Blackwell Reference Online

Extract

Late in 1937, buoyed by the unprecedented international acclaim that La Grande Illusion was just then garnering, Jean Renoir was planning La Bête humaine , while putting La Marseillaise in the can. The press brimmed with enthusiasm, for in the first case he promised to deliver a classic but torrid novel written by Zola, whom he could claim as practically a family acquaintance; and, in the second, he had put himself more humbly at the service of a patriotic venture which would at once celebrate the 150th anniversary of the storming of the Bastille and fan enthusiasm for the beleaguered government of a beleaguered nation. These were national, nearly civic projects, and anticipation bubbled over, as the many stories and interviews in the papers attest. I link this pair of films to stand between the twin giants that flanked them in 1937 and 1939 ( La Grande Illusion and La Règle du jeu ) since both of those came from original scripts. When asked by reporters to characterize and promote his work, Renoir's rhetorical task had to differ from one pair to the next. Rather than give his prospective audience a tantalizing preview of a plot, characters, and themes born of his imagination, with La Bête humaine and La Marseillaise he could bank on their keen knowledge; and so he took care to justify his particular access to these public treasures and explain how he would exploit them. ... log in or subscribe to read full text