“REVOLUTION À LA RENOIR”

By Raymond Benson

French filmmaker Jean Renoir, son of the famous Impressionist painter Auguste Renoir, is often cited as not only France’s greatest director of all time, but he also frequently appears on lists of most important international names as well. This reputation is well deserved, especially for his work in the 1930s, which included Grand Illusion (1937) and The Rules of the Game (1939).

One of his lesser-known pieces from this period, La Marseillaise, has been restored and released in high definition by Kino Classics, and it is a cause to re-evaluate this benchmark picture.

La Marseillaise is an epic period costume drama (but with plenty of comic vignettes) about the beginnings of the French Revolution, and it sports a broad canvas of many characters and locations. Coming off of the success of Grand Illusion, the picture had a fairly large budget and no less than five cinematographers. The movie runs 132 minutes, but it feels longer due to Renoir’s sometimes episodic and lengthy takes. That doesn’t mean the movie is boring. It just takes a bit of work on the viewer’s part to get through it, for which there is just reward.

The story moves across various settings, from King Louis XVI’s palace (he is played with great vigor by Renoir’s older brother, Pierre Renoir), where Louis and Marie-Antoinette (Lise Delamare de la Comédie Français) cavort in all the bourgeois trappings that eventually got them executed. Most of the tale, though, focuses on the peasants, the countrymen, and the revolutionaries who brought about one of the most significant events in human history. If there are any protagonists of the picture, they are the ordinary citizens-turned-adventurers who drive the plot.

Of course, the song, “La Marseillaise,” the French national anthem, originated during these times and figures prominently in a key scene during a march to battle. This is a masterful sequence that illustrates Renoir’s gifts of dramatically using history, patriotism, and politics to make a point.

Kino Classics’ restoration is remarkably good, given the age and rarity of the movie. It comes with an audio commentary by film critic Nick Pinkerton. A short archival interview with Renoir from the 1960s about the film is a welcome supplement, but of particular interest is the excellent essay by Yale film scholar Dudley Andrew in the enclosed booklet.

For fans of Jean Renoir, European history, and 1930s international filmmaking, La Marseillaise is a grand soufflé.

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