On Renoir and the unwitting personalization of class politics.

1. H&I saw "La Marseillaise" last week, previously having been exposed only to (multiple viewings of both) the most famous ones, "Grand Illusion" and "Rules of the Game." Surprises: overtly -- even propagandistically -- patriotic, pro-revolutionary tone, and hokiness thereof; amount of time devoted to "ordinary people"; no blood until the end and then suddenly a fair bit; is that really what Swiss French sounds like?; Louis XVI the individual portrayed by far the most sympathetically. Not surprises: non-trivial amounts of time devoted to depiction and discussion of hunting and poaching; women come in three flavors: simple country girl (even in the city), devoted wholly to country or son, haughty soulless aristocrat (Marie Antoinette is not so different from the lady at the center of "Rules"); men fall hopelessly and causelessly in love instantly and/or dominatingly anyway; the only revolutionary who approaches having a character is depicted and repeatedly described as "a gentleman." Renoir doesn't much like aristocrats, but he can't see his way to attributing an inner life to anyone else. The scene of the maudlin aristos exiled in Prussia dreaming of restoration has more human-scaled emotion, more everyday detail, and quite possibly despite the cartoonish cliche of the pining post-revolutionary aristocrat more naturalistic dialogue than the whole rest of the film.

2. I sort of don't like "Rules of the Game" as much as everyone else (including h) does, but isn't Renoir wandering around in a bear suit desperately seeking someone to unzip it and let him out the most poignantly self-abasing director performance in film, basically? Andrew Bujalski, eat your heart out. (N.B. I'm not counting big directors acting in others' films, à la Lang in "Contempt" or von Stroheim in "Sunset Boulevard," just directors acting in their own films. Hitchcock as the before-and-after in a weight loss advertisement in a drifting newspaper during one of his thin periods in the '40s -- which is that from, "Foreign Correspondent?" or conceivably "Rope?" -- is rather good, too.)

3. Watched "Le Cercle Rouge" for the first time in, oh, more than eight years the other week, and was quite blown away at how much more I got out of it this time now that I was able to focus on things other than Alain Delon's hideous moustache. I'd like to say something about Melville too one of these days. Maybe even a tiny bit about his commonalities with Ozu! (Okay, mostly that they both practice the sort of monastic self-restraint that eventually displays themselves all the more vividly -- not that I consider them frauds for it as I do Saint Francis, since they never claimed to be effacing themselves for the greater glory of God! -- but also the surprising and touching love both have for America. Oh, I listened to an old radio interview with Melville on the Criterion DVD of "Bob" one time, and the man was a one-man imdb of Hollywood under the studio system -- plus anyone who lists great American directors of the '20s and '30s -- maybe he was talking '40s, too, can't remember -- and starts with Lubitsch, makes space for Clarence Brown and Sam Wood, but forgets about Capra -- is a lost soulmate to me.)