andJean Gabin. A film on the theme of brotherhood, relating a series of escape attempts by FrenchPOWs during World War I, it was enormously successful. It was banned in Germany, and later in Italy, after having won the Best Artistic Ensemble award at theVenice Film Festival.^[23] It was the first foreign language film to receive a nomination for theAcademy Award for Best Picture. In 1938, the Nazis disrupted a showing ofLa Grande Illusion. Renoir reflected, "This is a story that fills me with real pride."^[5]

He followed it withThe Human Beast (La Bête Humaine) (1938), afilm noir andtragedy based on the novel byÉmile Zola and starring Gabin andSimone Simon. It too was a success.^[24]

In 1939, able to co-finance his own films,^[25] Renoir madeThe Rules of the Game (La Règle du Jeu), asatire on contemporary French society with an ensemble cast.^[26] Renoir played the character Octave, who serves to connect characters from different social strata.^[27] The film was his greatest commercial failure,^[28] met with derision by Parisian audiences at its premiere. He extensively reedited the work, but without success at the time.^[29]

A few weeks after the outbreak ofWorld War II, the film was banned by the government. Renoir was a known pacifist and supporter of theFrench Communist Party, which made him suspect in the tense weeks before the war began.^[30] The ban was lifted briefly in 1940, but after the fall of France that June, it was banned again.^[31] Subsequently, the original negative of the film was destroyed in anAllied bombing raid.^[31] It was not until the 1950s that French film enthusiasts Jean Gaborit and Jacques Durand, with Renoir's cooperation, reconstructed a near-complete print of the film.^[32][33] Since that time,The Rules of the Game has been reappraised and has frequently appeared near the top of critics' polls ofthe best films ever made.^[34][35]

A week after the disastrous premiere ofThe Rules of the Game in July 1939, Renoir went to Rome withKarl Koch and Dido Freire, subsequently his second wife, to work on the script for a film version ofTosca.^[36][37] At the age of 45, he became a lieutenant in the French Army Film Service. He was sent back to Italy, to teach film at theCentro Sperimentale di Cinematografia in Rome, and resume work onTosca.^[36][38][39] TheFrench government hoped this cultural exchange would help maintain friendly relations with Italy, which had not yet entered the war.^[36][38][40] He abandoned the project to return to France and make himself available for military service in August 1939.^[41][42][43]

After Germany invaded France in May 1940, Renoir fled to the United States with Dido Freire.^[44][45] "Dido and I travelled by sea from Marseilles to Algeria, Morocco and Lisbon... At Lisbon we got places on an American ship, and I was delighted to find myself sharing a cabin with none other than the writer Saint-Exupéry."^[46] InHollywood, Renoir had difficulty finding projects that suited him.^[47] His first American film,Swamp Water (1941), was a drama starringDana Andrews andWalter Brennan. He co-produced and directed an anti-Nazi film set in France,This Land Is Mine (1943), starringMaureen O'Hara andCharles Laughton.^[48][49]The Southerner (1945) is a film aboutTexassharecroppers that is often regarded as his best American film. He was nominated for anAcademy Award for Directing for this work.^[50][51][52]

Diary of a Chambermaid (1946) is an adaptation of theOctave Mirbeau novel,Le Journal d'une femme de chambre, starringPaulette Goddard andBurgess Meredith.^[53][54] HisThe Woman on the Beach (1947), starringJoan Bennett andRobert Ryan, was heavily reshot and reedited after it fared poorly among preview audiences in California.^[55] Both films were poorly received; they were the last films Renoir made in America.^[56][57][58] At this time, Renoir became anaturalized citizen of the United States.^[59]

In 1949 Renoir traveled to India to shootThe River (1951), his first color film.^[60] Based on the novel of the same name byRumer Godden, the film is both a meditation on human beings' relationship with nature and acoming of age story of three young girls incolonial India.^[61] The film won the International Prize at theVenice Film Festival in 1951.^[62]

After returning to work in Europe, Renoir made a trilogy of colormusical comedies on the subjects of theater, politics and commerce:Le Carrosse d'or (The Golden Coach, 1953) withAnna Magnani;French Cancan (1954) withJean Gabin andMaría Félix; andEléna et les hommes (Elena and Her Men, 1956) withIngrid Bergman andJean Marais.^[63] During the same period Renoir producedClifford Odets' playThe Big Knife in Paris. He also wrote his own play,Orvet, and produced it in Paris featuringLeslie Caron.^[64][65]

