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Jean Renoir

Jean Renoir

September 15, 1894 –February 12, 1979

Film director, Actor, Screenwriter, Film producer, Film editor, Author

Lived 84 years

Born in
18th arrondissement of Paris
Passed away in
Beverly Hills

Jean Renoir (French: [ʁənwaʁ]; 15 September 1894 – 12 February 1979) was a French filmmaker, actor, producer and author. His La Grande Illusion (1937) and The Rules of the Game (1939) are often cited by critics as among the greatest films ever made. In 2002, he was ranked fourth on the BFI's Sight & Sound poll of the greatest directors. Among numerous honours accrued during his lifetime, he received a Lifetime Achievement Academy Award in 1975. Renoir was the son of the painter Pierre-Auguste Renoir and the uncle of the cinematographer Claude Renoir. With Claude, he made The River (1951), the first color film shot in India. A lifelong lover of theater, Renoir turned to the stage for The Golden Coach (1952) and French Cancan (1955). He was one of the first filmmakers to be known as an auteur; the critic Penelope Gilliatt said a Renoir shot could be identified "in a thousand miles of film."

Pauline Kael wrote that "At his greatest, Jean Renoir expresses the beauty in our common humanity—the desires and hopes, the absurdities and follies, that we all, to one degree or another, share." Per The New York Times: "The style that ran through Mr. Renoir's films — a mixture of tenderness, irony and Gallic insouciance‐was caught in a famous line from his 1939 masterpiece, The Rules of the Game. It was spoken by Octave, played by the director himself: 'You see, in this world, there is one awful thing, and that is that everyone has his reasons.'"

Awards: Commander of the Legion of Honour, Louis Delluc Prize, Academy Honorary Award, Academy Awards, Prix Charles Blanc, star on Hollywood Walk of Fame

Source: Wikipedia — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean_Renoir