1960 |In 1960, during a series of interviews with Hélène Tournaire, Jean Renoir recalled the decade he spent in the United States. In the first part, he told of his arrival by boat in New York. This program was broadcast for the first time on France III Nationale on May 3, 1960.
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The welcome extended to Rules of the Game, released in July 1939, was so violent that Jean Renoir then considered “either to give up the cinema, or to leave France “.
A little over a year later, in the midst of an exodus, he indeed left France for the United States, where he lived for ten years and shot five films. In 1960 on French broadcasting, he confided to Hélène Tournaire some of the memories of this life on the other side of the Atlantic.
In the first part of a series of seven interviews, he evoked the circumstances of his departure, the welcome reserved for him by his friend, the filmmaker. Robert Flaherty, and his arrival in New York:
Arriving in New York is a very impressive thing, especially when you are on an emigrant boat. I thought of Charlot émigré and the big kicks in the back that greet him. The arrival in New York is very beautiful, it looks like a Claude Monet, the sky is a little pink, the skyscrapers get lost a little in this pink haze, it’s a bit like a dream. New York is like a boat, like an island.
A program broadcast for the first time on France III Nationale on May 3, 1960.
- By Hélène Tournaire
- Director: Gérard Herzog
- Interviews with Jean Renoir – The United States 1/7 (1st broadcast: 03/05/1960 France III Nationale)
- Web indexing: Sandrine England, Radio France sound documentation
- Archive Ina-Radio France