{"id":5740,"date":"2013-04-16T07:44:11","date_gmt":"2013-04-16T14:44:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/forallevents.com\/reviews\/?p=5740"},"modified":"2013-04-16T07:45:42","modified_gmt":"2013-04-16T14:45:42","slug":"renoir-film-review","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/forallevents.com\/reviews\/renoir-film-review\/","title":{"rendered":"Renoir — Film Review"},"content":{"rendered":"

Renoir<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Directed by Gilles Bourdos<\/p>\n

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This is an outstanding dramatization of the French painter Pierre-August Renoir (1841-1919) (Michel Bouquet) in his later years.\u00a0 (In French with subtitles.)\u00a0 It takes place in 1915 during the First World War.\u00a0 At the time Renoir lived on a farm in Cagnes near the Mediterranean coast above Nice.\u00a0 He seems to have had an entourage of women around him who took care of the household and attended to him.\u00a0 The film never explained exactly who they were or what their relationships were to him.\u00a0 Some of them seem to have been former models.\u00a0 His wife of 25 years, Aline, died prior to the time of the film, which would have been recently.\u00a0 He had three sons with Aline, two of whom figure prominently in the film, Jean (Vincent Rottiers), the older, and Claude (Thomas Doret), the younger.<\/p>\n

The film begins with the arrival of Andree Heuschling (Christa Theret), a.k.a. Catherine Hessling, who becomes his last model and the future wife of his son, Jean. \u00a0Born in 1900, she would have been fifteen at the time of this film, although in the film she appears to be somewhat older, probably in her early 20s.\u00a0 \u00a0Renoir’s son, Claude, whom she encounters at the outset, in actuality was only a year younger, although in the film he appears to be at least ten years her junior.<\/p>\n

Theret is gorgeous and she spends a good part of her time in this film naked or nearly so, which is a huge plus.\u00a0 Her naked body helps a great deal to maintain interest in this somewhat slow moving domestic film.\u00a0 There isn’t a lot of action in this film.\u00a0 It is domestic drama, but it is interesting and has substance.\u00a0 The characters are intriguing and their circumstance dealing with the aging patriarch against the backdrop of the horrendous First World War give the film a strong engagement.<\/p>\n

The center of gravity of the film is not really Renoir, who mostly sits and paints throughout the film, and sometimes talks — and what he has to say is always interesting — but rather, the romance that develops between the older son, Jean, and Andree.\u00a0 \u00a0I’ll let you watch the film to see how that goes, but it is very well done and both characters are strong and captivating, particularly Andree.<\/p>\n

What I want to talk about are some of the comments Renoir made on painting and art.\u00a0 Renoir’s paintings, particularly in his later years, are warm, colorful, and his subject matter tends to be benign:\u00a0 domestic scenes, landscapes, portraits, and nude women.\u00a0 His colors are strong, but tend to be pastel, softening contrast and shapes.\u00a0 He didn’t use black very much.\u00a0 He felt that viewing a painting should be an enjoyable encounter, reflecting positive, uplifting themes.\u00a0 It wasn’t that he was unfamiliar with the darker side of life, but he did not wish to portray it.\u00a0 And this is the point.\u00a0 A painting, or a work of art more generally, reflects the inner reality, and especially the values, of the artist who created it.\u00a0 The choice of subject matter and the way it is portrayed say a lot about who the artist is as a person and what he finds most important and valuable in life.\u00a0 It takes considerable time, sustained attention, and skill to create a work of art.\u00a0 What you choose as a subject matter upon which to spend that time, attention, and skill is not arbitrary.\u00a0 An artist chooses to depict what he feels is interesting and important to share with others.\u00a0 When you view a work of art, you are immersing yourself in the mindset and world view of another person.\u00a0 You are allowing your attention to be guided by the interest and outlook of another person.\u00a0 He may be a good person or a bad person.\u00a0\u00a0 His outlook may be positive and constructive, or negative, hostile, and biased.\u00a0 But it is highly personal, individualized, and idiosyncratic.\u00a0 This is the reason why art and artists often run afoul of prevailing morays and attitudes of their societies.\u00a0 If they make political statements, they may get into trouble with the authorities.<\/p>\n