Renoir made his next films with techniques adapted from live television.^[66]Le Déjeuner sur l'herbe (Picnic on the Grass, 1959), starring Paul Meurisse andCatherine Rouvel, was filmed on the grounds of Pierre-Auguste Renoir's home inCagnes-sur-Mer, andLe Testament du docteur Cordelier (The Testament of Doctor Cordelier, also 1959), starringJean-Louis Barrault, was made in the streets of Paris and its suburbs.^[67][68]

Renoir's penultimate film,Le Caporal épinglé (The Elusive Corporal, 1962), withJean-Pierre Cassel andClaude Brasseur,^[69] is set among French POWs during their internment in labor camps by the Nazis during World War II. The film explores the twin human needs for freedom, on the one hand, and emotional and economic security, on the other.^[70][71]

Renoir's loving memoir of his father,Renoir, My Father (1962) describes the profound influence his father had on him and his work.^[72] As funds for his film projects were becoming harder to obtain, Renoir continued to write screenplays for income. He published a novel,The Notebooks of Captain Georges, in 1966.^[73][74]Captain Georges is the nostalgic account of a wealthy young man's sentimental education and love for apeasant girl, a theme also explored earlier in his filmsDiary of a Chambermaid andPicnic on the Grass.^[75]

Renoir's last film isLe Petit théâtre de Jean Renoir (The Little Theatre of Jean Renoir), released in 1970.^[76] It is a series of three short films made in a variety of styles. It is, in many ways, one of his most challenging, avant-garde and unconventional works.^[77][78]

Unable to obtain financing for his films and suffering declining health, Renoir spent his last years receiving friends at his home in Beverly Hills, and writing novels and his memoirs.^[79]

In 1973 Renoir was preparing a production of his stage play,Carola, withLeslie Caron andMel Ferrer when he fell ill and was unable to direct. The producerNorman Lloyd, a friend and actor inThe Southerner, took over the direction of the play. It was broadcast in the series programHollywood Television Theater on WNET, Channel 13, New York on 3 February 1973.^[80]

Renoir's memoir,My Life and My Films, was published in 1974. He wrote of the influence exercised byGabrielle Renard, his nanny and his mother's cousin, with whom he developed a mutual lifelong bond. He concluded his memoirs with the words he had often spoken as a child, "Wait for me, Gabrielle."^[81]

In 1975 Renoir received a lifetimeAcademy Award for his contribution to the motion picture industry. That same year a retrospective of his work was shown at theNational Film Theatre in London.^[82] Also in 1975, the government of France elevated him to the rank of commander in theLégion d'honneur.^[83]

Renoir was married toCatherine Hessling, an actress and model. After many years, they divorced. His second wife was Dido Freire.

Renoir's sonAlain Renoir (1921–2008) became a professor of English andcomparative literature at theUniversity of California, Berkeley and a scholar ofmedieval English literature.^[84]

Jean Renoir died inBeverly Hills, California, on 12 February 1979 of aheart attack.^[85] His body was returned to France and buried beside his family in the cemetery atEssoyes, France.^[86]

On his death, fellow director and friendOrson Welles wrote "Jean Renoir: The Greatest of All Directors" in theLos Angeles Times.^[88] Renoir's films have influenced many other directors, includingÉric Rohmer,^[89]Jean-Marie Straub and Danièle Huillet,^[90]Peter Bogdanovich,^[91]François Truffaut,^[92]Robert Altman,^[93]Errol Morris^[94]Martin Scorsese^[95] andMike Leigh.^[96] Truffaut named his production company "Les Films du Carrosse" after Renoir'sThe Golden Coach (La Carrosse d'Or).^[87] Four of Renoir's crew members,Satyajit Ray,^[97]Luchino Visconti,^[98]Robert Aldrich^[99] andJacques Becker,^{[100][101][102][103]} would go on to become highly acclaimed directors in their own right. He was an influence on theFrench New Wave, and his memoir is dedicated "to those film-makers who are known to the public as the 'New Wave' and whose preoccupations are mine."^[104] Altman said "I learned the rules of the game fromThe Rules of the Game."^[105]

Renoir has a star on theHollywood Walk of Fame at 6212 Hollywood Blvd.^[106] Several of his ceramics were collected byAlbert Barnes, who was a major patron and collector of Renoir's father. These can be found on display beneathPierre-Auguste Renoir's paintings at theBarnes Foundation in Philadelphia.^[107]

According toDavid Thomson, Renoir was "the model of humanist cinema, an informal genre that includedFrank Capra,Vittorio De Sica,Satyajit Ray,Yasujirō Ozu or evenCharlie Chaplin."^[108] InThe New Biographical Dictionary of Film, he writes: "Renoir asks us to see the variety and muddle of life without settling for one interpretation. He is the greatest of directors, he justifies cinema ... InRenoir, My Father and in his own autobiography,My Life and My Films, Jean clearly adopts his father's wish to float on life like a cork. That same stream carries Boudu away to freedom, wrinkles with pain at the end ofPartie de campagne, overflows and engenders precarious existence inThe Southerner, and is meaning itself inThe River:

The river runs, the round world spins

Dawn and lamplight, midnight, noon.

