Jean Renoir’s La Chienne, his second sound film, probes into an unusual, ruthless love triangle.
La Chienne | |
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A precursor to his brilliant 1939 satire, The Rules of the Game, it displays all of the filmmaker’s visual genius and is imbued with his sense of humanity.
A hangdog Michel Simon (who had appeared in Renoir’s classic, Boudu Saved from Drowning) is a tragic figure, an unhappily married cashier and amateur painter who becomes so smitten with a prostitute that he refuses to see the obvious: that she and her pimp boyfriend are exploiting him.
Renoir’s famously elegant compositions and camera movements are suitable for this twisting and turning narrative, a stinging commentary on class and sexual politics, leading to an unforgettably ironic conclusion.
Special Edition Features
• New, restored 4K digital transfer, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack on the Blu-ray
• Introduction to the film by director Jean Renoir from 1967
• New interview with Renoir scholar Christopher Faulkner
• New restoration of On purge bébé (1931), Renoir’s first sound film, also starring Michel Simon and never before on Blu-ray or DVD in the U.S.
• Jean Renoir le patron: “Michel Simon” (1966), a ninety-minute French television program featuring a conversation between Renoir and Simon, moderated by filmmaker Jacques Rivette.
• New English subtitle translation
Running time: 96 Minutes
black-and-white
In French with English subtitles
1.19:1 aspect ratio
Credits:
Directed by Jean Renoir
Written by Jean Renoir, Based on La Chienne, 1930 novel and play by Georges de La Fouchardière and André Mouëzy-Éon
Produced by Pierre Braunberger, Roger Richebé
Charles David (production manager)
Cinematography Theodor Sparkuhl
Edited by Marguerite Renoir
Production: Les Etablissement Braunberger-Richebé
Distributed by Gaumont
Release date: November 19, 1931
Running time: 96 minutes