BARRY NEVIN CRACKING GILLES DELEUZE’S CRYSTAL NARRATIVE SPACE-TIME IN THE FILMS OF JEAN RENOIR Cracking Gilles Deleuze’s Crystal Narrative Space-time in the Films of Jean Renoir Barry Nevin Edinburgh University Press is one of the leading university presses in the UK. We publish academic books and journals in our selected subject areas across the humanities and social sciences, combining cutting-edge scholarship with high editorial and production values to produce academic works of lasting importance. For more information visit our website: edinburghuniversitypress.com © Barry Nevin, 2018 Edinburgh University Press Ltd The Tun – Holyrood Road 12 (2f) Jackson’s Entry Edinburgh EH8 8PJ Typeset in Monotype Ehrhardt by Servis Filmsetting Ltd, Stockport, Cheshire, and printed and bound in Great Britain A CIP record for this book is available from the British Library ISBN 978 1 4744 2629 9 (hardback) ISBN 978 1 4744 2630 5 (webready PDF) ISBN 978 1 4744 2631 2 (epub) The right of Barry Nevin to be identified as author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 and the Copyright and Related Rights Regulations 2003 (SI No. 2498). Contents List of Figures vii Notes on Style ix Acknowledgements x Preface xiii Introduction 1 Jean Renoir: l’exception glorieuse 1 Theorising Renoir’s Narrative Style: Bazin, Faulkner, and Braudy 7 Deleuze’s Cinéma(s) and Renoir’s Image of the Future 9 The Future Beyond the point de fuite: Opening the image- temps to Space 16 Open Spaces/Open Futures: Filming Spatial Politics 20 Reading Deleuze on Renoir: Critical Opinions 22 Discursive Positioning: Renoir auteur 25 Chapter Breakdown 26 1 Theatrum Mundi: Framing Urban Dynamics in Renoir’s Paris 29 Introduction: Renoir, Cinema, and the City 29 La Chienne (1931) 34 Boudu sauvé des eaux (1932) 42 La Règle du jeu (1939) 49 Conclusion: Renoir’s ville-concept 61 2 From Desert to Dreamscape: Viewing Renoir’s Rural Landscapes as Spatial Arenas 64 Introduction: Opening the Natural Landscape to Space-time 64 Le Bled (1929) 68 The Southerner (1945) 77 The River (1951) 85 Conclusion: Dynamising the Natural Landscape 96 vi cracking gilles deleuze’s crystal 3 Portraying the Future(s) of the Front Populaire 99 Introduction: Theory and Texts in Context 99 From point de fuite to ligne de fuite: Framing the Future in Rhizomatic Space 105 Le Crime de Monsieur Lange (1936) 106 Les Bas-fonds (1936) 115 La Grande Illusion (1937) 124 Conclusion: ‘We are dancing on a volcano’ 137 4 Renoir’s crises anti-réalistes: Framing le temps gelé 141 Introduction: Seeing Time in the image plane 141 Diary of a Chambermaid (1946) 145 The Golden Coach (1952) 156 Eléna et les hommes (1956) 164 Conclusion: Society and Spectacle 176 Conclusion 179 Reconstituting the Cracked Crystal 183 Renoir auteur(?) 185 Final Remarks: Keys and Ideas 186 Appendix: Corpus Breakdown 188 Notes 190 References 218 Film Index 231 General Subject Index 233 Figures 1.1 Legrand encounters Dédé and Lulu 37 1.2 The public rush to the Seine as Lestingois comes to Boudu’s rescue 46 1.3 A view of the Palais de Chaillot and the Eiffel Tower from Geneviève’s apartment 50 1.4 Guests perform ‘Nous avons levé le pied’ whilst Robert looks on 59 2.1 The Duvernets’ view of Sidi Ferruch recalls Pierre-Auguste Renoir’s La Mosquée (1881) 69 2.2 Christian teaches Pierre about the history and future of Sidi Ferruch 73 2.3 Sam discusses his goals with Ruston 78 2.4 Sam secures his lease in Ruston’s office 79 2.5 Sam and Nona tame the land 80 2.6 Sam attempts to win Devers’s favour 82 2.7 Melanie, Harriet, and Valerie pursue Captain John 90 3.1 Meunier fils backs the cooperative 110 3.2 Photographing a forthcoming cover image for Arizona Jim 111 3.3 Nastia defends her fabricated past against an incredulous baron, Louka, and former telegraph employee 119 3.4 Natacha and Pépel consider their respectivefutures 120 3.5 Staging the natural surroundings beyond the prison in depth 126 3.6 Cartier entertains the prisoners of war at Hallbach 129 3.7 German sentries man a tower at Wintersborn 134 4.1 Mme Lanlaire creates a new outfit for Célestine 152 4.2 An audience gathers in front of the stage on the troupe’s opening night 157 4.3 Camilla and the viceroy discuss material wealth at his palace 158 4.4 Eléna watches Rollan as he talks to his coterie 168 viii cracking gilles deleuze’s crystal 4.5 Rollan’s advisers watch as he greets the general public 170 4.6 From the natural surroundings of Martin-Michaud’s hunting grounds . 