Sun follows day, night stars and moon.

The day ends, the end begins."^[109]

• Chevalier de Légion d'honneur, 1936^[110]
• Selznick Golden Laurel Award for lifetime work, Brazilian Film Festival, Rio de Janeiro, 1958^[111]
• Prix Charles Blanc, Académie française, forRenoir, My Father, biography of father, 1963^[112]
• Honorary Doctorate in Fine Arts, University of California, Berkeley, 1963^[113]
• Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, 1964^[113]
• Osella d'Oro as a master of the cinema, Venice Festival, 1968^[114]
• Honorary Doctorate of Fine Arts, Royal College of Art, London, 1971^[80]
• Honorary Academy Award for Career Accomplishment, 1974^[52]
• Special Award,National Society of Film Critics, 1975^[115]
• Commandeur de la Légion d'honneur, 1975^[83]
• Prix Goncourt de la Biographie, 2013

• 1936:La vie est à nous (Life Belongs to Us, as leader of collective of directors, also acted)
• 1940:L'or du Cristobal (Cristobal's Gold, dialogue)

• 1955:Orvet, Paris: Gallimard, play.
• 1960:Carola, play. Reworked as a screenplay and published in "L'Avant-Scène du Théâtre" no. 597, 1 November 1976.
• 1962:Renoir, Paris: Hachette (Renoir, My Father), biography.
• 1966:Les Cahiers du Capitaine Georges, Paris: Gallimard (The Notebooks of Captain Georges), novel.
• 1974:Ma Vie et mes Films, Paris: Flammarion (My Life and My Films), autobiography.
• 1974:Écrits 1926–1971 (Claude Gauteur, ed.), Paris: Pierre Belfond, writings.
• 1978:Le Coeur à l'aise, Paris: Flammarion, novel.
• 1978Julienne et son amour; suivi d'En avant Rosalie!, Paris: Henri Veyrier, screenplays.
• 1979:Le crime de l'Anglais, Paris: Flammarion, novel.
• 1980:Geneviève, Paris: Flammarion, novel.

• 1979:Jean Renoir: Entretiens et propos (Jean Narboni, ed.), Paris: Éditions de l'étoile/Cahiers du Cinéma, interviews and remarks.
• 1981:Œuvres de cinéma inédités (Claude Gauteur, ed.), Paris: Gallimard, synopses and treatments.
• 1984:Lettres d'Amérique (Dido Renoir & Alexander Sesonske, eds.), Paris: Presses de la RenaissanceISBN 2-85616-287-8, correspondence.
• 1989:Renoir on Renoir: Interviews, Essays, and Remarks (Carol Volk, tr.), Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
• 1994:Jean Renoir: Letters (David Thompson and Lorraine LoBianco, eds.), London: Faber & Faber, correspondence.
• 2005:Jean Renoir: Interviews (Bert Cardullo, ed.), Jackson, MS: Mississippi University Press, interviews.

• Calais, Séverine.Catalogue des personnages de l'œuvre filmique de Jean Renoir(PDF) (in French). Université de Nancy 2.THESE Pour obtenir le grade de Docteur d'Université de Nancy 2 Doctorat nouveau régime Discipline Sciences de l'Information et de la Communication

Papers

• Jean Renoir Papers UCLA Library Special Collections
• Jean Renoir: A Bibliography of Materials in theMedia Resources Center,University of California at Berkeley Library.
• Jean Renoir Interview conducted in 1960 with Columbia University's Oral History Research Office.
• Je m'appelle Jean Renoir at the University of Nancy 2, France. (In French)
• Faulkner, Christopher. "An Archive of the (Political) Unconscious "Canadian Journal of Communication [Online], 26 1 January 2001 — analysis of Renoir's FBI files.

Metadata

• https://catalog.afi.com/Catalog/PersonDetails/80577
• [1]
• https://www.tcm.com/tcmdb/person/160204%7C80577/Jean-Renoir
• https://www.allmovie.com/artist/jean-renoir-vn15555041
• https://www.rottentomatoes.com/celebrity/jean_renoir
• Jean Renoir atFind a Grave
• Jean Renoir atIMDb