skuhn8 wrote:I definitely would like to save you the bother of trying to get into him via the flaccid entry called La Marseillaise (I'm trying to be generous but GODDAMN did this movie kill me). If his other mid- late- thirties work like Grand Illusion, Lower Depths, Rules of the Game, Partie de Campaigne, Bete Humaine don't pull you in I don't think any of his stuff will.
The reason I suggest La Marseillaise is precisely because it is unlike most of the rest of Renoir's 1930s work. It's not like Toni per se, but the fact that MK has expressed a "contrarian" viewpoint (for lack of a better word) means that he might make more of La Marseillaise than most Renoir fans normally do.HerrSchreck wrote:La Marsellaise is good imho, but is subpar versus Regle, Illusion, Lange, Bete Humaine, etc. I honestly don't know where Scorsese is coming from in his huge admiration for the film-- if I recall correct he called it in his opinion the greatest historical film ever made(!). It's a good film, but suffers from some serious klunkiness at times. And those wigs! Even Coco couldn't rescue that with rampant solid costumery.
BTW, I happen to like La Marseillaise a lot. I wouldn't go quite as far as Scorsese does, but I think it's a remarkable film. In a sense, it's "contrarian" too: a non-sweeping non-epic, history from a snail's-eye perspective, etc. If I wanted to go a bit further, I might even suggest that it points ahead to the work of Peter Watkins, though in very nebulous form (e.g., no direct interaction between the actors and the camera). But Renoir is most definitely attempting to deflate the conception of history as a grand narrative created by great men. Rather, it's extremely messy, ambiguous, collectively shaped, and entirely conditional -- like the film itself.
If nothing else, the Lionsgate set, which isn't that expensive of an investment, gives a viewer an easy chance to jump around Renoir's career.
