This classic in the literature of cinema represents the convergence of the three leading figures of French film: Jean Renoir, universally considered the greatest French director Andre Bazin, the outstanding French film critic and theorist and Francois Truffaut, the pioneer of la nouvelle vague. Bazin left this examination of Renoir's films unfinished when he died in 1958 Truffaut collected and edited the essays, and added a comprehensive filmography in which Bazin, Truffaut, Jacques Rivette, Jean-Luc Godard, Eric Rohmer, and other Cahiers du Cinema regulars comment on the films. Here are brilliant insights into the whole of Renoir's oeuvre, from the avant-garde fantasy of La Petite Marchande d'Allumettes, through the epic humanism of Grand Illusion and The Rules of the Game, to the quiet grace of The River and the profound theatricality of The Golden Coach. Bazin shows why Renoir is the critical figure in the development of cinema since the silent era, and how he went beyond montage to give the art new expressive potential. Renoir's work constitutes one of the most fully and beautifully elabourated visions in contemporary art, and nowhere is this humanistic vision better illuminated than in this book.

About the Author
Andre Bazin (1918-1958) was a film critic for Le Parisien Libere, the founder and editor of Cahiers du Cinema, and director of cultural services at the Institut des Hautes Etudes Cinematiques. Considered a father figure by the filmmakers of the "new wave" of French cinema, he wrote dozens of important theoretical and critical essays on film, which are collected in the two volumes of What Is Cinema?


Book Information
ISBN 9780306804656
Author Andre Bazin
Format Paperback
Page Count 320
Imprint Da Capo Press Inc
Publisher Hachette Books
Weight(grams) 448g
Dimensions(mm) 227mm * 155mm * 19mm