<Archive Obituary> Claude Renoir (September 5th 1993)
Bill Schenley
FROM: The Guardian (September 8th 1993) ~
By Ronald Bergan
Claude Renoir, the great French cinematographer, who has died aged 78,
will be buried in the small graveyard in the village of Essoyes in the
Champagne country where lies his grandfather, the Impressionist
painter Auguste; his father, the actor Pierre, and his uncle, the film
director Jean.
It was Jean Renoir who gave the 17-year-old Claude his first chance to
work on a film as assistant cameraman on La Nuit De Carrefour (1932),
the first Maigret film, with his father as the famous inspector. After
serving his apprenticeship under Christian Matras and Boris Kauffman,
Claude made his debut as director of photography on Toni (1935), the
first important French talkie shot on location (near Marseilles),
again for his uncle.
For A Day In The Country (1936), Jean Renoir asked Claude to think
about the Auguste Renoir painting, La Balancoire, in order to recreate
the dappled lighting and the contrasts. Although the girl on the swing
is framed in a window as in a painting, the scene refuses to be arty,
and when she swings so does the camera, making audiences share her
exhilaration.
In contrast, the documentary-like sequences of the locomotive in La
Bete Humaine (1938) are the most remarkable and vivid sections of the
film, because Jean Renoir rejected any back-projection, mock-ups or
tricks. Claude, who was in charge of the camera against the side of
the engine, was almost decapitated when they entered a tunnel. They
had miscalculated a measurement and the camera was knocked off and
smashed, while Claude flattened himself against the train.
As Auguste Renoir's grandson, Claude feasted voraciously on colour
when he had the chance to use it. He approached The River (1951), his
first film in Technicolor, in a realistic manner, eschewing any
special filters or retouching, and avoiding landscapes with too
delicate a shade of colour. He remembered that the Impressionists
considered themselves realists, so when Auguste painted shadows blue,
it was because they are blue, although they appear to be black.
The Paris of the 1880s was captured by Claude in Elena Et Les Hommes
(1956) as a series of popular colour prints and paintings, Le Moulin
de la Galette becoming a "tableau vivant" in the truest sense. His
distinguished colour photography was also put at the service of other
directors. For Clouzot's The Picasso Mystery (1956), special
transparent "canvases" were prepared so that Claude could film the
paintings from behind, as the master executed them with furious
rapidity. Astruc's Une Vie (1958) was made exceptional by Claude's
richly textured, almost Impressionistic vision of the 19th-century
country milieu.
Other films which benefited from his wonderful eye in the 1960s and
1970s were the psychedelic Barbarella, French Connection II, The
Horsemen (the wilds of Afghanistan caught in magnificent
SuperPanavision), and The Spy Who Loved Me, following James Bond
(Roger Moore) around the Bahamas, Egypt and Sardinia.
In his last years, Claude Renoir became almost totally blind. But in
his mind's eye, he could still watch, like in Caska's Cinema Of The
Blind, the films he had photographed in the best Renoir tradition.
Claude Renoir, born December 4, 1914; died September 5, 1993