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Jean Renoir Meets Darryl Zanuck
From: Columbia University
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Columbia University Oral History Research Office |
EDITOR'S INTRODUCTION |
In 1940, French director Jean Renoir (1894-1979), the son of French Impressionist painter Pierre-Auguste Renoir, left war-torn Europe in 1940 to accept an offer to make films in Hollywood. In this interview, conducted in January 1960 by Columbia University's Oral History Research Office, Renoir talks about Darryl Zanuck and other legendary characters that he met in Hollywood. |
Jean Renoir describes coming to America and working with Darryl Zanuck.
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Question: Would you begin by telling me the circumstances under which you went to Hollywood? When did you go? |
Jean Renoir: I arrived in New York with my wife, who is here, and with Saint-Exupéry, the writer. I arrived the eve of New Year's, the last day of 1940. The next day was the first day of 1941. I can tell you that the contrast between the streets of New York--full of life, and the people blowing on small trumpets and wearing funny hats--and the cities of Europe was something unbelievable. |
Well, I went to Hollywood, where I had a contract with 20th Century Fox. The head of the producing department of the company was Darryl Zanuck. |
I was very happy with my first picture. Very nicely, Darryl Zanuck suggested I should make an important picture with an important star. I wasn't too much interested in that, and I picked out a story, a script, written by Dudley Nichols, and that's the way I became a very close friend of Dudley Nichols. |
The shooting of this picture was something very simple. After all, I suggested to Darryl Zanuck that I should go to Georgia to shoot the picture in Georgia. When I suggested shooting it there because the action took place in Georgia, they were very much surprised, because they were thinking: Why, when we have such beautiful studios and beautiful locations, with all the technical adjuncts, why go to Georgia? |
 Well, Zanuck was a wonderful man, and he understood what I had in mind. We went to Georgia, where I shot a big part of the picture. Of course, other parts of the picture were shot on the stages in Hollywood. That was my first American picture, Swamp Water. I liked it. I liked the story, and I believe I didn't choose too badly the actors, and I believe the company was happy, because we made money with the picture. As a matter of fact, it gave me also the opportunity to do something I always liked very much--to discover young talents. I made the picture with actors who were unknown at the time--what we used to call stub girls or stub boys--and I don't believe that Zanuck even knew their names. The girl was Anne Baxter, and the man was Dana Andrews, and after this picture they became very well known. That's to tell you that my first experience in a Hollywood studio was very pleasant. |
But at the end of this experience, I understood that my experience had been pleasant just because it was my first picture, and I had something in my favor, something which helped me very much doing this first picture. It is that I didn't talk English, only just a few words, enough to direct actors, but not enough to discuss with the bosses. During the discussions, when I was feeling that I was going to "lose party," I was switching to French, and as they simply didn't understand French, the discussion was in my favor. |
But at the end of the picture, I was starting to talk a little bit of English, and to lose this wonderful weapon, not understanding what people said and not being able to explain yourself. It's why I decided to abandon work in major studios. Very nicely Mr. Zanuck gave me my release. He understood that I wanted to work in a different way. After all, in Europe I was used to working very poorly (financially), not to make any money, or to make very little money when by chance I was making money, but to be absolutely free. I managed to do it very nominally; I had to follow a kind of policy. I know that I'm wrong, but that's the way I am, I'm too independent to exaggerate--that's why I decided to try to work in a different way. |
Q: Are you and Mr. Zanuck friends today? |
Renoir: Oh yes, very good friends. You know, I left the studio being absolutely happy, even delighted about my relationship with Zanuck. He is not only a very honest man, but I believe he is a great film man. He knows the work, really. He's not only a boss who sits down in an office; he's a man who knows perfectly what's going on in the cutting room and is himself a very good cutter. He's a remarkable man; I admire him, and I believe he likes me, because when we meet each other, we like to be together and to talk, but probably we wouldn't like to work together. That's a different question. |
Q: You never found him difficult? |
Renoir: Oh, no. Never. But the rules which are necessary in the conduct of a big studio are rules which are not too good for me. |
