Jean Renoir

Boudu Saved from Drowning

Boudu Saved from Drowning

Michel Simon gives one of the most memorable performances in screen history as Boudu, a Parisian tramp who takes a suicidal plunge into the Seine and is rescued by a well-to-do bookseller, Edouard Lestingois (Charles Granval). The Lestingois family decides to take in the irrepressible bum, and he shows his gratitude by shaking the household to its foundations. With Boudu Saved from Drowning, legendary director Jean Renoir takes advantage of a host of Parisian locations and the anarchic charms of his lead actor to create an effervescent satire of the bourgeoisie.

Film Info

  • France
  • 1932
  • 84 minutes
  • Black & White
  • 1.33:1
  • French
  • Spine #305

Special Features

  • New, restored high-definition digital transfer
  • Introduction by Jean Renoir
  • Interview with filmmaker Jean-Pierre Gorin
  • Excerpt from a 1967 Cinéastes de notre temps program, featuring Renoir and Michel Simon
  • French television conversation between director Eric Rohmer and critic Jean Douchet
  • Interactive map of 1930s Paris, highlighting the film’s locations
  • New and improved English subtitle translation
  • Plus: a new essay by Renoir scholar Christopher Faulkner

    Cover based on a theatrical poster

Purchase Options

Special Features

  • New, restored high-definition digital transfer
  • Introduction by Jean Renoir
  • Interview with filmmaker Jean-Pierre Gorin
  • Excerpt from a 1967 Cinéastes de notre temps program, featuring Renoir and Michel Simon
  • French television conversation between director Eric Rohmer and critic Jean Douchet
  • Interactive map of 1930s Paris, highlighting the film’s locations
  • New and improved English subtitle translation
  • Plus: a new essay by Renoir scholar Christopher Faulkner

    Cover based on a theatrical poster
Boudu Saved from Drowning
Cast
Michel Simon
Boudu
Charles Granval
Lestingois
Marcelle Hainia
Madame Lestingois
Séverine Lerczinska
Anne Marie
Jean Gehret
Vigour
Max Dalban
Godin
Jean Dasté
The student
Jacques Becker
The poet
Credits
Director
Jean Renoir
Screenplay
Albert Valentin
Screenplay
Jean Renoir
After the play by
René Fauchois
Producer
Michel Simon
Producer
Jean Gehret
Producer
Marc Le Pelletier
Assistant director
Jacques Becker
Assistant director
Georges Darnoux
Cinematography
Marcel Lucien
Cinematography
Georges Asselin
Editing
Marguerite Renoir
Editing
Suzanne de Troye
Sound
Igor Kalinowski
Sets
Jean Castanier
Sets
Hugues Laurent

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Jean Renoir

Director

Jean Renoir
Jean Renoir

The son of the great impressionist painter Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Jean Renoir was also a master of his medium: cinema. After making his mark in the early thirties with two very different films, the anarchic send-up of the bourgeoisie Boudu Saved from Drowning and the popular-front Gorky adaptation The Lower Depths, Renoir closed out the decade with two critical humanistic studies of French society that routinely turn up on lists of the greatest films ever made: Grand Illusion and The Rules of the Game (the former was celebrated in its time, but the latter was trashed by critics and audiences—until history provided vindication). After a brief, unfulfilling Hollywood stint during World War II, Renoir traveled to India to make his first Technicolor film, The River, and then returned to Europe in the early fifties to direct three visually dazzling explorations of theater, The Golden Coach, French Cancan, and Elena and Her Men. Renoir persisted in his cinematic pursuits until the late sixties, when, after the completion of The Little Theater of Jean Renoir, a collection of three short films, he decided to dedicate himself solely to writing, leaving the future of the medium to those who looked to him in reverence.