Untitled - Monoskop

Jean Renoir
of mortal man. Before our eyes, the metamorphosis of the gods ceases to be a
classroom tag and becomes a spectacle of profoundly moving comedy.
Through the most splendid of paradoxes, in fact, in Elena the immortals
seek to die. To be sure of Hving, one must be sure of loving; and to be sure of
loving, one must be sure of dying. This is what Elena discovers in the arms
of her men; and this is the strange, harsh moral of this modem fable in the
guise of a comic opera.
Thirty years of improvisation have made Renoir the world's finest technician.
He achieves in one shot what others do in ten; and where they make
do with one, Renoir can do without. Never has a film been so free as Elena.
But deep down inside of things, freedom is necessity. And never, too, has a
film been so logical.
Elena is Renoir's most Mozartian film. Not so much on the surface, like
La Regie du Jeu, but in its philosophy. The Renoir who had just finished
French-Cancan and was preparing Elena is, spiritually, a little the same man
as the one who had just finished the Concerto for Clarinet and was beginning
The Magic Flute. In content there is the same irony, the same disgust; �
form, the same daring and masterly simplicity. To the question 'What is,
cinema ?', Elena answers - 'More than cinema.'
26: Bitter Victory
There was theatre (Griffith), poetry (Murnau), painting (Rosselliqi), d�nC