Jean Renoir

Jean Renoir (September 15, 1894 – February 12, 1979), born in the Montmartre Quarter of Paris, France was a film director.

Life and work

When Jean Renoir was a child he moved with his family to the south of France. He and the rest of the Renoir family were the subject of many of his father's paintings. As a young man, his father's financial success ensured that Jean was educated at the best of schools. However, his education was interrupted when World War I broke out and he joined the army, serving first as a cavalryman and later as a pilot. He was injured in action, which left him with a permanent limp. After the War, Jean Renoir worked as a ceramic artist but soon became fascinated by the developments in motion pictures, particularly by the works of D. W. Griffith and Charlie Chaplin, whom he knew for several years only by his French name, Charlot.

Related Topics:
World War I - D. W. Griffith - Charlie Chaplin

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In 1925, Renoir directed the first of several silent films, most of which starred his first wife, Catherine Hessling. Associated with the Popular Front in the mid thirties, several films such as "Le Crime de Monsieur Lange" reflected the movement's politics. In 1937 he directed what many see as his first masterpiece, "La Grande Illusion." This film was banned as French propaganda in Germany by the Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels. It was also later banned in Italy by Mussolini after having won the "Best Artistic Ensemble" award at the Venice Film Festival. This was followed by another cinematic success: "La Bête Humaine" (The Human Beast), a film based on the novel by Emile Zola and starring the immensely popular Jean Gabin.

Related Topics:
Le Crime de Monsieur Lange - La Grande Illusion - Germany - Nazi - Joseph Goebbels - Italy - Mussolini - Venice Film Festival - La Bête Humaine - Emile Zola - Jean Gabin

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In 1939, Renoir directed "La Règle du Jeu" (The Rules of the Game), a tragi-comedy about the decadence of upper-class French society. Renoir himself acted in the film in the character of the mercurial Octave. The film was initially judged to be too gloomy and was greeted with derision by a Parisian crowd on its premiere; the French government banned it. In the light of the events of the Second World War, however, the violence and amorality of French ruling classes depicted in the film have given it a prescience and power that its first audiences perhaps chose not to see. In later decades it came to be recognized as one of the greatest films of all time.

Related Topics:
1939 - La Règle du Jeu - Greatest films of all time

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When World War II came, the 45-year-old Renoir joined the Film Service of the French army. With the German invasion and Occupation in 1941, he fled France to the safety of the United States where he worked in the film industry in Hollywood, California. In 1943, he produced and directed an anti-Nazi propaganda film: "This Land Is Mine," starring Maureen O'Hara and Charles Laughton. Two years later he made "The Southerner," a film regarded as his best work in America and one for which he was nominated for an Academy Award for Directing. In 1946, Renoir became a naturalized citizen of the United States.

Related Topics:
World War II - United States - Hollywood, California - Maureen O'Hara - Charles Laughton - Academy Award for Directing - 1946 - Naturalized citizen

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In 1962, Jean Renoir wrote a biography titled: Renoir, My Father. In 1975 he received an Academy Award for his lifetime contribution to the motion picture industry and that same year a retrospective of his work was shown at the National Film Theatre in London. In 1977, the government of France awarded him with the Legion of Honor. His life story titled My Life and My Films was published in 1974. In it, he talks about the profound influence of Gabrielle Renard, the woman seen here in the portrait by his father. Renard was a cousin of his mother and the family nanny who helped raised Jean from birth and who introduced him to the world of the cinema.

Related Topics:
Academy Award - London - Legion of Honor - My Life and My Films - Gabrielle Renard

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Jean Renoir died in Beverly Hills, California on February 12, 1979. His body was returned to France to be buried beside his family in the cemetery at Essoyes, Aube, France.

Related Topics:
Beverly Hills, California - February 12 - 1979 - Essoyes - Aube - France

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Jean Renoir has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6212 Hollywood Blvd.

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