Jean Renoir by Pascal Merigeau

Author:Pascal Merigeau
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Running Press
Published: 2017-01-03T05:00:00+00:00

26

Endgame

The Diary of a Chambermaid

The Woman on the Beach

In August 1945, the old studios on Romaine Street were filled with echoes heralding the impending end of the war. Taking advantage of a short break, Renoir described the atmosphere for Paul Cézanne: “I’m writing you from the studio, and while my thoughts are with you and yours, my ears are ringing with sound flooding from the radio giving us the latest war news. The workers have set up a radio on the set, and whenever they have the chance, they crowd around it to listen, hoping for good news. Most of them have children or brothers who are fighting far away, and the hope for the imminent return of those dear to them is making everyone, including me, rather nervous.”1

During the final weeks of 1944, contact with Europe had been partly reestablished, but it could sometimes take several months for communications to make it across the Atlantic, and at first Renoir received little more than a few telegrams and postcards. He complained about it in a letter to his brother Claude, in which he also told about his projects that included “a film on the Resistance fighters,” for which he wanted Claude to serve as technical adviser, which would entail his coming to Los Angeles. He also mentioned an adaptation of the Conrad novel Under Western Eyes, which he’d been considering since 1943 as a “subject for Charles Boyer and Dudley Nichols,”*2 as well as the most developed of the three ideas, The Diary of a Chambermaid.3

One of the first letters that reached Renoir from France was from Claude, who was asking “permission to use the Roméo et Juliette you worked on with Lestringuez (the story of the heirs of a former actor who must perform Romeo and Juliet to receive their inheritance).” However, the bulk of the letter was news about France, tainted with enough bitterness to dissuade Renoir from returning there—that is, if the idea had ever crossed his mind. In his letter, Claude created the following picture of the state of French cinema: “I was wrong to join the Resistance instead of doing business with the Germans the way our pals did, because, in the end, the purge didn’t last long, and the producers are the same people they were during the Occupation, meaning they were accepted by the Germans, and the members of the Resistance are barred.” This was followed by a remark about Jean’s former assistant, who was also one of his dearest friends, but whom Claude had already told his brother had “become an unapproachable pontiff.”4 “As you know, Jacques Becker is the great French director. He deserves it, but his producers are bankrupt, and that includes Desfontaines.”*5

It’s difficult to imagine a delayed kick in the pants more magnificent than that one. On two occasions Jean Renoir expressed his feelings about Becker’s work. In a letter to his brother Pierre, he claimed to have “really liked” Goupi Mains rouges [It Happened at the Inn] and

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.