The son of Impressionist painter Pierre Auguste Renoir, Jean Renoir (18941979) became one of Frances most loved and respected filmmakers during the middle of the twentieth century Throughout his career, which began during the silent era and continued until 1970, Renoirs style embraced a multitude of genres indeed, its permutations make it almost impossible to characterize One thing is certain: at his bestin Grand Illusion (1937) and The Rules of the Game (1939)he gave us cinematic masterpieces of the highest order that explored class, war, nationality, friendship, and social structure With these two works, Renoir represents the flowering of the period of poetic realism in film (roughly 19341940), when French films were generally regarded as the most important and sophisticated in the world Renoir, as a pioneer of uncut compositions and long takes, had enormous influence on directors all over the world, including Orson Welles, Fran231ois Truffaut, Satyajit Ray, and Roberto Rossellini Like his cinematic oeuvre, Jean Renoir: Interviews spans several decades The interviewssome in English for the first timedisclose a candid, cultivated, and unselfish man, genuinely but also slyly selfcritical, and always a warm conversationalist In a movie career that lasted fortysix years, he never ceased to experiment and explore These conversations show his ideas evolving and ripening along with the movies he was making Throughout, Renoir is revealed to be subtle, graceful, prophetic, witty, complex, stylish, lucid, and passionate Bert Cardullo, Milford, Connecticut, is NEH Distinguished Chair in the Humanities at Colgate University and visiting professor of drama at New York University He is the author of In Search of Cinema: Selected Writings on International Film Art, Vittorio De Sica: Director, Actor, Screenwriter, and other books