Francois Truffaut called him, simply, "the best". Jean Renoir is a towering figure in world cinema and fully justifies this monumental survey that includes contributions from leading international film scholars and comprehensively analyzes Renoir's life and career from numerous critical perspectives. - New and original research by the world's leading English and French language Renoir scholars explores stylistic, cultural and ideological aspects of Renoir's films as well as key biographical periods - Thematic structure admits a range of critical methodologies, from textual analysis to archival research, cultural studies, gender-based and philosophical approaches - Features detailed analysis of Renoir's essential works - Provides an international perspective on this key auteur's enduring significance in world film history

Table of Contents

• Notes on Contributors
• Acknowledgments
• Notes on the Text
• Introduction: Renoir In and Out of His Time - Alastair Phillips and Ginette Vincendeau
• Part I Renoir in Close-Up
• Section 1 Reassessing Renoir's Aesthetics
• 1 Shooting in Deep Time: The Mise en Scène of History in Renoir's Films of the 1930s - Martin O'Shaughnessy
• 2 The Exception and the Norm: Relocating Renoir's Sound and Music - Charles O'Brien
• 3 The Invention of French Talking Cinema: Language in Renoir's Early Sound Films - Michel Marie
• 4 Renoir and His Actors: The Freedom of Puppets - Christophe Damour
• 5 Design at Work: Renoir's Costume Dramas of the 1950s - Susan Hayward
• Section 2 Critical Focus on Selected Films
• 6 Sur un air de Charleston, Nana, La Petite Marchande d'allumettes, Tire au flanc: Renoir and the Ethics of Play - Anne M. Kern
• 7 La Grande Illusion: Sound, Silence, and the Displacement of Emotion - Valerie Orpen
• 8 La Bête humaine: Double Murder at the Station at Le Havre - Olivier Curchod
• 9 La Règle du jeu: Lies, Truth, and Irresolution (A Critical Round Table) - Christopher Faulkner, Martin O'Shaughnessy, and V. F. Perkins
• 10 The River: Beneath the Surface with André Bazin - Prakash Younger
• Part II Renoir: The Wider View
• Section 1 Renoir's Filmmaking and the Arts
• 11 Seeing with His Own Eyes: Renoir and Photography - Alastair Phillips
• 12 Popular Songs in Renoir's Films of the 1930s - Kelley Conway
• 13 Renoir and the Popular Theater of His Time - Geneviève Sellier
• 14 Theatricality and Spectacle in La Règle du jeu, Le Carrosse d'or, and Éléna et les hommes - Thomas Elsaesser
• 15 French Cancan: A Song and Dance about Women - Ginette Vincendeau
• 16 Social Roles/Political Responsibilities: The Evolving Figure of the Artist in Renoir's Films, 1928-1939 - Charles Musser
• Section 2 Renoir's Place in the Critical Canon
• 17 Seeing through Renoir, Seen through Bazin - Dudley Andrew
• 18 Henri Agel's Cinema of Contemplation: Renoir and Philosophy - Sarah Cooper
• 19 Renoir and the French Communist Party: The Grand Disillusion - Laurent Marie
• 20 “Better than a Masterpiece”: Revisiting the Reception of La Règle du jeu - Claude Gauteur
• 21 Renoir and the French New Wave - Richard Neupert
• 22 Renoir between the Public, the Professors, and the Polls - Ian Christie
• Part III Renoir, a National and a Transnational Figure
• Section 1 Renoir, the Chronicler of French Society
• 23 Renoir under the Popular Front: Aesthetics, Politics, and the Paradoxes of Engagement - Brett Bowles
• 24 The Performance of History in La Marseillaise - Tom Brown
• 25 Toni: A Regional Melodrama of Failed Masculinity - Keith Reader
• 26 La Règle du jeu: A Document of French Everyday Life - Christopher Faulkner
• 27 Renoir's Jews in Context - Maureen Turim
• Section 2 Renoir, the Transnational Figure
• 28 Renoir's War - Julian Jackson
• 29 Interconnected Sites of Struggle: Resituating Renoir's Career in Hollywood - Elizabeth Vitanza
• 30 The Southerner: Touching Relationships - Edward Gallafent
• 31 The Woman on the Beach: Renoir's Dark Lady - Jean-Loup Bourget
• 32 Remaking Renoir in Hollywood - Lucy Mazdon
• Filmography
• Select Bibliography