Jean Renoir and Poetic Realism
- Renoir was the French filmmaker who developed the style of Poetic Realism, made political films for the communists in Popular Front in France, fled to the U.S. when Hitler invaded France.
- Poetic Realism was pioneered by Jean Vigo in his A Propos de Nice (1930) and his Zero for Conduct (1933).
- Themes of surrealism, obsession with lower-class life, common man in contrast, decor of darkness and doom.
- Boudu Save from Drowning (1932) contrasts the tramp with bourgeois couple.
- The Crime of M. Lange (1935) was a leftist film about the unity of workers in a courtyard.
- People of France (1936) was a political film for the pro-communist Popular Front that "does not tell a story per se but rather makes an argument."
- La Marseillaise (1938) used realistic mise-en-scene of the French Revolution to celebrate the common man.
- La Grande Illusion (1937) praised the human spirit of French POWs in German WWI camps through the 4 characters of the aristocratic officer, the common worker, the German commandant, the Jew, separated by windows, escape to a better world.
- Rules of the Game (1939) used elegant scenery Mozart music, deep space and mobile camera movements to show contrasts, rapid editing and dying rabbits in the hunt sequence, to show ever-changing game of life.
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