Saturday

The quote by Jean Renoir, above, seemed when I first heard it to confirm everything I ever thought. Now, however, I am beginning to doubt its consistency. When applied to some filmmakers it appears true. For example, you could say Woody Allen made one good film, Annie Hall, and has been remaking it again and again since then. We wait to see if someone like Wes Anderson can break free of The Royal Tennenbaums (I don't think he quite did with The Life Aquatic). It might seem like Kubrick broke new ground with every movie. He covered almost every major genre, but the stylistics were the same throughout. And whilst Spielberg's movies are very different throughout his career, there is a continuity of sentiment. What, then, does Renoir mean? He obviously means something beyond the simple and obvious, and this points to sentiment and stylistics. But I think there is always something else which escapes this. I think great filmmmakers, like Kubrick and Spielberg, never make the same film twice. I even think, perhaps, that Woody Allen too escapes. There is always some slippage, some fissure, which undermines the 'one film for life' principle Renoir espouses.