Nearing the end of my French viewing marathon,I realised that I have never seen a film from one of the most legendary French directors: Jean Renoir. Looking at Renoir DVDs on Amazon,I found out that Fritz Lang's Film Noir Human Desire (which I own,but have yet to see) was a remake of a Renoir (who has "Noir" in his name!) movie,which led to me getting set for my first Renoir viewing.
View on the film:
Starring in the first of his two Film Noirs to get remade in the US, (the other being the soon to be banned Le Jour se Leve,remade as The Long Night) Jean Gabin gives a towering,simmering with anger Film Noir loner performance as Jacques Lantier. Covered with coal from the train,Gabin coils Lantier tightly up and keeps an intense evil under the surface aura bubbling away,which Gabin gradually cracks to cover the coal in blood.
Looking like one of the cat people whose got the cream,the sexy Simone Simon give a seductive performance as Femme Fatale Séverine Roubaud. Catching the stray light in her black coat,Simon brilliantly digs her nails into the psychological trauma of Roubaud,whose delicious,double crossing Femme Fatale sting Simon gracefully carries with an air of impending doom.
Caught between Lantier and Séverine, (plus a Jacques Becker cameo) Fernand Ledoux gives a hard-nosed performance as Mr. Roubaud,whose restless use of force to get his way,Ledoux wonderfully turns into Roubaud seeing the Film Noir darkness in a watch.
Putting Émile Zola's 1890 novel on Film Noir tracks,the screenplay by co-star/co-writer (along with Denise Leblond) /director Jean Renoir places Séverine so tantalisingly close to Lantier that his Noir desires reveal themselves in the rawest form possible.
Hitting the acts of violence with a blunt force,the writers superbly opens up the brittle veins of the Roubaud's and Lantier,where every suspicion Lantier gains on the mystery of the murder,brings the viper charms of Lantier and Séverine burning across the screen.
Rubbing the charcoal pessimism on Lantier's face,director Renoir & cinematographer Curt Courant give their doom-laded train ride an extraordinary, reflective Film Noir atmosphere,by turning the camera to look at the mirrors of poisonous human desire seeping out of the seams.
Entwining Lantier and Séverine in an ultra-stylised Noir embrace,Renoir drives the title with a magnificent Film Noir atmosphere, threading the fractured romance between the Roubaud's and Lantier with merciless lines of shadows uncovering Lantier's human desire.
View on the film:
Starring in the first of his two Film Noirs to get remade in the US, (the other being the soon to be banned Le Jour se Leve,remade as The Long Night) Jean Gabin gives a towering,simmering with anger Film Noir loner performance as Jacques Lantier. Covered with coal from the train,Gabin coils Lantier tightly up and keeps an intense evil under the surface aura bubbling away,which Gabin gradually cracks to cover the coal in blood.
Looking like one of the cat people whose got the cream,the sexy Simone Simon give a seductive performance as Femme Fatale Séverine Roubaud. Catching the stray light in her black coat,Simon brilliantly digs her nails into the psychological trauma of Roubaud,whose delicious,double crossing Femme Fatale sting Simon gracefully carries with an air of impending doom.
Caught between Lantier and Séverine, (plus a Jacques Becker cameo) Fernand Ledoux gives a hard-nosed performance as Mr. Roubaud,whose restless use of force to get his way,Ledoux wonderfully turns into Roubaud seeing the Film Noir darkness in a watch.
Putting Émile Zola's 1890 novel on Film Noir tracks,the screenplay by co-star/co-writer (along with Denise Leblond) /director Jean Renoir places Séverine so tantalisingly close to Lantier that his Noir desires reveal themselves in the rawest form possible.
Hitting the acts of violence with a blunt force,the writers superbly opens up the brittle veins of the Roubaud's and Lantier,where every suspicion Lantier gains on the mystery of the murder,brings the viper charms of Lantier and Séverine burning across the screen.
Rubbing the charcoal pessimism on Lantier's face,director Renoir & cinematographer Curt Courant give their doom-laded train ride an extraordinary, reflective Film Noir atmosphere,by turning the camera to look at the mirrors of poisonous human desire seeping out of the seams.
Entwining Lantier and Séverine in an ultra-stylised Noir embrace,Renoir drives the title with a magnificent Film Noir atmosphere, threading the fractured romance between the Roubaud's and Lantier with merciless lines of shadows uncovering Lantier's human desire.