Jean Renoir | La Chienne / 1931, US 1976

by the neck

by Douglas Messerli

 

Jean Renoir (screenwriter, based on the novel by Georges de la Fouchardière, and director) La Chienne / 1931, US 1976

 

Poor dimwitted Maurice Legard (Michel Simon), who has worked many years as a bookkeeper in a hosiery company. Legrand is a slow thinker, who seldom gets a joke, is henpecked by his disagreeable wife, and is seen as an utter fool by his fellow employees. Instead of joining his male compatriots after dinner on a night on the town, Legrand obediently returns home—but still gets into trouble when he comes across a streetwalker, Lulu Pelletier (Janie Marèse) and her abusive pimp, Dédé Jauguin (Georges Flamant) who appears to be beating her as Legrand passes. Rushing to her defense, Legrand strikes Dédé, accompanies Lulu to her apartment, and falls madly in love.

     Returning home, he is again berated by his wife and ordered to “get rid” of his paintings, the only true joy he has left. What’s a man to do? Believing that Lulu is a nice girl, he puts her up in a small apartment, buys furniture on the installment, and covers her walls with his fanciful art.

     The worst of it is that Lulu still loves Dédé, and the two of them plot to get even more money out of Legrand, eventually selling Legrand’s paintings to a wealthy art dealer for vast sums.

     Renoir’s beautifully filmed melodrama plays out somewhat like a romantic opera, with Legrand mooning over Lulu, as the girl, refusing him even sex, tries to hold on to her despicable lover Dédé, who pockets most of the cash while offering as little affection as possible to the woman behind his increasing wealth.

  Fortunately, the director also adds in a great many comic moments—a scene in which Madame Legrand is seen reading the novel on which this movie is based; the sudden reappearance of her presumed-dead former husband, who photographic image dominates the Legrand apartment; and Legrand’s attempt to take advantage of the situation to get out of his loveless marriage, are just a few of the film’s humorous high points.

     Yet we know this work must end on a tragic note, particularly when Legrand eventually discovers—as the narrative requires—the treachery of Lulu and her lover. But even here Renoir is careful not to let the melodrama get out of hand, and shows us Lulu after her throat has been slit, with Legrand beside her, in shock over his act. A small group of street performers gather with a crowd outside her apartment, obscuring Legrand’s departure.

     Soon after, Dédé, loud and ostentatious as always, drives up in the new car he has bought with the sale of Legrand’s paintings, demanding that the crowd move out of the way, thus alerting them all of his presence. He rushes in to his Lulu without even speaking to the concierge, who intended to ask him to bring Lulu her mail. When she later discovers the body, soon after he leaves, she can only presume that Dédé is the murderer; and so the court declares, sending him to his death.

    Again, poor Legrand, destroyed by his guilt and with nowhere else to go, becomes a tramp, accidentally meeting up again with his wife’s former husband, who has also moved to the streets. By the end of this film, Simon is already dressed for his very next role, that of Boudu in Boudu Saved from Drowning.

     La Chienne was only Renoir’s second sound feature, but already he demonstrates the nuance and attention to detail that all of his great films reveal. Unlike other European directors, Renoir filmed the dialogue live, bringing with it all the ambient sounds of bells, whistles, nearby singing, and Parisian street life. In the very first scene where Legrand and his colleagues are dining out, we catch a glimpse out the window of the famed Moulin Rouge, telling us that we are in Montmartre. At another moment, while a young girl in a nearby apartment plays the piano, we watch Legrand shaving, as he takes a moment out to ogle the young player, hinting at the connection between desire and a stroke in the neck, reiterated in another early scene in which the actor has his long fingers draped over Lulu’s shoulders, as if he were about to choke his would-be lover.

    A brief puppet show, using the stock figures of good and evil, begins the film each of the three figures telling their own version of the tale we are about to see, a bit like Kurosawa’s later Rashomon, the Legrand puppet arguing that there is no moral to this tale. The film ends with another ironic image, the self-portrait which Legrand has painted being carted away by a wealthy collector as the artist reaches for a few coins tossed his way.

     To get realist performances out of his actors, Renoir reportedly encourage an offscreen romance between Marèse and Flamant, which infuriated Simon, who himself had fallen in love with the actress. After the film was completed, Flamant was involved in a car accident that killed his passenger, the Lulu of this film.

 

Los Angeles, January 6, 2017

Reprinted from World Cinema Review (January 2017).