 Now, I don't want to tell you about all my experiences. The only thing I can tell you is that my Hollywood work was very much connected with my friendship for Dudley Nichols. It was after this first picture that we remained very close friends. We attempted several things together, and finally we wrote a story together. I had brought a story from Europe, a story about a teacher who is a coward, who finally becomes a hero, just by chance, during the Occupation. Dudley liked the story, and we wrote it together, wrote the screenplay together, and shot the picture with Charles Laughton as the star of the picture--and the picture was very successful. That was for RKO. That was an independent production, Dudley Nichols and Jean Renoir. And this way of producing pictures pleased me very much. That was This Land Is Mine. |
Now, my other experiences in Hollywood were also very pleasant. Maybe the best one was The Southerner. You know David Lowe very well--he produced the picture, in association with me. The picture has no story. We just shot the picture very pleasantly. I must say that it was wonderful to work with David Lowe, because David Lowe is a very courageous, competent man. I will always remember when the stars of the picture--the man and the women who were supposed to be the stars of the picture--went through my script, because I wrote the script entirely. When they saw my script, well, they were very disappointed, and they said, "We won't shoot it." And David said, "Well, so you won't shoot it, that's all." |
 So he took people who were not too well known at the time and who were wonderful actors--Zachary Scott, who used to play very different parts at Warner Bros., and Betty Field--I saw her yesterday, I had the pleasure to have dinner with her, and Betty Field was more a stage actress. She wasn't very well known in the movies. And we shot the picture, and it did very well. |
But still, in spite of this happy experience, something was wrong. Something was wrong, and you know, it didn't work so well between me and--I won't say Hollywood, but I would say the industry, the professional Hollywood, the American film industry. I believe the trouble with me is that I consider that a film is just a way of expression. I don't believe that you are born a film man. I believe that you are maybe born a storyteller, and that's what I'm trying to be. I don't say that I've succeeded always, but I tried to tell stories. Now, with those stories it happened that it was easy for me to tell them through the medium of movies. That doesn't mean that movies are the only thing in the world for me. I'm a storyteller before being a movie man. That's the trouble between me and the industry. The industry can never recognize me as one of them. I was always an outsider, and I'm still now an outsider. Though I'm 65, on my last picture in France I had the same difficulties as with my first picture. It is exactly the same thing. I'm terribly happy about that, because it keeps me fighting all the time. It keeps me young and vigorous. That's much better. |
Each picture I make--strangely enough--the first reaction of the industry, of the exhibitors or the salesman, is "I get some silly business of Renoir's." And it is a silly business, because I've discovered that I'm silly, and I know it, but I like to be silly. I believe that an artist should be also a fool. If the artist is not a fool, he's not an artist. |
Now, how do you expect to have a fool getting along with an industry where everybody is so serious--where everybody has a good bank account, listens to the radio at the same hour every day, goes to the tracks to gamble with horses, and to the club? You know, after all, they are more serious than bankers! When you see a film actor or a film director and a banker, the banker looks exactly like a silly boy compared to them. |
I must tell you something. Very often in France, or anywhere in the world, or even in America, mostly in New York, people tell me, "But, Jean, you know, you didn't get along very well with the people in Hollywood--but that's not surprising, that's Hollywood." |
I say, "No, that's not Hollywood. That's the film industry, and the film industry is the same in the whole world." |
Practically, it is not the big brass of the film industry which are against me. They are in my favor, all of them. They do what they can to help me. But they are caught in a system. You know, there is a word in the film industry, "commercial"--but commercial doesn't mean to make money. I make pictures which make money, but they are not commercial, because they don't correspond to a certain style--a certain style which is supposed to be the commercial style. Now, it happens that my pictures, even if they make money, are supposed to be noncommercial, just because they are a little surprising, that's all. People up to now didn't accept the idea that an author of film is an author. They believe that an author of film is a kind of contractor who must put together different types of patterns and build a building like the Waldorf-Astoria. They don't understand that you may like to build a small house, but to build the whole thing to design, to plans, and also to put every brick one above the other yourself. That's exactly what I'm trying to do. |
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