Patrick McElroy on the 70th anniversary of Jean Renoir's humanist post War II masterpiece THE RIVER (1951, USA)
In the following decade after World War II, filmmakers around the world were faced with the scars that were left by the war, so many of them made meditations to show the beauty that was in life along with the suffering. John Ford explored it with My Darling Clementine, and Wagon Master, Frank Capra made It’s a Wonderful Life, William Wyler did The Best Years of Our Lives, Akira Kurosawa did Ikiru and Seven Samurai, Vittorio De Sica did Miracle in Milan and Umberto D., and Kenji Mizoguchi did Ugetsu and Shansho the Bailiff.
Perhaps my favorite of any of them is Jean Renoir’s 1951 masterpiece The River, which was released 70 years ago this week. It’s one of the most common cliches to say that something is life-affirming, but in the case of this film it is. The film is based on Rumer Godden’s 1946 semi-autobiographical novel of the same name and takes place in post WWI colonial India. It centers on Harriet, a teenage girl from an upper middle class British family. The film is then an unfolding of life, as we see the clashes of cultures, first love, teenage angst, and meditations on life and death. Renoir was often considered the great humanist of film, and here he presents characters of upper and lower classes, and different races, all with great compassion and interest. Being the son of the great impressionist painter Pierre-Auguste Renoir, he spent most of his early career trying to hide the influence of his father, now he was at the point where he was embracing it. When looking at his father’s paintings, or his own films, it’s striking to see how they capture people in a naturalistic sense, composed from head to toe, showing the simple joys and interactions between people.
One of my favorite shots from the film is when we first see most of the family on a simple afternoon, underneath a gazebo, experiencing the joys of childhood that one forgets with maturity. The film has an amazing use of color (it was shot by Renoir’s nephew Claude Renoir, and in certain shots you can almost feel the shadows from underneath the tree branches). Martin Scorsese once stated that the two most beautiful color films were Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger’s The Red Shoes, and this film.
The title of the film refers not just to the Ganges river that they live near, it also refers to the flow of life, how sometimes it might seem harsh, but then there are also moments of joy.
French New Wave filmmaker Jacques Rivette ranked this among his top ten favorite movies of all time, and one can see how he took inspiration for the simplicity, and style for his body of work. In 2012 for the annual Sight & Sound Poll, Scorsese recorded a list of his top twelve favorite films, he once remarked that it was a film he returns to once or twice a year. Renoir’s films have a universalism to them, and a timelessness, because he loved exploring people, and the common fears and joys that they all share, in the age of technology that we live in. His films are refreshing, particularly this film, because it assures us that there will be better times ahead.
Patrick McElroy is a movie writer and movie lover based in Los Angeles. Check out his other writing at: https://www.facebook.com/patrick.mcelroy.3726 or his IG: @mcelroy.patrick