Alastair Phillips is Reader in Film Studies at the University of Warwick, UK. He is the author of Rififi (2009), and City of Darkness, City of Light: Émigré Filmmakers in Paris 1929-1939 (2004). He is co-author of 100 Film Noirs (2009) and co-editor, with Ginette Vincendeau, of Journeys of Desire: European Actors in Hollywood (2006) as well as, with Julian Stringer, of Japanese Cinema: Texts and Contexts (2007).

Ginette Vincendeau is Professor of Film Studies at King's College London, UK. Among her books are Jean Gabin: anatomie d'un mythe, with Claude Gauteur (1993, 2006), Pépé le Moko (1998), Stars and Stardom in French Cinema (2000), Jean-Pierre Melville: An American in Paris (2003), and La Haine (2005). She co-edited Journeys of Desire: European Actors in Hollywood (2006) and The New French Wave: Critical Landmarks (2009).

François Truffaut called him, simply, 'the best'. Jean Renoir is a towering figure in world cinema and fully justifies this monumental survey that includes contributions from leading international film scholars and comprehensively analyzes Renoir's life and career from numerous critical perspectives.
* New and original research by the world's leading English and French language Renoir scholars explores stylistic, cultural and ideological aspects of Renoir's films as well as key biographical periods
* Thematic structure admits a range of critical methodologies, from textual analysis to archival research, cultural studies, gender-based and philosophical approaches
* Features detailed analysis of Renoir's essential works
* Provides an international perspective on this key auteur's enduring significance in world film history

Notes on Contributors viii
Acknowledgments xv
Notes on the Text xvii
Introduction: Renoir In and Out of His Time 1
Alastair Phillips and Ginette Vincendeau
Part I Renoir in Close-Up 13
Section 1 Reassessing Renoir's Aesthetics 15
1 Shooting in Deep Time: The Mise en Scène of History in Renoir's Films of the 1930s 16
Martin O'Shaughnessy
2 The Exception and the Norm: Relocating Renoir's Sound and Music 35
Charles O'Brien
3 The Invention of French Talking Cinema: Language in Renoir's Early Sound Films 53
Michel Marie
4 Renoir and His Actors: The Freedom of Puppets 72
Christophe Damour
5 Design at Work: Renoir's Costume Dramas of the 1950s 88
Susan Hayward
Section 2 Critical Focus on Selected Films 107
6 Sur un air de Charleston, Nana, La Petite Marchande d'allumettes, Tire au flanc: Renoir and the Ethics of Play 108
Anne M. Kern
7 La Grande Illusion: Sound, Silence, and the Displacement of Emotion 121
Valerie Orpen
8 La Bête humaine: Double Murder at the Station at Le Havre 131
Olivier Curchod
9 La Règle du jeu: Lies, Truth, and Irresolution (A Critical Round Table) 144
Christopher Faulkner, Martin O'Shaughnessy, and V. F. Perkins
10 The River: Beneath the Surface with André Bazin 166
Prakash Younger
Part II Renoir: The Wider View 177
Section 1 Renoir's Filmmaking and the Arts 179
11 Seeing with His Own Eyes: Renoir and Photography 180
Alastair Phillips
12 Popular Songs in Renoir's Films of the 1930s 199
Kelley Conway
13 Renoir and the Popular Theater of His Time 219
Geneviève Sellier
14 Theatricality and Spectacle in La Règle du jeu, Le Carrosse d'or, and Éléna et les hommes 237
Thomas Elsaesser
15 French Cancan: A Song and Dance about Women 255
Ginette Vincendeau
16 Social Roles/Political Responsibilities: The Evolving Figure of the Artist in Renoir's Films, 1928-1939 270
Charles Musser
Section 2 Renoir's Place in the Critical Canon 291
17 Seeing through Renoir, Seen through Bazin 292
Dudley Andrew
18 Henri Agel's Cinema of Contemplation: Renoir and Philosophy 313
Sarah Cooper
19 Renoir and the French Communist Party: The Grand Disillusion 328
Laurent Marie
20 "Better than a Masterpiece": Revisiting the Reception of La Règle du jeu 347
Claude Gauteur
21 Renoir and the French New Wave 356
Richard Neupert
22 Renoir between the Public, the Professors, and the Polls 375
Ian Christie
Part III Renoir, a National and a Transnational Figure 395
Section 1 Renoir, the Chronicler of French Society 397
23 Renoir under the Popular Front: Aesthetics, Politics, and the Paradoxes of Engagement 398
Brett Bowles
24 The Performance of History in La Marseillaise 425
Tom Brown
25 Toni: A Regional Melodrama of Failed Masculinity 444
Keith Reader
26 La Règle du jeu: A Document of French Everyday Life 454
Christopher Faulkner
27 Renoir's Jews in Context 474
Maureen Turim
Section 2 Renoir, the Transnational Figure 493
28 Renoir's War 494
Julian Jackson
29 Interconnected Sites of Struggle: Resituating Renoir's Career in Hollywood 514
Elizabeth Vitanza
30 The Southerner: Touching Relationships 533
Edward Gallafent
31 The Woman on the Beach: Renoir's Dark Lady 544
Jean-Loup Bourget
32 Remaking Renoir in Hollywood 555
Lucy Mazdon
Filmography 572
Select Bibliography 585
Index 592