Short Take: French Cancan
Jul 1st, 2008 | By Rick | Category: Jean Renoir, Short Take
In 1939, The Rules of the Game was such a failure with the French public that they threw chairs at the screen and set newspapers alight in the theaters. It wasn’t much more popular with critics, and in 1940, director Jean Renoir fled Paris to make films abroad. He ended up in — where else? — Hollywood, where he made six mediocre films and one good one (The Southerner) before before seeing the tinsel-town handwriting on the wall. In 1949, he left Hollywood for India to make his first color film, the privately financed The River, and after shooting The Golden Coach (1952) in Italy, returned to Paris to shoot French Cancan.
The film is an highly fictionalized account of the creation of the Moulin Rouge, with the great Jean Gabin starring as Harold-Ziegler-surrogate Henri Danglard. Danglard meets laundry-worker Nini (Françoise Arnoul) whom he takes under his wing and eventually into his bed. The film follows Nini’s rise to stardom, paralleled by Danglard’s dogged attempts to get the nightclub off the ground. Gabin is simply wonderful as the impresario, and the beautiful Arnoul brings a charming naiveté to her roll as the ingenue.
Like Renoir’s other early Technicolor films, French Cancan is stunningly beautiful. Though shot entirely on sound stages, the production and set design are such that it feels and looks authentic. Here is where Renoir’s painterly eye, developed at the feet of his famous father Pierre-August, comes into play. His naturalistic, rowdy compositions, coupled with the hand-painted Paris street sets, produce scene after scene of Impressionist beauty.
When Renoir returned to European film-making with The River, and especially with subsequent trio of show-biz/commerce films [Coach, Cancan and Elena and her Men (1956)], some found them altogether too light-weight. This is especially considering his output of the 1930s, which included Boudu Saved from Drowning, The Grand Illusion, and La Bête Humaine. I must admit I feel a bit that way myself. However, French Cancan is a marvelous entertainment, both lighter on its feet and more sincere than Baz Luhrman’s frenetic retelling of the same story. Powered by the smooth, effortless performance by Gabin, it is a rewarding and enjoyable way to spend a couple of hours and leave all your troubles behind.
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Hey Rick-
When I saw The River I remember feeling off-kilter b/c it was in Technicolor and I wasn’t used to seeing a Renoir film that way. It had the humanity of Renoir, but it didn’t look like Renoir (especially after having to push through rough VHS only copies of Monsieur Lange and Le Bete Humaine - at the time). But then I loved it, of course. It’s great.
[NOTE: I don't think I've seen a film of his that ISN'T great. Granted, I've only seen a total of seven, and they are the ones that people always bring up - the only post-Rules of the Game film I've seen is The River - but still, 7 for 7 is pretty amazing.]
But I love the look of the still you posted, and the red white and blue (though French) might just encourage me to go rent this for Independence Day tomorrow.
Fox, I’ve seen only eight, but I haven’t seen Monsieur Lange.
I don’t like his post 1930s output as much as his films from that decade. For me, it’s not that I don’t think Technicolor is Renoir-like, but the lighter subject matter. I liked “The River” for its scenery and beauty, but was a bit put off by the colonialist overtones, or perhaps Renoir’s blithe acceptance of them. I expected more social commentary, perhaps, from the guy who made “Boudu” and “Rules.”