Art, at least in our western tradition of individual creators, is a forum that lifts up the inner world of particular persons for public view.\u00a0 In contrast to say, commercial art, which does not do this, or does it to a greatly circumscribed extent.\u00a0 The operating values in commercial art are to sell a product, promote a name, or create an image associated with a brand or company.\u00a0 The artist who is commissioned to do such work has limited, if any, choice over the subject matter or how it is to be portrayed.\u00a0 The artist becomes something of a technician, executing work with a predefined object.\u00a0 If he is skilled and imaginative, he may have some influence over the final depiction, but the work does not come from his own initiative, his inner need to share of himself.\u00a0 He is doing the work in the service of an agenda that has been brought to him by someone else.\u00a0 In the Middle Ages, when life and art was dominated by the church, religious themes were the norm in art.\u00a0 Individual artists found ways to express themselves within that context, but radical departures from this prevailing mindset were not tolerated and simply had no venue.\u00a0 The names of artists who created artworks in ancient times were not recorded.\u00a0 The individual was not important and the individual’s perspective was not to be emphasized in the public forum of art.\u00a0 Art’s role was to reflect the values of society as a whole, or at least the dominant class within it.<\/p>\n

Modern art that you see in museums and galleries today, celebrates highly individualized, idiosyncratic perspectives.\u00a0 If you contrast the paintings of women by Renoir, and say, Picasso, you see very different attitudes toward women and how they are portrayed.\u00a0 Renoir saw women as beautiful and sensual, somewhat idealized, perhaps, but women are exalted in his paintings.\u00a0 They are set in congenial circumstances in warm, vibrant colors.\u00a0 You see their faces with expressions reflecting the mood and personality of the woman.\u00a0 Picasso’s women, by contrast, are distorted, grotesque, their faces blank, cold, expressionless.\u00a0 There is nothing beautiful or inviting about them.\u00a0 Many of them are frankly hideous.\u00a0 Certainly there is no idealization.\u00a0 Neither is more “real” than the other.\u00a0 The point is that artists depict the world, not as it is, but as they need to see it<\/em>.\u00a0 These needs are largely unconscious and are shaped by early experiences going back to the beginnings of their lives.\u00a0 What you see in art is an interpretation, not “reality”.\u00a0 When you look at a work of art, you are seeing a selective view of the world the way the artist needs to see it and chooses to share it.\u00a0 So it is very personal.\u00a0 Art is a way of connecting with other people on the level of the inner self through selective symbolic communication.\u00a0 It is inherently limited, but on the other hand, it exposes one to aspects of another person not readily available, and can thus expand one’s awareness of the external world, the inner world of another, and awaken unexplored aspects of oneself.<\/p>\n

The film is not so preoccupied with this philosophical topic of the nature of art — which might be a relief to you.\u00a0 It emphasizes, rather, the romance between the young lovers, which is intriguing and spirited.\u00a0 It is well crafted and well acted.\u00a0 Not an action packed film.\u00a0 You have to wear your thinking cap for this one, if you have one. \u00a0It does offer a convincing picture of Renoir in his later years, and particularly the inspiration he derived from attractive young women.\u00a0 Renoir seems to have used his wealth to isolate himself from the world in an idyllic landscape surrounded by beautiful, attentive women.\u00a0 (I would do the same thing, if I had the money.)\u00a0 This was a cause for some tension between himself and his older son, Jean, who had been a soldier at the front.\u00a0 Wounded in battle, he felt the pull of responsibility to his comrades and the nation, choosing to reenlist and go back to the war, against the strong opposition of Andree and his father.\u00a0 Renoir senior sat out the war painting naked girls.\u00a0 His warm, sensual, inviting paintings didn’t seem to sit so well with Jean, who had seen action at the front, which gave him a very different perspective on life from what his father portrayed.\u00a0 Renoir painted until the very end of his life in 1919.\u00a0 He was still painting on the day he died.\u00a0 The film is an excellent introduction to his life and work.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Renoir Directed by Gilles Bourdos     This is an outstanding dramatization of the French painter Pierre-August Renoir (1841-1919) (Michel Bouquet) in his later years.\u00a0 (In French with subtitles.)\u00a0 It…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":124,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"yasr_overall_rating":0,"yasr_post_is_review":"","yasr_auto_insert_disabled":"","yasr_review_type":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[837],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-5740","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-joe-cillo"},"yasr_visitor_votes":{"stars_attributes":{"read_only":true,"span_bottom":"