171 4.7 . to the visible artifice of Rollan’s training grounds 172 Notes on Style By and large, I have cited French texts in their original French editions rather than opting for their translated editions. As aspects of this book may appeal to readers without a command of French, English transla- tions appear in the body of the text and the original French is included in endnotes. Certain key terms developed by Deleuze remain in the French language in order to retain nuance and aid syntax. I have chosen to retain the French-language titles of films made in France. Conversely, titles of Renoir’s American productions are given in their original English- language versions. British spelling norms have been respected, but cited texts respecting American norms remain unchanged. All typographical errors are my own. Preface This book does not aim to provide a comprehensive account of Jean Renoir’s entire body of work. It represents a conjuncture of two growing interests: first, an admiration for Renoir’s portrayal of class in a number of films, especially La Chienne (1931), Le Crime de Monsieur Lange (1936), and The Golden Coach (1952); second, a growing enthusiasm for Gilles Deleuze’s film philosophy, which provided me with a liberating founda- tion for a revised approach to the innovative narrative styles pioneered by the quintessential French auteur. Deleuze convinced me that previous studies of Renoir’s films, despite their careful attention to Renoir’s dis- tinctive narrative style at each stage of his career, had not done justice to the importance of temporality to Renoir’s portrayal of societal hierarchies. Remedying this oversight and building on current knowledge of Renoir’s technical achievements, political engagement, and close attention to class structures, this book examines the relationship between time and space in Renoir’s films, examining key aesthetic turning points, political influ- ences, and stylistic motifs over the course of Renoir’s career, among them Renoir’s public commitment to the Front populaire, his post-war costume dramas, and his mise en scène of the country and the city. In each case, this book argues for the importance of Deleuze’s film philosophy towards a deeper understanding of the core components of Renoir’s distinctive narrative style, whilst also assessing and amending the critical limits of Deleuze’s insights. The present study insists that it is impossible to adequately consider Renoir’s temporal representation of societal hierarchies by isolating them from spatiality, hence the space-time of the title. The term, defined by Russell West-Pavlov as ‘a hybrid dimension in which both space and time as relational variables together form a variable composite’, has con- tinued to be used in physics since Albert Einstein’s theories of relativity punctured the illusion of the independence of space and time.1 The value of recognising the integral relationship between space and xiv cracking gilles deleuze’s crystal in Renoir’s work is indirectly indicated by scholars of literature and film alike. Drawing on Einstein’s Theory of Relativity and concurring that time is inseparable from space, Mikhaïl M. Bakhtin develops the concept of the chronotope (literally ‘time-space’ in Greek) to emphasise the ‘intrinsic connectedness of temporal and spatial relationships’ in litera- ture.2 Bahktin remarks that: In the literary artistic chronotope, spatial and temporal indicators are fused into one carefully thought-out, concrete whole. Time, as it were, thickens, takes on flesh, becomes artistically visible; likewise, space becomes charged and responsive to the movements of time, plot and history.3 Although Bahktin is addressing the specific case of the novel, his theories are equally amenable to cinema studies. Jean Epstein, arguably the most insightful early theorist of time in cinema, argued that film, unlike human perception, is not hampered by a ‘physiological inability to master the notion of space-time and to escape this atemporal section of the world, which we call the present and of which we are almost exclusively con- scious’.4 For Epstein, ‘if [. .] the cinema inscribes a dimension of time in a dimension of space, it also demonstrates that there is nothing absolute or fixed about these relations’.5 Epstein further argues that the mutual implication of space and time operates as a register ‘of the variance of all relations in space and time, of the relativity of every measurement, of the instability of all markers [repères], of the fluidity of the universe’, evoking Bakhtin’s description of the chronotope as ‘the place where the knots of narrative are tied and untied’.6 This book aims to explore the meaning and implications of these claims, firstly by relating Deleuze’s film philosophy to a body of spatial theory (the texts of Henri Lefebvre, Michel de Certeau, Doreen Massey, Deleuze and Félix Guattari among others) and to the spatial and temporal preoc- cupations of film theorists, a number of whom are contemporaneous to the periods analysed, such as Epstein and Éric Rohmer; secondly, through interpretations of a variety of films directed by Renoir.