Criterion Club: Jean Renoir's A Day in the Country with John Anzalone

Join all the usual suspects for a deep dive into Renoir's A Day in the Country (1937).

Please be advised, pre-screening of the film and reading of the 17 page short story that inspired the film is recommended. John will show selected stills/clips to illustrate his presentation but the film will not be shown in its entirety.

Renoir is often called an impressionist of the cinema, and indeed his debt to his father is expressed in painterly shots of great beauty throughout his films of the thirties. Pressed for time in 1937, he elected a format that would allow him to adapt a short story by Guy de Maupassant, one of his favorite naturalist authors. For this Criterion Club session, we will change things up by considering the question of film adaptations. We’ll watch the film, the story of a middle class family whose mother and daughter are first seduced by the beauty of nature on an outing to the country, where they are then open to seduction by two young men. Participants will also be invited to read the original short story (to be found here https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/3090/pg3090-images.html#id_2H_4_0184 under the title of A Country Excursion in volume 12 of Maupassant’s complete tales).
We’ll consider how Renoir has made the tale his own, and where it fits among the masterpieces he directed in the late thirties.
Free on-site and street parking available

The film is available for streaming on Criterion Collection and available for rental at Amazon. If you are lacking access feel free to DM me and we can have a little screening party at my place prior to the event.