Le bled
With Alexandre Arquilliére, Enrique Rivero, Jackie Monnier.
France, 1929, DCP, black & white.
French intertitles with English subtitles.
DCP source: Gaumont Pathe Film Archives
Renoir’s last silent film was his second for the Société des Films Historiques (after The Tournament), meant this time to commemorate the centennial of the colonization of Algeria. The scenario is complacently colonialist: an innocent young Frenchman arrives in Algeria and must prove himself to his prosperous pied-noir uncle and to the woman he falls in love with. “Since the simplicity of the scenario gave him a good deal of latitude, Renoir took the opportunity to make an adventure film in the style of the American pictures he had enjoyed so much in his youth. Le bled, following the healthy tradition of Douglas Fairbanks…starts out as comedy, comes to a climax of high adventure, and turns toward the sentimental at the end.”—Jacques Rivette.
Live Musical Accompaniment by Bertrand Laurence
Part of film series
Screenings from this program
The Diary of a Chambermaid
This Land is Mine
The Woman on the Beach
Catherine, or A Life Without Joy
The Southerner
The Little Theatre of Jean Renoir
The Elusive Corporal
The Testament of Dr. Cordelier
Boudu Saved From Drowning
Elena and Her Men
Jean Renoir, the Boss, Part 2: Directing the Actor
