Poster of Renoir's French film 'The River' (1951).

EXCLUSIVE!!

RELEVANCE OF RENOIR'S FILM 

'THE RIVER'!

 

- Manoj Kulkarni

While watching news of our PM & French President visit to our holy river Ganga at Varanasi on TV..I remembered classic French film 'Le Fleuve' (The River/1951) which renowned French filmmaker Jean Renoir made in India at that pace!

Filmmaker Jean Renoir & writer Rumer Godden!

A coming of age philosophical kind this French film was a faithful dramatization of novel 'The River' wrote by Rumer Godden! With her Renoir wrote screenplay of this film and co-produced with Kenneth McEldowney!

French & Indian boys in scene of Renoir's film 'The River' (1951).

Renoir directed this film sensibly with the nice cinematography of his nephew Claude Renoir! This Technicolour film edited by George Gale. For this film Renoir used nonprofessional actors!


With foreign artists..Esmond Knight, Nora Swinburne & Arthur Shields..from here Suprova Mukerjee & Radha Burnier acted in 'The River'! This film was also in English & Bengali!

Jean Renoir shooting film 'The River' (1951) 

here with French & Indian cameramen!

Our pioneering cinematographer Ramananda Sengupta also worked for this film and music given by M. A. Partha Sarathy! Notable that our great filmmaker Satyajit Ray that time assisted Renoir in the direction of this film!

This film got international recognition with awards in film festival like Venice!..And 'National Board of Review' (US) ranked this among Top Five Foreign Films of that year!

Tribute to 'The River'!!
Regards to Visit!!!

- Manoj Kulkarni
['Chitrasrushti', Pune, India]