Jean Renoir Collection

For films stretching back several decades, there is an admirable amount of extra material contained across the seven discs. Equally, the prints are, for the most part, excellent, although the sound quality on La Bete Humaine has moments of dispassionate weakness.

The most substantial extras accompany La Grande Illusion, including a very thorough 24 minute introduction to the film by Professor Ginette Vincendeau - although this should be watched after the movie itself, since it contains spoilers. She outlines the main themes of the film, its chequered history and also sheds some light on the short films also found on this disc.

Also included is a quirky and interesting introduction by Jean Renoir himself, taking on some of his critics and speaking of a time when "the human spirit had not yet been poisoned by totalitarian regimes". Completing the package are the original trailer for the film and two interesting 30-minute shorts: Sur Un Air De Charleston (Charleston) (1926) and La Petite Marchande D’Allumette (The Little Matchgirl) (1928). Both very different in content, they nevertheless demonstrate Renoir's desire to experiment. The first is the story of a black explorer who comes from space and learns to dance with a white woman - I'm not making this up - and the second is a more traditional melodramatic retelling of Hans Christian Anderson's tale in the snow.

Regarding the additional documentary on Le Dejeuner Sur L'Herbe, Angus Wolfe Murray writes:

The mini doc featurette is an admirable DVD extra for a movie as old as this. It includes the voice of Jean Renoir and Catherine Rouvel, as well as interviews with some of those who worked on the film. The historian Roger Viry-Babel is given too much space to expound his intellectual theories on the meaning and philosophy behind Le Dejeuner Sur L’Herbe, but he does emphasise what the film meant to Renoir, especially since it was shot at his childhood home and many of its ideas are linked to his father Auguste.

After making Le Testament Du Docteur Cordelia (Experiment In Evil), his adaptation of the Jekyll & Hyde story, which proved a disaster with the critics and the public, he collected his old friends, who had worked with him on most of his early work and brought them to Les Collettes (“It was like being on holiday,” Jean Pierre Spiero says), where they enjoyed lengthy rehearsals (“He created an ambience of sensuality,” Viry-Babel says. “He directed actors in a very tactile way”), although shot all the interiors later in Paris.

Rouvel says, “He chose me because I looked like his nanny when he was a child.”

Renoir says, “She reminded me of Severine in La Bete Humaine.”

Nenette is more an innocent child of nature than the manipulative Severine and if Rouvel looks like Renoir’s nanny it is not surprising he had happy memories of growing up at Les Collette.

Also included are documentaries on La Corporal Epingle (29 minutes), a documentary on La Marseillaise (30 minutes) and La Corporal Epingle trailer.