Word: renoirs
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...LONG TIME I hesitated to bring to the screen a story of the days of the French Revolution," wrote Jean Renoir. "Such a mass of stupidities concerning that period had accumulated, the men of the times and the ideals they held had been so distorted, that I imagined I stood before some sort of heroic mummery, before howling marionettes, decked out in tinsel--and not before men. Now, in studying in Revolution, one must realize that it was made by normal, intelligent, and congenial men. The astonishing thing about these men, perhaps, is their simplicity. I hope that the public...
Every moment of Renoir's La Marseillaise shows the idiosyncracies of the men of the Revolution, the variety of their personalities. From the beginning the plot and the Revolution are advanced by the actions of specific characters. Not only on a script level, but more vitally in Renoir's formal style, so the actions of each man make the Revolution: breathtaking camera tracks sum up their actions into a single forward motion, and the characters are thereby swept into the world of the film, the historical movement that was the French Revolution...
This extraordinary incorporation of individual into collective motion propels the film forward. We are inevitably carried from the Revolution's beginnings in the Midi to the storming of Versailles, a span of several years and several hundred miles. That Renoir can make a film of this scope which scarcely slackens its pace, while sticking closely to the passions and actions of single men, proves (if proof were necessary) his genius...
...lodge perfectly establishes the decadence and staticity of their lives. The scene showing them is diverse in character and conduct; the variety of the aristocrats' feelings and actions is the substance of their social actions. But their entire milieu is doomed, simply because it does not move. Set against Renoir's virile shots of the revolutionaries, simple and full of strong light-dark contrast, the over-refined nobles stand no chance...
...understanding of the milieu (characters and setting) has been amazing enlarged. The end of Toni repeats the first shot and it is frightening. Filled with an incredibly strong feeling of the world of film--a feeling almost of aesthetic passion--we are unable to act. This closed world, Renoir's creation, is fixed...