Jean Renoir is one of the greatest masters of the art of cinema. This autobiographical work traces his life from his childhood in France to his later years in Beverly Hills, not in the conventional sense, but rather through the world of film. This is fitting since the world of film was truly Jean Renoir's world.Jean Renoir, middle son of Pierre-Auguste Renoir, made his first public debut quite early, albeit quite reluctantly, as the little boy with the long, golden curls who figures so prominently in many of his famous father's paintings.
Jean Renoir's early life, in later 19th century France, was dominated by two people--his father and Gabrielle Renard, his maternal cousin, who was to become his nanny and later, his dearest friend. While it was Auguste Renoir who introduced Jean to the world of art, it was Gabrielle who led him to the cinema. Jean, himself, says, "To her I owe Guignol and the Theatre Montmarte. She taught me to realize that the very unreality of those entertainments was a reason for examining real life. She taught me to see the face behind the masks and the fraud behind the flourishes."
Jean Renoir begins and ends this book with Gabrielle Renard, and, along the way, he examines and reveals the profound influence this marvelous woman exerted over him. In characteristic fashion Jean writes more about others than about himself. He lets us peer into the lives of the actors, technicians and producers with whom he worked, in places as diverse as Paris, Hollywood and even India. And, also characteristic of Jean, the unknown often play a role as large or larger than do the very famous.
While most of Jean Renoir's personal life remains unrevealed (this is definitely not a vapid, "tell all" tale!), he does tell us how and why he became a filmmaker and he goes to great lengths when explaining the relationship between film and life. From the depths of his dazzling imagination, Jean Renoir created nearly forty films, films that Francois Truffaut called, "the most alive films in the history of cinema." Two of these films, Grand Illusion and The Rules of the Game, are often thought of as Jean Renoir's masterpieces.
But other films also live on, including The River, the lyrically beautiful film Jean Renoir made in India, and The Southerner, a poetic tale in which all the characters are heroic, in which every element plays its part and all come together in an act of homage to divinity.
This book should be required reading for all students of film everywhere for, as Garson Kanin said of Jean Renoir, "In the world he inhabits he is known as the best of men. In the cinema universe he is a living god."
Everyone, I believe, film student or just a lover of film, can find something to love in My Life and My Films, for Jean Renoir was a man of immense and daring imagination and creativity; he was both simple in outlook yet profound, but above all, he was a lover of humanity, one whose heart and spirit were always as generous as they were wise.
